YMMV / Persona 5 T To Z

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T

• Tainted by the Preview: For most of the game's marketing phase, Kasumi wasn't that well-received of a character for various reasons. One is that her design and personality felt like a cheap knock-off of Joker and the Female Protagonist from Persona 3 Portable respectively. Another is that she's outright portrayed as too perfect in the game's trailers, far beyond the game's worldview of a Crapsack World. Furthermore, an added scene during the game's tutorial (escaping the casino palace) features her hogging most of Joker's spotlight during that scene which was supposed to be the focus. Upon Royal's release, however, Kasumi, or in reality, Sumire quickly gained popularity because of her unique tragic past (as compared to other Phantom Thieves) and her Adorkable antics, making her a much more pleasant character to interact with than Marie for many. Furthermore, the aforementioned Casino scene didn't actually hog Joker's involvement a lot with context considered. The biggest complaint against her is that she joins the Phantom Thieves very late in the game, in spite of how much emphasis the game's marketing had on her character, which is ironic considering the initial fears that she would be a Spotlight-Stealing Squad like Marie was.
• Take That, Scrappy!: While more of a Base-Breaking Character than a full-on scrappy, Mishima gets a lot of these moments. With the exceptions of Kasumi and Akechi (who both never get any significant interaction with him), as well as Makoto and Haru (both of whom he had very little interactions with), the Phantom Thieves treat Mishima as The Friend Nobody Likes, and his Confidant is one of the few that will always rank up regardless of how you treat him, and the game gives you several dialogue choices to express irritation towards him. Mishima even gets brought in during Rank 5 of Futaba's Confidant, and she mocks him via Accidental Misnaming and Brutal Honesty.
  Futaba: Ah, I've got it! This overwhelming forgettable appearance, generic speech style, and total lack of sex appeal... Nishima... Are you an NPC!?
• That One Achievement:
  • "Passionate Listener," the trophy for hearing 250 of Futaba's navigation lines. Whilst it's significantly easier to obtain than the Persona 4 Golden equivalent of "Hardcore Risette Fan" as this time around any voiced line from Futaba that appears in the upper-right corner (including Mementos driving conversations, scanning a floor, etc) does count toward the trophy whereas P4G only counted lines within combat and Futaba has more unique encounter lines than Rise, it's still a pain to achieve due to the huge variety of quotes needed, the lack of any sort of list or progress meter to aid the process, and the highly contextual requirements for some quotes. It doesn't help that Akechi is a Guest-Star Party Member, so if you don't take him to Mementos before the end of the Palace in which he's playable, you'll never hear his lines.
  • The trophy for buying every kind of drink from vending machines can be a bit tricky to keep track of, mainly because you will often have drinks that you didn't buy from a vending machine and they do not account towards the trophy. There's also various vending machines throughout the city that carry different drinks.
  • Another trophy that's somewhat difficult to obtain is "Competent Negotiator" which unlocks after freeing a hostage through negotiation. Since it requires one of your party members to be knocked down (either via critical hit or weakness exploitation) without being killed, it can be difficult to trigger the necessary conditions for a hostage negotiation. This achievement usually comes from getting lucky in the first dungeon, as after that, weakness hits will either KO your party members outright or do too little damage to prompt a hostage situation. It's not uncommon for players to play the entire game without realizing the hostage mechanic even exists.
  • The play-all-the-retro-games achievement can be this for players who don't also play fighting games. One of the games, Power Intuition, requires the player to execute a few combos requiring quarter- and half-circles on the D-pad. If you're a fighting game fan, it's pretty basic. If you're terrible at fighting games though, it can be a struggle. Train of Life is also very annoying, as even with the in-universe Cheat Code, it's still entirely luck-based, which forces a lot of Save Scumming. The Featherman game, added in Royal, requires you to memorize increasingly complex button combinations.
  • While Royal keeps most of its PlayStation trophies rather easy — the only ones that are really difficult are beating the game, beating the Reaper, and the platinum trophy — it adds its own system of in-game awards for the Thieves Den, some of which can take a mind-numbingly long time.
    • "All Powerful," awarded for raising all the stats of any Persona to 99. Most of your Personas will only have stats in the 70s at max level, so getting a Persona to 99 across the board requires a fair bit of grinding from Alarm Fusions bonuses, though this can be eased somewhat by creating a Persona during an Alarm and then sacrificing it to the Gallows, which doubles the stat gains. It's not hard to do, but it's tedious and takes awhile, and even only using the lowest-level Personas can take a fair amount of money as well.
    • "Ladies Man" requires you to get into a relationship with all ten romanceable Confidants, which will take quite a lot of time if you don't choose to go the "harem" route. Thankfully, you don't have to do ten whole playthroughs of the game, just reach the romantic Rank 10 with each Confidant and reset to a save file before their Rank 9, but it still takes quite a few in-game days to do so.
• That One Attack:
  • The Hama and Mudo spells return and still have a chance of causing an instant kill. All it takes is a single enemy getting lucky for it to instantly kill a party member, or worse, Joker, and force a restart.
  • Status ailment skills in general have been given a significant buff to their success rate compared to earlier games, and while this is a good thing for you (see Game-Breaker), it's a pain in the ass when enemies use them. The two worst by far are Brain Jack and Abysmal Surge. The former inflicts Brainwash, which is essentially the Charm status from Persona 3 but somehow even worse as not only can Brainwashed characters heal enemies (including full heal spells), they can now also cast buffs on them. Additionally, it opens them up to Technical damage from Psi skills (Which many bosses capitalize on). The latter inflicts Despair, which causes affected characters to be unable to move for 3 turns, losing SP each time, and then outright die. Items to cure it are rare, and Makoto's Energy Shower won't help if she also gets hit with Despair. Abysmal Surge hitting the whole party is essentially an automatic Game Over.
  • In Royal, there's a very subtle but no less nasty case during the improved Okumura boss fight. In the waves with the Division Manager or General Manager robots, Okumura will cast a seemingly innocuous Rakukaja on one robot. However, not only is Okumura's boss fight on a thirty minute timer, the robots will flee and he will respawn all of them if they aren't wiped out in two turns. It's usually impossible to kill any robot with a defense buff within that window, allowing at least one robot to flee and force the player to start over, locking them into a loop until they time out. Sure, it's ridiculously easy to counter that with debuffs and buff removal, but most players don't think about using those at all, especially on a stray Rakukaja. Word of God even admits that this is a deliberate move to make sure the player uses the Baton Pass mechanic.
    Kigawa: After we did that, we can't skimp on the difficulty by doing the same thing in Okumura palace so we had to put a spicy boss in there... just in time for when you've progressed with your confidants, upgraded your weapons, and fused better personas. Thus, he was put together as someone formidable, but at the very end, in his last-ditch effort to seem tough, casting a "Rakukaja".
    Wada: That was pretty spicy though (laugh).
    Kigawa: Things get hot if you add even one drop of spice. But in all seriousness, this is where you need to do your best. We want to give players the idea that if you don't focus, you might get bested in this fight.
  • When Shadow Sae gets low on health, she will unleash a devastating attack called Berserker Dance. It's capable of dealing immense amounts of damage, meaning it can completely crush you if you have already taken minor damage, or even if you're at full health if you aren't at a high enough level. And while Futaba does warn that the enemy's power is increasing, warning you to guard, it's entirely possible for players to assume she is merely warning you about the Desperation status buff she had applied to herself on the last turn.
    • To add to the fun, the casting of Desperation before Berserker Dance is removed entirely in Royal. This means that while Sae won't buff herself, she also gives you no direct warning that she's going to use Berserker Dance; meaning you have to ultimately guard with Joker whenever you think (or can infer from a previous death, and you will have a previous death) that she's going to cast it, wasting turns on needless actions. The timing for this is roughly guessable but you'll still wind up wasting a turn and then hoping you can revive your dead party members before Sae delivers the coup de grace. Fail at guarding properly and you'll be starting all over again from the beginning.
  • Shadow Shido's final phase has Tyrant's Glare, which gives him 3 actions in a row. He uses it to launch a barrage of attacks ending with Tyrant's Wave, which hits the whole party for Almighty damage. In Vanilla, he uses it without warning when he reaches certain health thresholds. His approach is that he would use Tyrant's Glare: Buff self with Sukukaja or Tarukaja (boosting accuracy or attack) > Debuff your team with Masukunda (reduces evasion and accuracy) > Tyrant's Wave, and forces you to continue the fight with this new buff status disadvantage. In Royal, he will telegraph it with a line of dialogue, but first will use Charge and Heat Riser (buffs all stats) the turn before. On his next turn he will use Tyrant's Glare, and then perform 3 attacks in a row: Tyrant's Fist (the physical attack that gets powered up by Charge) > Tyrant's Purge (A One-Hit Kill move that is likely to activate your party member's Endure ability or just kill them outright) > Tyrant's Wave, which is almost guaranteed to be fatal to one or more party members, even if they have a built-in way to survive fatal damage. The only saving grace about the Royal version is that Shido does not take his turns next round so the player has time to recover from the barrage.
  • The Final Boss has "Rays of Control", the boss's Last Ditch Move. The first time he uses it, he revives all of his Cognizant Limbs, then he spends two turns charging up before hitting your party with an amount of damage dependent on how many arms are left. Given that this is an attack that the boss charges up, many player's first instinct is to do nothing but block. However, doing so means that all the arms are still alive, which means that most likely, the attack will be powerful enough to KO the entire party even with guard, meaning you have to start the whole fight over again. Also, even if you survive, you'll still have to deal with the revived arms. And despite what a player would assume, he does not need any of the arms to cast it and destroying the arms only makes it easier to survive guarded.
  • In Royal, if the player goes in blind, the True Final Boss has a very dangerous attack in the second phase. "Eternal Radiance" is a Bless spell that has a high chance of inflicting Dizzy, and Azathoth may sometimes use it twice in a row in the same round. Dizzy prevents the party from breaking through Azathoth's tendrils and defenses because it reduces accuracy and it leaves the party vulnerable to technical damage^note If Azathoth uses Eternal Radiance twice in a row, there is a real chance that first time it deals damage and applies dizzy and the second time, it deals technical damage from applying dizzy the first time, which can flat out kill a lot of party members. If the player is aware of Eternal Radiance, it is fully possible to itemize and fuse Personas for it, and to bring party members that can handle the Bless element like Sumire. Furthermore, unlike the previous examples, Azathoth will spam it nearly every single turn it could, instead of using it as a telegraphed Desperation Attack.
• That One Boss: Unsurprisingly, 5 has some rather brutal bosses:
  • Madarame is generally agreed to be one of the harder Palace bosses in the original Persona 5. He's fought as four separate portraits, all of which get their own turns, can revive each other if they're not defeated at the same time, and each absorb different elements that make multi-hit attacks less effective. He also employs many spells to hit party weaknesses, buff his Attack and lower your Defense, and has a unique debuff that paints one character, making them weak to everything. As you need to go through this phase of the fight several times, the only saving graces are that they get less health with each subsequent revival and the third phase lets you turn his weakness paint against him. He is a bit easier in Royal due to the painting phase ending after they are defeated once (instead of needing to be fought several times), and his new phase against the Ersatz copies being more straightforward.
  • Samael is easily one of the hardest bosses in the game, if you're not careful. He has FIVE different phases, the first four of which serve to soften you up for his brutal final phase. To wit: he gets an extra turn for throwing party-wide damage from every element in the game at you, fishing for weaknesses in addition to doing everything the fourth phase does (a physical Fear-inducing attack and several (de)buffs); if he gets a knockdown, he'll follow it up with either a One-Hit Kill attack, another Fear inducer, or Heat Riser to buff all his stats, all of which are really bad because he already hits like a truck on steroids. Your saving grace in the fight is that his rotation for the party-wide skills is predetermined, so having mass party-swap (max Star Confidant) or magic walls at the right times can lessen the sting, but if you lack both, Samael will score several knockdowns and you'll be in for a world of pain. He gains a few new attacks in Royal that boost his offensive capabilities, and forces Joker into a one-on-one battle in the last quarter of his final form.
  • In Royal, Shadow Okumura is much harder than he was in the vanilla game. Okumura summons a wave of four robots, each of which must be defeated within two turns to proceed to the next wave. Failing to do so results in Okumura re-deploying the same wave. The wave of four MDL-GM (Green) robots is generally the choke point, consisting of the strongest variety of robots encountered in the Palace, which have enough health to shrug off several attacks and a specific set of weaknesses that makes Baton Pass chains limited to certain party compositions. On top of this, the Okumura boss fight needs to be cleared in under thirty minutes, and the timer doesn't stop when dialogue is on screen. All-Out Attacks can't be performed on the robot waves even if they are all knocked down, and Okumura will often buff one robot's defense, hit the party with attack and defense debuffs, and order the robots to focus their attacks on one party member. If that party member is Joker, you'd better hope the robots don't take him out, or else it's game over. Even after getting past the MDL-GM wave, the player will likely be pressed for time with the two remaining phases, Execurobo and one final new enemy. With all these factors in play, there's very little room for error.
  • For Mementos bosses, Shadow Fukurai. He's the boss required for the Fortune Confidant, and is a LOT harder than any other C Rank target. He has huge Endurance despite having 1500 HP, even with his Ice and Bless weakness, he takes a while to bring down. Worse, he has the ever-annoying Brain Jack, which inflicts Brainwash on the party, causing them to attack each other or heal and buff him. Even worse, he can follow it up with Mapsio, hitting Brainwashed characters for Technical damage. The worst part about this is that Makoto, the one party member at that point who can cure Brainwash, is weak to Psi. And he will always follow up a One More with Marakunda, ensuring your party won't survive another Mapsio. If you're unlucky, he can open the fight with Brain Jack before you even get a turn, and if it hits the whole party, you're at a major disadvantage right from the start. He also has Eigaon, the endgame-tier Curse skill, and it says a lot that that is the move you do want to see, simply because it only targets one character. And the very tip of the iceberg? He's at Level 47 with a whopping total of 65 Magic. So unless you have Null Brainwash, Null Psy, Null Curse, Null Physical, or all of the above, you know there's a problem.
  • Royal introduces another strong Mementos target after beating Shido's Palace in the form of Shadow Hikaru Arihara. He's a womanizer, but there's no real prior indication that bringing any female party members to the battle means that they'll be brainwashed upon the start of battle (which even bypasses Null Brainwash) and Futaba won't be able to help you at all. He's resistant to all of the elements that the female members except Kasumi who isn't in your party at the time the request is issued specialize in (if you happen to heal their brainwashed status), and if one of those female members happen to play a healing support role, they'll most likely fully heal him. Better hope you brought an all male party or have the Star Confidant ready, or you're in for a painful surprise.
  • In Royal, there is an Arahabaki defending the blue Will Seed in the second Palace, and that thing is just as bad as Shadow Fukurai from sharing a similar tactic. Not only is this Arahabaki incredibly durable for that stage of the game — it blocks Physical and resists Gun, forcing you to use SP — it's got Brain Jack AND Mapsio for technical damage. The party most likely won't have the ability to cure Brainwash easily by the time it's encountered, and the status itself means that party members may do things like attack their allies, waste your items, or heal the enemy. While this Arahabaki is weak to Wind and Nuke skills, Joker (if equipped with a Persona that has Wind/Nuke skills) and Morgana are the only Phantom Thieves to have them, and an All-Out Attack probably won't be enough to defeat it alone. This all adds up to a very tough fight in the second Palace's home stretch.
  • Exclusive only to Royal, Maruki and his initial Persona Azathoth are a serious pain in the ass to deal with and can be just as bad as Okumura from the same game (see above) if you're not careful. Azathoth can reduce the damage he took to Scratch Damage with Shield Tendril as long as his tentacles remained intact (each tentacle gives Maruki and Azathoth free support, so removing one of them causes its Shield Tendril to become less effective), while Maruki has high endurance and would always cast Regeneration to bring back his Persona's tentacles. The second phase of this boss fight is even worse: Maruki can disable one of your party's actions for a turn (and he'll do the action ban twice in higher difficulties). Azathoth on the other hand, has double the amount of his overall HP and his Bless-induced Eternal Radiance has a high chance of inflicting Dizzy, putting your party at risk of taking Technical damage (Especially Akechi as Black Mask, who is weak to Bless skills due to his Persona being Loki/Hereward), and on top of that, he can finish off a party member not named Joker with a ten-hit single-target Almighty skill called Piercing Strike (which is triggered when a message on top of the screen shows up) and would cast his ultimate attack, Tyrant Chaos (which is triggered after casting Tyrant Stance), if his health is low. And much like Margaret, you must deplete all of either Maruki or Azathoth's HP before the 40th turn if you don't want your party to be wiped out in an instant by a 1300-damage Megidolaon from Azathoth. There is absolutely no warning or instructions for anything here and if this is your first time playing, you have to find all of these out via trial-and-error. Last but not least, there's also a surprise factor in this boss fight, since unlike Shido and Yaldabaoth where their first phases were a warm-up for whatever comes next, you're instantly thrown right into Maruki's proper hardest phase, meaning unsuspecting players expecting a warm up might instead find themselves indefinitely stalled to death. On the bright side, if you deplete all of Azathoth's HP, Maruki can be finished off in one shot after a cutscene and the much easier Adam Kadmon fight would commence.
• That One Level:
  • Although Futaba's Palace is a Breather Level, the final section after sending the Calling Card is absurdly difficult. With the previous Palaces, the player had a straight-shot to the boss fight by going to the Safe Room closest to the Treasure. Futaba's Palace, however, throws in several enemies that the player can't ambush since they're all on high alert. The enemies will almost certainly weaken the Phantom Thieves if you're caught. Worse is that there are some chests scattered about, but getting to them and not wasting your resources is almost impossible since the enemies are in places where the player has no cover to ambush the enemies from. The layout also prevents players from just running to the boss since the enemies are in tight pathways. So it's very easy for a player to rush towards the boss, get ambushed, and either die in a few turns or be so banged up that they'll need to spend a lot of resources getting back to full strength. Thankfully, you're given an option to skip this section completely with Joker's grappling hook in Royal, but if you want those treasure chests, it's going to be one hell of a time dealing with the enemies when you've got a fight with the Sphinx looming over your head.
  • Okumura's Palace is a headache. Several of the enemies resist or reflect physical damage, most of the areas lack proper cover to utilize stealth and ambush opponents, there's a tedious segment where you have to acquire multiple keycards from specific enemies, and a very confusing and difficult airlock puzzle at the end. Okumura also gives you a time limit of thirty minutes not just to defeat him, but also getting to the launchport on time and fighting the Shadows en route, owing to some very tough enemies to fight before getting to Okumura himself. Royal eases that timed launchport corridor significantly by letting you use the grappling hook to go straight to Okumura, but the player may not find it out unless you go out of the Shadow-infested corridor instantly and there are treasure chests behind that part. While in Vanilla Okumura himself is relatively easy, in Royal, this very boss can be the single worst chokepoint of the entire game if one goes in unprepared or without proper foreplanning. In addition to the gameplay, the conflict between the Phantom Thieves where Morgana feels useless is considered the weakest part of the game's narrative, Okumura himself is Unintentionally Unsympathetic due to his heinous actions especially when viewed by a westerner, and not much time is used to build him up before the Thieves decide to go after him. Combine all of this together, and you've got an arc widely considered to be the worst part of the story. Royal does make the dungeon itself less tedious as the keycard segment is much shorter and the airlock puzzle is extremely simplified.
  • Samael's Palace has mouse puzzles, which are lengthy and have tons of backtracking, narrow hallways that make it difficult to avoid enemies, and five minibosses that have to be completed in order to clear the way to the treasure. And it springs a Boss Bonanza on you towards the end; after facing a difficult mini-boss, you have to fight two powerful Shadows with Desperation, Akechi with Robin Hood, and then Akechi as Black Mask using Loki, all without saving or healing. Royal does reduce the amount of mouse puzzles at the least.
• That One Puzzle:
  • The airlock puzzles in the last third of Okumura's Palace, particularly the final one. You'll have to deal with airlocks that alternate between being opened and closed, some of which change when you flip a switch and some of which change when you pass through them. There's several different colors, making it fairly difficult to unlock the ones you need in order to proceed. It can easily take more time just to get through this one section of puzzles than the rest of the Palace without a guide.
  • Also in Okumura's Palace, finding the Chief Director and obtaining his key card. This involves you traversing an area of his Palace where there are several offices each housing giant robots that look similar to one another. However, only ONE of them is the guy you need to face and the others do not have to be fought. How do you figure out who the Chief Director is? You have to listen in on the conversations of robot workers who will provide very specific details about him that you must remember. You can avoid fighting the optional ones provided you choose the right dialogue options.^note That said, many of those optional fights allow you to discover their weaknesses during the Okumura boss, allowing you to speed the process up and save time.
  • The mice puzzles in the Cruise Ship Palace. They aren't particularly difficult but are lengthy and repetitive with a good deal of backtracking involved. There are also FOUR of these puzzles that must be completed in order to progress through the dungeon, making it feel even more tedious. While you're turned into mice, you still have to worry about not running into enemies as doing so will trigger a battle where everyone in your party has the mice ailment and is thus unable to do anything.
  • In Royal, the photosynthesis puzzle of the Laboratory Palace is the last major puzzle you encounter, and it's a doozy. The puzzle involves mixing colors of Red, Blue and Green light; turning on the colors generates bridges of the corresponding color. However, turning on the colors will also cause vine barricades to form, so you can't just turn on all three colors and call it a day. Some photosynthetic units can only generate one color, and the whole area will be affected by toggling the units. The second part requires you to deal with bridges and barricades that are Cyan, Yellow and Magenta (on top of still dealing with Red, Green, and Blue ones). While heading straight to the topmost corridor is easy and there are only a few Shadows around that area, the real trouble comes when you're trying to explore the entire map to get loot, especially the last Will Seed on the southmost corner, which requires you to turn off all colors to disable the three barricades while the surrounding areas are all bridges. Even if you get the basic concept down, opening a route to the switches you need is going to take a while. Then, once you do clear the barricades, you have to beat the Fafnir guarding the Will Seed. The Palace ends more-or-less right after you reach the staircase to exit the photosynthesis puzzle, but getting there can take more than an hour if you want to collect everything.
• That One Sidequest:
  • Chihaya's Confidant takes a lot of time and money to establish. You have to get a fortune telling from Chihaya, pay one hundred thousand yen for a fake "holy stone" — a very steep price early on in the game — then complete a mission in Mementos, and finally talk to her again to start the Confidant link. It also has a particularly difficult Mementos mission needed to pass Rank 7. She pays you back the yen later, but only on Rank 9 of her Confidant. By the time you get your money back, there probably isn't much left to spend it on.
  • Kawakami's Confidant requires you to pay five thousand yen every instance that you spend time with her, even visits that don't result in a rank-up. The Mementos request required to finish it can also be tricky, in that it requires her to approach you on a school day once you've reached Rank 8. If you reach this point during summer vacation, the Confidant will be stalled until September. Worse, if you progress the Confidant too late, you'll be at the point where Joker stops attending school because he's faking his death, cutting off your chances of completing it.
  • Like with Mitsuru and Naoto, Haru's Confidant is the last to open up, and has steep stat requirements. Max Proficiency is required to progress past Rank 1 (Rank 4 in Royal) with Haru, meaning if you don't already have Max Proficiency when she joins, your chances of hitting Rank 10 with Haru are slim to none. Even with the added third semester in Royal, you still have to rank up Kasumi's Confidant to max since it only opens up in the third semester, along with hanging out with each max-ranked Confidant in the party one last time to unlock their third-tier Personas and their Secret Arts. You'll want to do this because the sheer power of these third-tier abilities makes it absolutely worth it, meaning Haru will get lost in the shuffle if you haven't maxed her out before the third semester starts. You might get away with it if Haru is Rank 8 or so at the beginning of the third trimester, but it's going to be by the skin of your teeth if you do it at all.
  • Sojiro's Confidant begins fairly early on. Not only do you need to wait for Futaba to join in order to progress to the latter half of Sojiro's Confidant, you also need Max Kindness and to defeat a Duel Boss that takes up its own afternoon to complete it. What also stands out is Rank 3 to 4 of Sojiro's Confidant being abnormally slow to advance — you might need to spend five nights with Sojiro to nudge that rank up, even if you're doing everything right.
  • While Iwai's Confidant is available around the start of the second dungeon (since you only need to be able to travel outside Yongen-Jaya at night), it requires Rank 4 Guts just to start it, and Max Guts to complete it. The requirements are steep enough that you may not be able to start until late in the game, and probably won't finish it on a first playthrough.
  • Progressing through Makoto's Confidant requires having to max out Joker's Charm stat to get past Rank 5, one of the hardest social stats to max out. However, once you have the stat requirements, leveling up her Confidant itself isn't terribly difficult since as long as you answer her Confidant answers correctly, you will not have to go through any holdovers.
  • Yoshida's confidant, while guaranteed to go up a rank each time like Mishima, can also be tricky to complete if the player did not manage their time the best. To start with, you must first talk to him at the station square, then work two nights at the Beef Bowl shop to get him interested in you. After that, he's only available on Sundays (which also conflicts with the skill-granting cocktails at Jazz Jin in Royal) and holidays, and the confidant doesn't start until the second meeting with him. Finally, he has a deadline of 11/13 to complete it so that he can focus on the election, and you're not warned of this until a little over a week beforehand.
  • Starting Shinya's Confidant can be a real pain. First of all, you need to do a certain request in Mementos (which you won't be able to complete, mind you), then you have to go at Akihabara's Arcade (although the game most certainly doesn't tell you where the arcade is) and speak to Shinya, then you have to speak with Futaba, speak to Shinya again and finally his Confidant starts. And while the Confidant itself progress easily, Shinya can be encountered only four days per week, among many other Confidants that are available only during the day.
  • Akechi's Confidant is no longer automatic in Royal and is available only at night. Rank 3 can be achieved only if you have Rank 3 in both Knowledge and Charm and once Rank 5 is reached, the Confidant suddenly freezes until September 3rd, then it freezes again until November 2nd and you need Rank 4 Knowledge, and for his Rank 8 you have to defeat him with Joker alone and if you lose it won't progress until you win. And a massive Guide Dang It! moment comes with a couple of dialogue options that are needed in order to unlock Hereward.
  • In Royal, collecting all of Jose's stamps is quite tedious. Each floor of Mementos will yield one stamp the first time you reach the staircase, and every once in a while you might get a floor where another stamp is hiding behind a breakable wall. Your first run through of each section of Mementos will likely yield about half of the stamps available in said section, meaning you'll have to spend a lot of time going up and down the same floors to reset the layout, just to get a chance of finding that extra stamp that could randomly spawn on the map. Futaba's Mementos Scan ability helps, but the chance of that ability activating is random.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • There was a fair amount of consternation over the anointing of "Ren Amamiya" as Joker's canon name despite the presence of "Akira Kurusu" for the manga a year before the anime and Dancing canonized the former^note The 2022 port of Royal reinforced this further by using "Ren Amamiya" as the default if the game's language is changed, much like Yu Narukami in the Steam version of Persona 4 Golden.. This brought about shades of how the previous two Persona protagonists had their names changed and canonized away from their manga adaptations. That said, simply referring to this character as "Joker" is a compromise both sides seem to have agreed on, especially for non-fans who are only passingly familiar with the character through crossovers like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
  • Some fans took issue with Royal's final cutscene and how different it was compared to the original, particularly the protagonist's farewell with his friends. Many considered the ending to Royal to be just a Sequel Hook for Strikers ^note Strikers was developed at nearly the same time as Royal and released after, and thus was written without consideration for any obvious plot additions from Royal due to how many plot points were left un-concluded. Some fans even mistook this for the bad ending, or worse, that the bad ending should you accept Maruki's offer to be a more satisfying ending.
  • With all of the quality-of-life changes and new features that Royal added, some fans feel that the game leans into being too easy. With Baton Pass being available from the get-go, ways to permanently buff both Baton Passes and Technical Damage, and the randomly triggering Showtime attacks that do heavy damage, Royal is a fair bit easier than vanilla Persona 5. For a beginner to the Persona franchise, it will still probably put up a challenge; to a veteran, they'll find themselves cruising along without much trouble, even on Hard difficulty. In addition, Merciless mode now increases the money and EXP you earn from combat instead of decreasing it, which can make most battles significantly less difficult.
  • The ports of Royal force the anti-epilepsy filter with no way to disable it even if the player does not have a problem with the original animations. This results in awkward graphical display that hinders the game's presentation.
  • The ports of Royal also made the Edited for Syndication-induced censorship more obvious. Regardless of version, say goodbye to the old Almighty icon and Ryuji's shoe design, and the Raidou bonus content is now No Port For You, all of which fans take issue with.
  • The Omnipotent Orb ^note (a late-game NG+ item usually dropped by the most powerful Superboss) was severely nerfed in Royal. In the original game, it would've blocked anything that wasn't almighty... here? It would block only magical attacks and the status aliments that come from them, so say goodbye to it blocking physical, gun attacks and the aliments that fall under almighty! Some players naturally took issue with this as well, as it makes all the time spent getting it feel pointless.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Shiho. The opening hour of the game sets her up as a fairly important, or at least a reoccurring side character, what with her status as Ann's best friend and the conspicuous amount of voiced lines she gets. However, her primary role is to show how terrible Kamoshida's physical and sexual abuse are, and as a motivation to let Ann join the Phantom Thieves. She basically disappeared from the plot afterwards, with Ann only mentioning her in passing a few times. A lot of people wish Shiho was a Confidant outright, but her only role in the plot after Kamoshida's arc is resolved is a brief appearance in Ann's ninth-rank conversation. To rub salt in the wound, said event where she reappears reveals she's leaving Tokyo for good.
  • Many feel so much more could have been done with Goro Akechi, especially given he outright disappears from the story after the events of Shido's Palace and is completely absent for the final battle against Yaldabaoth. A common example of this is that many viewed his Bolivian Army Ending scene as being poorly written, leaving those who were expecting Akechi to rejoin the Phantom Thieves and redeem himself disappointed. Fortunately, Royal gives them a lot more screentime and character development.
  • To some extent, Haru suffers from Late Character Syndrome. While she has a significant role in the plot and receives a fair amount of Character Development and characterization, she has less room to develop (especially with how steep requirements are to progress in her Confidant). By comparison, Naoto joins in early October (shortly after Haru), but had been a recurring character since May, whereas Haru gets only a scant handful of appearances. Moreover, the rewards her Confidant yields give access to the only other source of free SP curatives in the game (the other being Sojiro's coffee and curry) — but her method is a garden which takes a few days to grow the items. By the point she can be accessed, this potential source of SP restoration will never be able to be used to its fullest potential, especially in a game where Magic Is Rare, Health Is Cheap. It also pales in comparison to using the coffee and curry made from Sojiro's Confidant, which the player can have Kawakami make for them, freeing them up to do more tasks that night, and improve at a good rate.
  • Kaneshiro is largely viewed as a Filler Villain by the game's fandom. He's certainly a scumbag for the Phantom Thieves to take down, and doing so finally puts them on the map. But Kaneshiro has a much less personal connection with Makoto than any other Palace Ruler does with their Phantom Thief. It's less about what Kaneshiro has done to Makoto and more what he threatens to do — sell her into sex slavery to pay off a manufactured debt. And even then, Makoto quickly figures out that it's not even about Makoto herself, but Makoto's older sister Sae, who Kaneshiro wants Revenge by Proxy on because Sae is a public prosecutor who's breathing down his neck. The only real plot advancements that happen during his arc are Makoto joining and the Thieves becoming more popular; Kaneshiro's change of heart occurs entirely off-screen, and his name barely comes up again after his arc is over.
  • For an example of a Persona getting this treatment, Azathoth. In the Cthulhu Mythos proper, Azathoth is both the father of Nyarlathotep and the Ultimate Chaos, stated to have unlimited power. In the Persona 2 duology, Nyarlathotep is established as the manifestation of the negative aspects of humanity, and throughout the story of those games manipulates reality so that rumors come true and even successfully brings about The End of the World as We Know It. With all of this in mind, Nyarlathotep's dad could easily become a severely major threat not just for the Persona series, but Shin Megami Tensei as a whole (Sure, he already debuted in Giten Megami Tensei: Tokyo Mokushiroku, but 1) That game is extremely obscure, 2) He made no reappearance for years until Persona 5 Royal, and 3) He was only a regular enemy in Giten Megami Tensei). And so here he comes, becoming a major antagonist for Persona 5 Royal...and he's nothing more than a decayed form for Maruki's persona, and its true form is from Gnosticism instead of Lovecraftian Lore. While something is obviously off since the persona can act up autonomously, he has seemingly nothing to do with Nyarlathotep's deal (and in fact, does exactly the reverse things as said Nyarlathotep). To say that fans were underwhelmed wouldn't even begin to describe the reaction.
  • In Royal, Joker's third-tier persona, Raoul, gets relegated to DLC in contrast to the rest of the Phantom Thieves. Many fans were hoping that Raoul would play an important role in the third semester, especially in the final battle against Adam Kadmon.
  • Adding on to the list of underused Personas, the third tier personas for Akechi and Sumire can only be obtained on the date that happens before fighting the Final Boss. So, unless the player does last minute grinding right before they fought the Final Boss, those Personas are likely to be only used for fighting the True Final Boss.
  • Despite a lot of Royal's marketing focusing on her character, Kasumi does not join the party until the third semester in the final dungeon which roughly lasts a month, meaning that you won't have as much time to play with her as compared to the other characters, and at that point the plot is centered around Maruki, leaving her with comparatively little influence on the main story. Worse, even though she had awakened her persona by the time of Shido's palace, she was flat out refused by the Thieves from joining them under the justification that it's too dangerous for her. This comes off as contrived considering that they took no issue with their newest members joining them during their palace heists.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Despite the character's popularity, Makoto's Confidant is considered to be one of the worst in terms of story because of its focus on a fellow student named Eiko and her slimy boyfriend Tsukasa rather than focusing on Makoto's past or her father, a character who greatly impacted both her and Sae. Although it does at least touch upon Makoto's father and how his death affected her, this occurs only in the main story and a few points towards the very end of the Confidant. This causes the Confidant to have an issue with the pacing since it never goes beyond Makoto resolving to follow in his footsteps by studying law to become a police commissioner at the end, a decision that comes a bit out of left field since the Confidant doesn't focus on any of those plot points in order to explain why Makoto would make such a choice. Made more apparent by the fact that her relationship with Sae in the story proper heavily relies on their father, with some saying that the Character Development that Makoto receives in the main story is a lot more interesting and relates better to her chosen goal. In addition to that, Sae herself never appears in Makoto's Confidant, which would've helped reinforce their relationship and give the chance for Sae to be shown in a more positive light after several hours of her being framed as an antagonist, even if she couldn't interact with Joker directly to keep from conflicting with the interrogation scenes.
  • Like Makoto, Ann's Confidant is often seen as one of the weakest stories. The Confidant starts with Ann wanting to understand how Personas work better, which is something that very few characters in the series that aren't associated with the Velvet Room or antagonists ask. The initial focus is Ann trying to be more understanding of people, in the hopes that it would help her better grasp her Persona. Not long into the story, it abruptly becomes about Ann trying to become a better model and her rivalry with a fellow model named Mika, a shift that feels very disconnected from Ann's original reasons for wanting Joker to help her out. Jarringly, the Confidant deals with her relationship with Shiho, and has Ann help her through the trauma she suffered from Kamoshida, but this occurs only at Rank 9 before shifting back to Ann's modeling rivalry. The fact you don't get to go after Mika and change her heart means she gets away with ruining a lot of young models, which isn't helped by the fact that the game railroads the player into agreeing with Mika. And as much as Mika's words might be true towards Ann, this leaves many with a sour taste since the player is effectively told they have to agree with Mika. Had Ann's Confidant focused on her trying to empathize and understand people better to make up for her own admittance of shame for not helping Shiho, it would've been debatably one of the best Confidants; instead, it feels like a confusingly-structured story with a poor "villain" the player can't go after.
  • Considering that the game uses Sae Niijima's interrogation of Joker as a Framing Device to explain How We Got Here and that one of Joker's potential love interests is Makoto Niijima, many players were disappointed that Sae never once reacts to the revelation that the prime suspect of the Phantom Thieves case could be dating her younger sister. What's worse about this is that the game has a few instances of Developer's Foresight where who you are in a relationship with is commented on or factored into even in voiced dialogue, such as Sojiro reacting differently if the player spends time with Futaba, or Kawakami on Valentines Day. Yet Sae gets nothing at all.
  • Sojiro's history with Shido and the reveal he knew about Wakaba's research on the Metaverse. For the former, the game drops various hints of their past history with Sojiro's knee-jerk reaction whenever he hears Shido's speeches on television, yet the game's explanation of their history serves no real purpose in the storyline outside of Flavor Text rather than an attempt to flesh him out. For the latter, Sojiro's knowledge about Wakaba's research is a pretty big reveal, but ends up being pointless since it really doesn't accomplish anything in the story beyond giving him ties to Futaba. It would've been great to see Sojiro help out the heroes by offering his experience and know-how of the various problems they face, or even help the group's motives or plans based on what happens to them. Instead, both ideas seem to exist to justify why Sojiro knows Wakaba and explain why he would've adopted Futaba, which wouldn't have been an issue if both ideas were somewhat important and actually had an impact on the story in some way.
  • Ryuji 'dying' during the escape from Shido's Palace could have been an interesting idea for the finale, with it being the trope of a character perma-death in a cutscene. The way it was handled felt too dumb and slapstick-y, and he could always come back in the post game, so everyone would be happy. Even the prospect of the characters simply being happy with him being alive was done away with for meanspirited slapstick and many felt was a wasted opportunity.
  • Some feel that the "stealing hearts" concept can feel like it's promoting a "the ends justifies the means" mentality to the entire story, and there aren't more serious consequences for the thieves as a whole for using such morally dubious means to solve their problems. The stealing itself is presented as a form of brainwashing, but the effects and possible complications involved (such as potentially causing brain death rather than forced reformation or leading the victim to commit suicide out of guilt) are only taken seriously in a discussion before the first target and then the game only pays lip service to the ethical and moral implications at best, or completely dismisses them at worst. The fact that violence is always seen as part of the brainwashing process^note The only Mementos request that ends peacefully was also explicitly a case where the thieves didn't need to steal the person's heart to help them, and the main target who wanted to have their heart stolen had its own complications only makes matters worse here as while most targets do see "the error of their ways", it's only because you beat the crap out of them to take whatever was "corrupting" their way of thinking away rather than allowing them to resolve it themselves the way previous Persona games encouraged people to do. Ultimately, the problem lies with the fact that the Phantom Thieves aren't given more room to discuss the ethical implications of their actions, regardless of whether or not they're necessary. They're given little time if at all to really think about the worse implications involved in Brainwashing for the Greater Good, and are consistently put in situations where stealing the Treasure is often the ''only way'' to proceed. Worse, as explained in Informed Wrongness above, many who oppose the Phantom Thieves or their methods are often presented as being massive jerks with ulterior motives anyway—and those who don't have ulterior motives end up being converted regardless. By contrast, there are fans who believe that the final Yaldabaoth arc does address many of these issues, with the Last-Second Ending Choice hinging on whether or not Joker gives into the temptation of becoming a Knight Templar who takes his philosophy to the logical extreme of taking everyone's free will away.
  • Shido's entire scheme hinges on using the Metaverse for his own ends, even having Futaba's mother killed to steal her research into the subject. When the Phantom Thieves finally invade his Palace, he's defeated just like the other Palace rulers with no real advantage or difference given to him by his scientists' knowledge of how the Metaverse works. The only thing he's able to do is temporarily kill himself in an attempt to destroy the heroes before they steal his treasure, which fails as the Phantom Thieves escape before his Palace collapses. The wasted aspect is that because Shido knows more about the Metaverse, there could have been more usage of him to stop the heroes, such as Shido himself entering his own Cognition to stop the heroes, or Shido taking precautions such as setting up traps that pressure the heroes. Instead, Shido only does the above mention near-death pill, and nothing else.
  • As explained in They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character above, despite Royal giving Akechi some expanded screentime, it's never outright addressed (not even in the Thieves' Den) how practically everything he's done with his powers turned out to be part of Yaldabaoth Fixing the Game, especially from his perspective, even if the Third Semester heavily implies how he must feel.
  • Near the end of Hifumi's Confidant, it's revealed her mother has been rigging her Shogi matches so that Hifumi can become a popular idol. When Hifumi learns this, she decides to continue playing in spite of her terrible skill and now damaged reputation, both to continue improving, and for her father. However, because the Confidant is almost over by the time all that happens, the rest of Hifumi's Confidant doesn't explore the ramifications beyond some off-hand comments, and Hifumi trying to improve is just stated to the player instead of demonstrated, making it feel like there isn't a resolution to her Confidant. Some players have cited feeling that it should have happened earlier so the remaining time could focus on Hifumi improving to at least make it feel like she gets a proper resolution to the issue.
  • The new semester in Royal feels like a missed opportunity to some. Specifically, the Phantom Thieves' time out of the party. As it is in the final product, everyone besides Joker and Akechi fall victim to Maruki's Lotus Dream Eater and blissfuly live their "improved" lives. Their arcs are essentially they have their new improved lives, Joker individually talks to them saying he'll wait for them to remember how things are, they feel vaguely uncomfortable, and then they all suddenly realize what's going on and break out of the trance, then individually they all apologize to Joker for betraying him. Except "Betrayal" seems rather excessive as all they are guilty of is not being able to instantly see through the illusion. It feels like there was potential for some big drama by having Joker more explicitly tell them what's going on and they actively choose to reject what he's saying for the illusion, making their apologies for betraying him feel more warranted. Along with this, it might have been neat to have the segment that's just Joker and Akechi traversing the palace last a bit longer to allow for the arc to breath more.
  • It is alluded in some games in the entire Megami Tensei series like Shin Megami Tensei If... and the first Devil Summoner game that the Persona series and the previous games mentioned are set in the same universe but in an alternative timeline where the events of the first Shin Megami Tensei game were prevented (or specifically the latter half of the game was prevented that has Tokyo nuked and demons invading the rest of the world; evidenced by a classmate in SMT If... mentioned seeing a boy wearing a COMP and his dog ((the protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei and Pascal/Cerbeus before fused with a demon)) and in the first Devil Summoner game mentioned that Gotou and Thorman who drove the conflict of SMT 1 they were put out of commission). It would had been an great tribute to the first SMT game as Tokyo was also the main setting if any character from the game like the protagonist, Law and Chaos Heroes and the Heroine shown up as grown ups leading different but peaceful lives and establishing the possible continuity between said games further.
• Too Cool to Live: Occurs in Royal in Kasumi's backstory with Kasumi Yoshizawa. Not the one that Joker meets personally, the real Kasumi. An honor student who was a gymnastic prodigy that virtually never loses competitions, in addition to having overflowing optimism and kindness? Sure enough, she died before the game began. And the "Kasumi" that Joker personally meets? That's Kasumi's sister Sumire, who suffered from suicidal depression because Kasumi was so perfect that she drove her into the wrong mind without knowing it, eventually degenerating into Sumire having a total breakdown and Kasumi sacrificing herself to prevent her sister from being killed by incoming traffic.
• Tough Act to Follow:
  • Musical example, but quite a few felt like the final battle theme of the original game was quite underwhelming and just doesn't even comes close to the likes of The Almighty, Mist and especially The Battle for Everyone's Souls. Even within the game itself it was felt like it didn't measure up.
  • In terms of the Palace owners, there is a large consensus about Kamoshida's effectiveness as an antagonist for being such a personal threat to the founding Phantom Thieves that he managed to be a Love to Hate villain. However, the subsequent Palace owners in the vanilla version have had more mixed reactions. In an effort to make an effective Hate Sink out of Kamoshida, he managed to cast such a large shadow over the other pre-Royal contenders that the they seemed to pale in comparison; even Shido falls short for being a Flat Character despite being the Big Bad for most of the game. It was only until Royal was released that there was a Palace owner that was as universally lauded.

U

• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • Hostage negotiation. When one of your characters, except for Joker, is knocked down with an elemental weakness, the negotiation mechanic forces you to either pay that enemy something, talk the enemy into letting them go, or do nothing and watch that party member get one-shotted. However, the mechanic doesn't trigger in boss battles, and only rarely triggers in random encounters. A player might go through all of the seventy-plus hours of gameplay and never see this happen, despite getting passive bonuses that make it easier to get away with negotiation. New Game Plus, which lets you retain monster database information, makes it even less likely.
  • Gun skills are really rare in comparison to the standard spread of Physical skills. Compared to the 40+ Phys skills in the game, you only have four Gun skills to choose from, and there's large gaps in availability between each. On the bright side, it also means each and every one of them is great for the level.
  • After sending the calling card, Palace security level immediately rises to 100%. However, since you can simply fast travel to the safe house right in front of the boss room, and you've most likely already explored the entire palace and grabbed everything useful before sending the calling card, this mechanism is pretty much just for show.
  • Royal introduces Mementos targets who have to be reasoned with through specific dialogue prompts to get them to stand down and reform after losing their health. This could have been an interesting way to spice up Mementos battles with some variety, but the number of targets who use this mechanic can be counted on one hand and the vast majority simply require you to defeat them as you would any other enemy, with the ending conversations progressing regardless of what options you pick.
• Unexpected Character:
  • One of the Personas you can use is Bugs/Bugbear, a minor enemy from Soul Hackers. No, really.
  • A few of the Ultimate Personas have appeared previously in Shin Megami Tensei, yet not terribly often. These include Satanael, Joker's Ultimate Persona, whose only seen form previously was in Soul Hackers while possessing Spooky, and Mercurius, Morgana's Ultimate Persona, who was previously a Breather Boss in the prologue of Shin Megami Tensei II and was meant to be destroyed by Cerberus. There's also Astarte, Haru's Ultimate Persona, who actually did appear in the Persona series before. That is to say, she was the persona of Kanaru Morimoto, a character from the now considered non-canon anime Persona -trinity soul-.
  • Another one that no one saw coming was Slime Mara, an alternate form of Mara from Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne that was little more than a hidden one-shot gag.
  • Kasumi's Character Introduction trailer for Royal has her, Morgana and Joker fighting against Biyarky, whose only and last appearance in the MegaTen franchise was as one of Nyarlathotep's minions in Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, released over a decade ago. This was then followed by Hastur a few trailers later, who was also one of Nyarlathotep's minions in Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. Because of their appearance, this led fans to assume that Nyarlathotep was was going to come back as the Greater-Scope Villain. But nope, we instead get his dad Azathoth, who previously only appeared in Giten Megami Tensei: Tokyo Mokushiroku. And he's Takuto Maruki's Persona, no less! What's more, Maruki later evolves it into Adam Kadmon, who previously only appeared as a regular enemy in Paradise back in Shin Megami Tensei NINE!
  • Likewise, pretty much no one predicted that Kasumi's Persona would be Cendrillon, especially since Cendrillon herself is not a thief, although the story of Cinderella is about rising above oppression and injustice which fits in line with the story themes of Persona 5.
  • Another unexpected face popping up in Royal is Vohu Manah, the Ultimate Persona of the Consultant Arcana, a Persona that last appeared in the original Persona.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Ryuji gets this at times, as he rarely deserves the misfortune and some of the harsh treatment he often goes through. In combat, for example, his successful criticals and any weakness appropriate hits that down enemies are rarely met with genuine praise (at best, he gets backhanded compliments) unlike everyone else. However the most prominent example is when Morgana ran away. While you can say Ryuji did seem to go out of his way to get under Morgana's skin, it's hard not to feel sorry for him when Morgana spent the majority of the game berating him, the fact that he was the only one forced to apologize, and that Morgana would continue to insult him even after making amends.
  • The Mementos targets are all treated like utter scum by the Phantom Thieves even though the crimes of a handful of targets are hardly crimes at all. Most notably is Yoshikuni Nejima, whose misdeed was that he was cheating at video games. And while Nejima was being a complete jerk about it, he's in league with the likes of serial abusers, perpetrators of child neglect, and former hitmen. Their Shadows do imply that they at least committed them for their own amusement, but cheating in a video game is small potatoes compared to a lot of other targets.
  • The Thieves are meant to be portrayed as getting easier to manipulate by their newfound popularity when they target Okumura. While him being at the top of the Phan-Site's target poll is part of the reason they decided to target him, it's hard to view them as Glory Seekers when Okumura was abusing an entire corporation of employees, suspected of involvement with the mental shutdown cases, and going to force Haru to marry an an abusive fiance for the sake of power if they didn't take his heart before the deadline. The Phantom Thieves can also still take care of minor targets in Mementos out of genuine altruism.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Kunikazu Okumura is meant to be seen in a more sympathetic light than other targets and his death is seen as a tragic moment. This falls flat for many people since he's a Bad Boss who horribly mistreats his employees to the point where he sees them as mindless robots that he works to death. His love for Haru is also an Informed Attribute since he never treats her with any kindness on-screen, is willing to marry her off to someone he knows is an abusive playboy for his own gain, and in Royal, his cognition of her is mindlessly obedient and he eventually orders her to suicide bomb the thieves as a last resort. It's also implied and later confirmed that he solicited Akechi to kill his competitors. As a result, he's usually seen as being as horrible as the other targets, some even seeing him to be as horrible as Kamoshida and Shido.
  • Morgana, when he briefly leaves the Phantom Thieves. Many feel that Morgana's feelings of inadequacy were built up thanks to Futaba being a better navigator than him, Ryuji's Innocently Insensitive comments, and Morgana being unsure of if he's human or not. However, Morgana's outbursts cross into Wangst for many players. Morgana is a vital member of the party due to his knowledge of the Metaverse and his ability to help the group explore Mementos; never once does it seem like he's useless. Additionally, Morgana treats Ryuji like crap for the entire game for not knowing things about the Metaverse, despite Ryuji being justified in his confusion. However, when Ryuji and Morgana get into an argument, Morgana throws a temper tantrum and quits the Phantom Thieves, apparently unable to take what he dishes out. Making things worse is that both Joker and Futaba expressed concern over Morgana's feelings, yet he rejected both of their attempts to talk to him about it. And even more damning, Morgana rushes into Okumura's Palace, while leading a civilian into danger on top of it all. (Haru awakened to her Persona while there, but only partially, and Morgana had no way of knowing that was going to happen) Combine all of this, and many players didn't feel any sympathy for Morgana's behavior during the Okumura arc.
  • Black Mask has gotten this treatment from players, mostly in the West, who believe their Alas, Poor Villain moment was heavy-handed and poorly executed, as the Phantom Thieves asked them to rejoin even after multiple people died from their own selfish whims, including Futaba's mother, Haru's father, and even attempting to betray and kill Joker, in addition to causing mental shutdowns that ruined a lot of Tokyo and hurt a lot of innocent people undermines how the Phantom Thieves treated most of their targets, where they force the targets into a life of atonement, while making it clear that no matter how much they atone, they can never be forgiven for their crimes. Even though they aren't actually making an exception for this person either, they just knew that they're being used by The Heavy to kill off anyone whom he perceive as his enemies for his very own dystopian plan, thus making a difference between "Hitman" and "Killer". In fact, the aforementioned heavy takes most of the blame for Akechi's acts. However, many players were still not convinced by the game's attempts to shove most of the blame to the heavy, pointing out that even though the heavy is the one who gave the orders, Akechi's murders of Okumura and cognitive Joker show that he actually takes pleasure in his killings, not to mention the fact that he was the one who approached the heavy offering his services as a hitman. All in all, Black Mask's detractors at best argue that they deserve at least some culpability.
  • Eiko from Makoto's Confidant. While it's revealed that her boyfriend Tsukasa is a scammer who ropes in girls to sell their bodies to pay nonexistent debts, Eiko does little to earn the player's sympathy because of her refusal to acknowledge the situation. Eiko adamantly refuses to believe Makoto when she tries to warn Eiko that Tsukasa is clearly bad news; other hosts in the Red Light District hate Tsukasa's guts for giving them a bad name. Even after learning that Tsukasa has been texting multiple other girls behind her back, Eiko jumps to the conclusion that Makoto is a "bitch" who's trying to steal her boyfriend away. And after Tsukasa backs down the moment that Joker and Makoto stand up to him, the only explanation Eiko offers for her behavior is that Tsukasa was the only person who paid attention to her, tacitly admitting that she knew his charm was all an act. For fans, this excuse didn't cut it; many other characters in the game are shown to be handling much worse circumstances than Eiko's with much better attitudes, including Makoto herself. And while Eiko was clearly in a bad spot, the fact that she not only stayed with Tsukasa after figuring out what he was planning but tried to drag innocent people down with her means that she comes across as a petulant child who's upset that she can't get everything she wants. When Makoto slaps Eiko for refusing to accept any responsibility for such selfish behavior to the bitter end, it doesn't feel like a Moment of Weakness on Makoto's part; it feels like well-deserved karma for Eiko.
  • Sae Niijima. She delivers an extremely harsh "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Makoto over an offhand comment at dinner (that was Innocently Insensitive at worst), threatens Sojiro with dubious abuse charges over Futaba to get him to testify about Wakaba Isshiki and cognitive psience, and is implied to have forged evidence or rigged trials because she believes winning is the only thing that matters. She's meant to come off as an Anti-Villain who's Slowly Slipping Into Evil, but the problem is she shows little to no guilt, apprehension, or remorse for any of this. This could have been cleared up via her Shadow, à la Shadow Futaba, but Shadow Sae proves to be just as vehement in her pursuit of victory and completely ignores Makoto, not even having a cognition of her. Much like Okumura, Sae comes off as a Jerkass at best who is Easily Forgiven because Makoto is on her side.
  • Mika from Ann's Confidant. While the game shows that Mika is going way too far, it still uses her as a way to call out Ann for not taking her modeling job seriously, something Ann ends up agreeing with. While it's true that Ann isn't thinking about how hard the modeling industry is, the game railroads the player into agreeing with Mika. This is despite Mika sabotaging the careers of other female models, yet acting like Ann is an idiot for not taking it "seriously enough" by stooping to that level. Plus, it isn't Ann's fault she can eat whatever she wants without gaining weight; that's something Ann has no control over. Ann was also unfairly judged by her classmates because she's quarter-white, something the game ignores in favor of Ann agreeing with Mika. By the end of the Confidant, Mika is portrayed as Ann's rival despite Mika being a terrible person, and unlike with many other characters like her, the game lets Mika get away with everything she did to other people, without the opportunity to change her heart.
  • Upon learning of Kasumi Yoshizawa's backstory, she came across this way to a few people. That is to say, the real Kasumi, not Sumire. While Sumire is meant to realize that her big sister ultimately cares about her, it's understandable for Sumire to perceive Kasumi as being a Big Sister Bully despite Kasumi not intending to be. Sumire goes on about how Kasumi was the perfect older sister, but Kasumi was very flawed as a guardian; she constantly controls Sumire's life and decisions, which from the latter's perspective can come off as patronising. Kasumi also never directly encouraged Sumire to stand on her own, and Kasumi's way of trying to cheer up Sumire is to joke how she as the older sibling would always be better than her, which should be the last thing said to a girl with fragile self-esteem. There is also the hypocrisy of her belief that Helping Would Be Killstealing, given how she always controls Sumire's life which makes Kasumi appear as a selfish Hypocrite instead. On the other hand, there are also fans who like the fact that she has these unsympathetic character flaws, as they feel it helps humanize her rather than having her be a one-note, unrealistically perfect individual who was too good for this sinful earth.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • There's something off about Morgana's face in his cat form in the real world. He has large, piercing blue eyes and the way his mouth moves when he speaks looks very unnatural.
  • The Sphinx sports the head of Wakaba, in a way that makes it look very off, and utterly terrifying.
• Unpopular Popular Character: With the Phantom Thieves receiving All of the Other Reindeer treatment, a few of these are bound to happen. However, these people deserve special mention:
  • Ryuji Sakamoto is ostracized by his former track teammates because he was indirectly responsible for getting the team shut down-even though he was trying to call out Kamoshida's abusive behavior, and while he's definitely not disliked by the other Thieves, he’s definitely the Butt-Monkey of the group and they, especially Morgana, tend to make comments at his expense. In spite of consistently ranking at the bottom on Eastern popularity polls, the Western fanbase adores Ryuji due to his endearing, friendly personality and bromance with the protagonist, and many of his fans are not fond of the scene where he gets beaten up offscreen by the female Thieves while the males do nothing to stop them after they escape Shido's Palace.
  • The other students at Kosei High treat Yusuke differently due to both his association with Madarame and because of his behavior in general, and after Madarame is arrested, he's actively shunned. However, he manages to be one of the most popular characters in the game due to him being a Comically Serious Cloudcuckoolander.
  • Upon her introduction, it is clear that Makoto is not very well-liked among her classmates. In fact, it's implied that she didn't have any friends before joining the Phantom Thieves, with a Dancing in Starlight Easter Egg indicating that she's not considered especially attractive in-universe either. While she does have a vocal minority of detractors, Makoto is nonetheless one of the more popular characters within the Eastern and Western fandom alike, consistently ranking in the top five in several polls, and having many fans for being useful in battle, her Team Mom status, Character Development, and a fan favorite love interest for Joker.
  • Prior to Futaba being a shut-in, she was almost completely friendless at school with her Only Friend having to be a girl named Kana in which their friendship ended up falling apart. On the other hand, fans really like her due to her Moe personality, having huge amounts of Character Development, and her lacking most of the Annoying Video Game Helper tendencies that past Mission Control characters have.
• The Un-Twist:
  • Akechi being Black Mask can be deduced from the get-go. He joins right before Sae's dungeon, where the player knows that the plans for the heist will be leaked to the police, acts suspicious towards the Thieves prior to joining them and has established that he disagrees with their methods. Additionally, his famous "Pancakes" remark^ContextAkechi meets the group for the first time and asks if anyone has talked about pancakes. Only Morgana has mentioned pancakes, and only Persona users can hear Morgana. Plus, there's an unidentified Obviously Evil Persona user roaming around. put many players on alert right away. Turns out the twist was that the heroes have realized this early on and used it as part of their gambit to keep Joker alive - and even then particularly savvy players may realize the significance of the various Fade to White moments that occur after Akechi confronts the Phantom Thieves about their identities - they never occurred prior to the Akechi conversation, and they always come after a few moments wherein Joker's recollection becomes hazy and the player is made aware that the heroes conversations continued after the discussions regarding Sae's palace finished - as these are later revealed to be the moments in which the heroes discussed Akechi's charade amongst themselves.
  • Shido being the main villain or at least an important one. Not only does he have a portrait in the dialog boxes, just about every time he shows up, the game drops hints he's a corrupt person in a significant position of power.

V

• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • Caroline and Justine when they were first introduced. Almost everyone already agreed that one was female, but the fanbase was split as to the gender of the second one, until it was revealed that she's also a girl.
  • Until it was clarified in the game, a lot of people thought that Morgana was also a girl, when in truth he is very much a male cat. The name was the biggest cause of confusion, being voiced by a woman in both Japanese and English didn't help either. This is Lampshaded in the game itself, where even the Phantom Thieves themselves are initially unsure of Morgana's gender until he explicitly spells it out for them, and even then he's the only character whose DLC costumes allow him to crossdress by giving him dresses (like with the Maid/Butler set) or having him cosplay as female characters.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: While the previous Persona games were good looking, the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 really allow Shigenori Soejima's art style and Kazuma Kaneko's Persona designs to shine. The in-engine cutscenes, in particular, look absolutely gorgeous.
  • Being the last big title for the PlayStation 3, the game is well-known for pushing the aging system to its limits. And it shows.

W

• Wangst:
  • Many have found Morgana's tantrum and leaving the team during the Okumura arc to be selfish whining. While Ryuji pushed it too far by calling Morgana "useless", when the time to apologize comes, Ryuji gets the lion's share of the blame. The party apparently isn't bothered by the fact that Morgana has been treating Ryuji like garbage from the beginning of the game for no reason. It doesn't help that this takes place during what many consider to be the weakest story arc in the game, and you cannot do anything at night (including activities that you can do in your room, like making infiltration tools or watching a DVD) until Morgana rejoins, wasting several days of precious free time.
  • Detractors who either don't like Akechi or don't understand the implications of his backstory find him to be this. Causing the mental shutdowns and the several deaths he's responsible for are very much unjustified, and the game makes no attempts to excuse this behavior. But some believe that Akechi's angst over his past - a pointed lack of guidance being a big factor of it - and his hatred of Joker (just not Shido) to be extremely overblown.
  • There's also some detraction towards Makoto, at least as far as the way her pre-Phantom Thief self treated her situation as a pressured model student. While sympathetic, some people find that her dilemma (doing the right thing vs. good college recommendations) failed to carry the same amount of weight as the other Thieves' own personal problems. And even with the harsh words of disapproval Makoto received from the likes of Akechi and Ann, it didn't warrant the level of desperate behavior Makoto had placed upon herself. The criticism mainly comes from her (self-admittedly) boneheaded move to storm Kaneshiro's hideout just to prove she wasn't useless. While it does get Kaneshiro in the Thieves' sights, the ramifications of blackmail toward the Thieves (especially Joker, who's on probation for an assault charge) and the potential fate Makoto herself faces are extreme, as the player can find out if they don't complete Kaneshiro's Palace in time.
  • Eiko, from Makoto's confidant. She's hooked up with a host named Tsukasa, but one look at the guy shows that he's bad news, even to Joker and Makoto in-universe. Makoto later finds out that Tsukasa is going to rope Eiko into selling her body to pay a non-existent debt, and has done so multiple times before with other girls. After Tsukasa is driven away, Eiko admits that she knew what he was going to do, but that he was the only one who paid attention to her because of a bad home life. The way Eiko comes across made her Unintentionally Unsympathetic to a lot of players, since she was willingly walking into a trap because she was so starved for attention. Couple this with Eiko treating the friend who was trying to save her from a life of sex slavery like dirt, and Eiko is generally disliked by a good portion of players.
  • The Shadow Selves of the villains, except for Sae, what with all of them being victims of society, but have taken whatever power was given to them and abusing it heavily. The biggest case, as noted in the Values Dissonance page of this game, is Okumura - the struggle he had in dealing with his father's debts (which were made due to misguided benevolence and a lack of financial acumen) gave him an overblown "kindness is for losers" mentality. Apparently, this not only justifies turning his organic-friendly business into a massive fast-food corporation with overtaxed workers and horrendous pay and conditions, but also gives him the authority to treat his only daughter like a bargaining chip and serve as a key into the world of politics, which he has absolutely no business being in. This is even the reaction by the Phantom Thieves in-universe, as none of them are particularly moved by their justifications.
• Woolseyism: Some of the game-y Gratuitous English terms from the Japanese version were changed to more accurate terms overseas.
  • The "Baton Touch" mechanic where you pass your turn to another party member is changed to the more accurate "Baton Pass".
  • "Co-Op's", the replacement for the previous games Social Links were renamed to "Confidants".
  • When initiating a pre-emptive attack in the Japanese version, a large message reading; "CHANCE!" appears onscreen, the English version changes the message to the more fitting "AMBUSH!".
  • The "Sword" command is changed to the much more fitting "Attack", especially seeing as how out of the Phantom Thieves, only Morgana, Yusuke and Akechi (plus Sumire in Royal) actually use swords; even then, Akechi's are kid's toy inspired "laser swords". Not even Joker fights with a "Sword" as in game they are all easily identified as types of knives.
  • Futaba's code name "Navi", an abbreviation of Navigator, is changed to "Oracle" which carries the same meaning and manages to be an extremely fitting Barbara Gordon reference. "Navi" is a rather redundant name in the Japanese version—the Metaverse Nav app is also called Navi, and on the Status screen Futaba is given a large stamp reading "NAVI" for her role (i.e. in Japanese the status screen says "NAVI - NAVI" while in English it now says "ORACLE - NAVI").
    • While almost certainly unintentional, "ORACLE - NAVI" does make for a clever Bilingual Bonus, especially given the Persona series' repeated use of Hebrew and Kabbalistic jargon for their mystical phenomena: "Navi" just so happens to be the Hebrew translation of "Oracle".
  • When the thieves decide on their code names in the Japanese version, they come up with a Japanese term, and in order to better keep up their disguises, another character (usually Ann, who can fluently speak English in-universe) comes up with the equivalent term in English, and chooses it as their name (I.E "karasu" for Crow, Akechi's codename, or "dokuro" for Skull, Ryuji's codename). Since this is impossible to replicate in English, the translation angle is dropped and they just pick their names - although it comes back slightly for Akechi, who actually wants to go with "Karasu" as his codename at first. Morgana points out the Gratuitous Japanese, and they go for Crow instead.
  • One of Shadow Madarame's unique attacks is his own variant of Megido. In the Japanese version, the move was written in kanji that phonetically read as "Megido" (The normal Megido is written in Katakana). Since this is impossible to replicate in English, the localization turns it into Madara-Megido.
  • During the trip to Hawaii, the original Japanese version has Ryuji making a humorously pathetic attempt to speak English with the customs official. In the English dub, where there's no language barrier, Ryuji instead misunderstands the man's question in a way that would be possible if they were both speaking English.
  • Futaba would often quote internet memes and other franchises. For an anti-social computer geek like her, being a Meme Lord isn't too far out there for her. (The Japanese artbook even hints at such).
  • Futaba's "Me near, okay?" during her Confidant ^note Should Joker pursue her romantically was a change in the localization, but it fits her better as a character by showing her awkwardness in a cute manner.
  • The bar in Shinjuku was named "Nyuukama" ("Newcomer"), with "nyuu" short for "slippery" (hence the snail in the logo) and "kama" meaning "drag queen." The English version changes it to "Crossroads", which not only preserves the spirit of the original name, with "cross" being a pun for "crossdressing," but also adds a reference to Western folk mythology since it is at "Crossroads" where you make a deal with Ichiko Ohya, the Devil Confidant.
  • The magazine Ann gives you at the end of the game isn't named in the original version — it was named "Magazine with Ann's photoshoot." In the English version, the magazine was given the name Vague, a parody of Vogue.
  • In the Cruise Ship Palace, the Thieves have to speak with a posh Japanese businessman who dismisses the girls as not worth his time. Ann, thinking quickly, introduces herself as British royalty to make him change his mind. In the Japanese version, she says "Nice to meet you, my name is Ann Windsor" in English. In the English version, she says "I'm quite charmed to meet you, sir! My name is Ann Windsor!" in a very posh British accent instead.
• Writer Cop Out: Morgana being brought back to life after the destruction of Mementos made him fade from existence. While it is sad for the Phantom Thieves to watch him fade away, Morgana is given an amazing send off of which he gives a very heartwarming speech to the Phantom Thieves about how the world and reality can change based on how people see and feel things, and that people like them will give the world infinite potential. Even those who didn't like him because of his annoying ego and his treatment of Ryuji thought that this was a great and noble way to send him off as a character. But once it's revealed that Morgana is alive, it really made that whole scene fall flat for some people, especially with him returning to his annoyingly vain personality that has caused him a number of detractors in the first place.

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