Beginner’s Guide

Persona 5 Strikers may be a sequel from the original Persona 5 game but there are considerable changes and game mechanics that gives it a standalone identity while maintaining the core Persona 5 experience. Veterans of the series will quickly adapt to these changes but for brand new players, we’re here to help with tips and pointers to get you started.

Relaxed Time Restrictions

Persona 5 fans will be familiar with a strict timeline where you have to plan your every move to get the most out of your day and story progress. That limitation applies to Persona 5’s dungeons (called Palaces) in which exiting them will cause the day to move on, limiting your exploration.

In Persona 5 Strikers, the dungeons you’ll explore in the game are called Jails and you can leave and re-enter them without progressing the day. Since the time restriction is removed, you can have relaxed gameplay and use the chance to leave/re-enter a dungeon to freely resupply, heal up, and grind for EXP, money, persona drops, items drops, and more.

Keep a Balanced Party

As with traditional RPGs, having a well-balanced party will make combat very manageable. Each character will have their predetermined role since their skills will depend on their unique personas. Joker on the other hand, can equip multiple personas which allows him to be very flexible in filling in the various roles in your party including offense and backup healing. Adjust Joker’s Personas and your team composition as regularly as needed.

Use all your characters!

It’s a given that we all have a preferred team based on our favorite characters but in Persona 5 Strikers, using all of them by regularly switching them in battle will allow you to unlock their Master Arts. These are special skills unique to each character which will unlock new attacks or considerably enhance their existing combat capabilities. Each character has 4 Master Arts and the only way they can earn EXP to unlock these skills is to defeat enemies while they’re part of the active combat party.

Explore Jails Thoroughly

Collecting loot and thoroughly exploring dungeons is a standard RPG task. Jails (P5S dungeons) are no different. You’ll find valuable loot inside chests and treasures that will respawn when you leave and re-enter the jail. While exploring, try to collect any floating boxes that you encounter; these are usually needed for requests, even if you haven’t started the ones they’re needed for yet. It’s more convenient to have the request items on hand when you finally accept the request they’re supposed to be part of.

Invest on Bond Skills

Bond Skills are special passive effects and buffs that are applied to your entire party. To purchase them, you’ll need Bond Points. These are obtained as your Bond Level increases. Bond Level can be increased by defeating enemies in Jails or socializing with your allies in the real world.

Allocated Bond Points can’t be recovered or re-allocated to a different Bond Skill so make sure to read the description and select the one that you wanted. More Bond Skills will become available as you proceed with the story and you can increase the level of unlocked Bond Skills by completing certain requests.

Grind as Necessary

As mentioned above, leaving the jail won’t progress the story so it’s possible to keep grinding and farming on a specific jail through several expeditions. When you leave a jail your party’s HP and SP will be completely restored as well so there’s really no demerit for leaving the jail to recuperate and resupply.

Jails have useful checkpoints where you can leave and resume your exploration. Collected treasures (loot) will respawn but valuable treasures inside chests won’t respawn after looting them. With these helpful features available, grinding for money, EXP, items, etc is a lot more relaxed in Persona 5 Strikers.

Always Talk to Your Allies

When you’re not fighting shadows and exploring the metaverse, you’ll be enjoying the real world. While outside, always talk to your allies at every opportunity possible. Aside from having some entertaining dialogue with them, you can also possibly get the following:

* Freebies, some even valuable missable items.

* Cooking Recipes (that you can’t possibly get anywhere else)

* Special (missable) requests

* RV Decorations.

Thoroughly Explore Every Location

The crew will travel to many different locations in Japan. However, once you leave to another location, you won’t be able to visit the previous locations again (except for their respective Jails which are always accessible). Make sure to check out the local delicacies and shops exclusive to the area since they’ll most likely sell items that you can’t get anywhere else.

A good example of such items are Cooking Recipes that you can get from local restaurants and cafes. These recipes are not entirely missable since they’ll appear in Sophia’s shop but they’ll cost more. So to save some money, try to get these when you’re in town.

There are also certain locations in each locale that can boost your Bond Level. There’s one for each location and seeking them out will give you a chance to speed up your Bond Level increase.

Complete All Requests

Requests are Persona 5 Striker’s sidequests. These will become available throughout the game and will vary in difficulty. Some requests will require you to complete tasks related to Jails or in the real world. Some requests are also repeatable though their rewards will differ on subsequent completions. Requests can be skipped; if ever you skipped a quest, you can’t re-accept it until you stop over to the next city.

Obviously, you can get great rewards that you can’t get anywhere else from completing requests such as new Recipes, persona Fusion materials or skill cards, bond level EXP, weapons and equipment, unlock new items for sale in Sophia’s shop, and many more.