The difficulty is a setting that influences battle.
Contents
Overview[edit | edit source]
Persona 4 / Golden[edit | edit source]
Steam Version[edit | edit source]
In the Steam version of Persona 4 Golden, it is possible to change the difficulty setting at any time. Customization options are expanded as well, allowing to either choose from presets, or modify each parameter individually.
- Damage Taken - Great, Normal, Small
- Damage Given - Great, Normal, Small
- EXP Won - More, Normal, Less
- Money Won - More, Normal, Less
- Retries in Dungeons - Use, Don't Use
- Retries in Battles - Use, Don't Use
Persona 5 / Royal[edit | edit source]
In Persona 5, the difficulty setting can be selected at the start of a new playthrough, and changed in the middle of one. Via modifiers, the difficulty setting affects the damage output (which differs between whether it's from allies and enemies) and the Experience and money received from battle. The modifiers vary between Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal.
Initially, for Persona 5, Merciless mode was a DLC difficulty setting. However, in Persona 5 Royal, the setting appears inside the game by default, and does not need to be downloaded separately.
| Difficulty | Damage received | Damage dealt | EXP | Money |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Safety | x0.5 | x2.0 | x3.0 | x5.0 |
| Easy | x0.5 | x1.0 | x1.0 | x1.0 |
| Normal | x1.0 | x1.0 | x1.0 | x1.0 |
| Hard | x1.6 | x0.8 | x1.0 | x1.0 |
| Merciless | x1.6 | x0.8 | x0.4 | x1.0 |
| Difficulty | Damage received | Damage dealt | EXP | Money |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Safe | x0.5 | x1.6 | x1.5 | x1.5 |
| Easy | x0.5 | x1.0 | x1.2 | x1.2 |
| Normal | x1.0 | x1.0 | x1.0 | x1.0 |
| Hard | x1.6 | x0.8 | x1.0 | x1.0 |
| Merciless | x1.6 | x0.65 | x1.2 | x1.2 |
Additionally, in Safety mode, if the protagonist dies and triggers a Game Over, the game will grant the option to revive the entire party with full HP and SP. However, the difficulty cannot be changed if set up for the rest of the playthrough, and can only be changed in New Game Plus.
If the game is set to Merciless, in Game Over, there will be no option to retry from the previous Safe Room. Additionally, in battle, damage from elemental weaknesses, Critical and Technical damage from any source will be tripled in comparison to other difficulties.
The difficulty setting also affects infiltration and exploration: it can determine how much the Security Meter raises and lowers. Also, enemies are slowed down in Easy and Safety.
In fusion, if the difficulty is Merciless, the experience gain from hanging is cut to 1/3.
Persona 5 Strikers[edit | edit source]
In Persona 5 Strikers, there are 3 difficulties available upon starting a new game: Easy, Normal and Hard. The difficulty can be changed at any time outside battle or during an in-game cutscene.
After the option to start a New Game+ is unlocked, the player will have the option to start New Game+ on Merciless difficulty. This option is only available when starting New Game+, and cannot be changed to during gameplay.
Unlike the standard difficulty settings, Merciless difficulty imposes vast changes to gameplay, making the game significantly harder:
- Merciless difficulty cannot be changed once selected.
- Enemies will have their levels scaled to match the player's expected level upon unlocking New Game+. Some enemies will also have more challenging resistance tables, and some will even possess new attacks.
- As a consequence, enemies defeated in Merciless will also drop Persona masks of an appropriate level. This makes fusing Persona in Merciless significantly easier, as this allows the player to earn high level Persona needed for certain Fusions without spending Persona Points to level up the materials.
- Enemies deal more damage and their Down Gauges are harder to break.
- If the player's party is defeated, the option to Retry Battle will not be available, and the player must resume from either the last accessed checkpoint or the start of the current infiltration.
- Being detected by an enemy will automatically raise the Security Level even if the enemy does not immediately initiate combat.
- EXP and Money awarded by combat is greatly increased.
- Normal encounters drop much more valuable items, such as powerful Accessories formerly exclusive to Dire Shadows and varying types of Incenses. Dire Shadows themselves drop a character's ultimate weapon upon defeat instead of an Accessory.
