Recommended difficulty?

[DaniTheHero]

I most likely won't be playing the game more than one and I'd prefer having my experience be as authentic to the vision of the devs and challenging.
I don't want the game to be so easy I barely need to think about it, nor do I want it to make it terribly hard where I need to grind a lot and every single mistake wipes me.

I researched some threads that don't involve spoilers and seemed to have gotten a mixed conclusion.

Pretty much half and half of people agree on either Hard or Merciless, while others just say to play on Normal and not bother with certain grindy aspects.

[Ceriss]

That's gonna be hit or miss to answer correctly.

You can't make your skill a tangible thing for us to rate really, and nor can the people who are telling you what difficulty to play.

Here's something measurable, I got cocky since I just started, thinking that the beginning would be completely unthreatening like P4G, but that wasn't the case. One battle I was being sloppy and careless and ended up with all my characters one hit away from death within about 2-3 turns.

That's on normal, so I'd say that's a good balance of lenience and punishment imo. At least that's something objective you can measure here. 2-3 mistakes to death an acceptable metric for you?

[Exarch_Alpha]

Hard is the way to go if you are a P4 veteran.

[Trolleur_Durden]

I'm near the end of the game I think and I went with merciless difficulty, overall it's really not that hard, provided you use game mechanics the way they are intended. With the 1 more and baton pass mechanics, this game feels almost like a puzzle game, and almost all fights can be won with ease during the first turn if you know what you are doing. It's also mandatory to do ambush battles in order to have a guaranteed initiative. I've had a couple of wipes when I was careless and got myself ambushed, if this happens enemies will definitely target your teammates weaknesses and 1 more you all to death with ease.

[prudenut]

Atlus games are usually very unbalanced and bs on any difficulty above normal. You’re just gonna have less viable options to work with and you’re gonna feel punished way more than feel rewarded. Then again, I hear the DLC that is unavoidable to refuse in Royal will make you OP from the start, so.

[Faiyez]

I suggest you begin playing the game in Easy. You can change it to normal once you feel comfortable.

The required grind in Hard is pretty stupid and unfun, so even though it's what I play, I take it down to easy on occasion just to catch up on exp.

Anyone who recommends you to go merciless for the "challenge" is a certified idiot.

[Steel]

I don't think the devs even cared about difficulty or balance enough in Royal to warrant following their vision lol, way too many broken things they added.
Without mods your best bet is Hard + never click on the DLC box in your room, but that's still very easy.

[Lynfinity]

Originally posted by Faiyez:

The required grind in Hard is pretty stupid and unfun

"The required grind" is nothing more than unlocking "Insta-Kill" and doing Mementos every now and then. It's pretty easy to become overleveled for the next boss in just two or three 20 mins sessions.

[1Erik1]

Grind isn't necessary at all, in fact I have to avoid gaining xp to keep things challenging and fuse less powerful personas/go for risky skill transformations to keep the game more challenging. At least as someone who has past experience with Persona and plays on Merciless.
The game will unlock various tools for you to get out of control power wise the more you play and the better you are at managing your time. So don't worry, go in blind and explore for yourself.
Honestly I'd recommend Hard if you want a challenge. You can change the difficulty at any point unless you go for the lowest difficulty and there are no achievements related to difficulty.

There are certain exciting things to unlock in a new game+ so I do recommend going for at least two runs. Especially if you go for self imposed challenges like beating stuff you are not supposed to beat at very early stages on a second playthrough.

DLC personas are above the power curve and the game itself points that out as well, so I'd recommend using them sparingly.

Most important thing though. Nothing beats the first blind run of any Persona game. Ignorance is a bliss and makes things exciting. I would recommend not looking up anything and sticking to whatever decision you want to make.
Remember one must take full responsibility for ones actions.

[Ivas]

I'd say play on normal if you never played Persona games and bump it up to hard if it's too easy. If you have experience than hard is the way to go, thankfully P5R is the easiest of Personas. Merciless is different game mode, not harder difficulty, so I'd say it's for 2'd playthrough. Or just try it, if you not going with safe, you can change difficulty anytime

[Exarch_Alpha]

~Why it is different?

[Ivas]

Originally posted by Exarch_Alpha:

~Why it is different?

Because damage from elemental weaknesses, Critical and Technical damage from any source will be tripled in comparison to other difficulties

[Xelane]

Only one playthrough and on a difficulty the devs intended? Normal.

[DaniTheHero]

Originally posted by Xelane:

Only one playthrough and on a difficulty the devs intended? Normal.

Thank you, i'm doing that

[kazekiri]

I played on Normal and it was kind of easy, but I abused the fusion alarm mechanic so yeah. I recommend Hard; if you find yourself struggling, it's nothing a grinding session in Mementos and fusion alarm abuse can't fix.

[Arifufu]

The right answer is Persona 4 Golden very hard mode, less money less exp will make u grind hard especially when u avoid fight gold hands while in P5R? face Reaper once and u become a god-tier team. in P4G u need to fight gold hands like multiple times to become god-tier team in very hard mode, not to mention they easy to escape while Reaper won't escape.

In other hand Persona 5 Royal Normal or Hard give same exact exp and money amount, also Jose will able double amount exp and money regardless difficulty if player invest stamps on him. Tbh i was surprise that Normal or Hard diff in Royal give same exact exp and money, while merciless give 20% more money and exp. The real challenge actually in Merciless, if u want to make P5R more interesting u should get all ailments skills in one persona, avoid using multitarget skills but AOE ailments skills and then exploit technical attack one by one (using single target skill) whenever u face enemies.

I guess Atlus recieve too many critics because past Persona games too grindy, yeah i know how awful P4G and enemy in P4G literally can one shot player if underleveled, so Atlus just simply put more exp and money, not to mention when using gallow when fusion alarm triggered really give bunch of exp for persona that u strengthen even P5R allow to fuse persona that has higher level of MC with just some yen, soo to make this game really hard u need to avoid using some mechanics, but please exploit technical damage even further because that's where real P5R challenge is.

IDK about P3F or P3P because i never play them yet, but i think P3 is even harder because u need to re-roll the skills set when to do fusion although P3P offers skill card while P3F doesnt have skill card feature nor control party member.

my advice is enjoy P5R as u wish, if u want to avoid using some mechanics in this game to make this game harder for u just do it the only exception is doing technical damage, because technical damage currently is exclusive to P5.