Challenge run ideas?

[Biggs]

Kinda want to do another playthrough, but I don't want it to be a complete cakewalk again.

Anyone have any kind of self imposed challenges (like nuzlockes in pokemon) that would spice the game up?

I also wouldn't be opposed to a straight up difficulty mod if one exists.

[Dai]

https://gamebanana.com/mods/420954 you can choose your own difficulty and pair it up with some custom challenge rules of your own

[Helnano]

I guess you can make a nuzlocke run too. After all nuzlocke is about setting rules based on the challenge we seek.

I haven't thought about challenges in this game but throwing some ideas based on pokemon runs
* You can only get a persona of the first enemy group per save room/Mementos level. Maybe disable compendium to make doubles worth for fusion, gallows and items
* Pseudo-permadeath - If an ally dies, he/she can't be used for the rest of the Palace. Start from the beginning if Joker dies
* No items to restore hp/sp, Can't disable restoring outside the Palace but you could limit how many times you can leave
* Your team level can not exceed certain amount based on the Palace Boss. Maybe limit the amount of "fights" you can have, forcing a more "sneak thief" run. Similar "challenges" are quests in P5S

[gamergamer83]

you can could try a joker only challenge, though you'd have to make exceptions here and there for thing like forced party swaps

[Ceriss]

No support or healing skills, pick a Persona with tons of weaknesses and have no drain/repel/null skills.

Only tier 1 skills, no new equipment. There's a few ideas to give you a painful playthrough.

[SubTonic]

A simple but effective way to make fights more engaging, from my own experience, is to just stop ambushing shadows and stop using all-out attacks. Otherwise you spend like 80% of combat just knocking enemies down before they can act and then 1-shotting them all. This negates that specific advantage.

And yes, you can start a fight sans ambush without raising the security level, it just requires some decent timing (there's a small window where a shadow is just surprised to see you and you hit them before the alarm). And even if you do raise security by messing this up sometimes, it gives you a reason to use the infiltration tools that lower palace security.

[Douchebag Extraordinaire]

Jack Frost, solo run.

[Biggs]

Alright, so based on some of the suggestions here plus some thinking of my own I've got a rough idea of something that might be interesting to try (putting it here in case anyone else gets the idea to do a challenge run too)

Main thing I wanted to achieve with this challenge is making the game harder without necessarily restricting myself from basic gameplay mechanics.

1. Fresh save file: I wanted to do NG+ so I could fight Lavenza but the entire rest of the game in NG+ will just feel easy. (Bonus HP/SP from training, early max confidant abilities, etc.) Fresh save also makes the daily life aspect of the game more interesting and meaningful again.

2. Hard difficulty: Merciless feels easier to me and one shotting shadows you want to recruit is just annoying.

3. No items in battle: Anything can be used outside of battle, but nothing can be used within it. (Might put some limitation on SP items to make managing it properly important?)

4. Level cap: No leveling past the level of the current palace boss. As for joker, same rule applies to personas. (And just consciously avoid overleveling joker)

5. "Permadeath": When a party member dies, they get benched for the rest of that palace.

6. No skill cards: Encourages more elaborate fusions to get specific skills you want.

7. No drain/null/deflect skills: Resist skills should be fine to use, but no immunities.

8. All party members set to AI control: Can choose specific tactics, but no direct control. Makes character building for other party members more important.

9. No DLC box/personas: I want the costumes just for cosmetics/battle themes, but I won't open the box until the 200k gift isn't worth much (3rd or 4th palace maybe?), obviously won't use the accessories that come with them.

If anyone has any other suggestions that fall in line with these rules, or any tweaks to what I already have, I'm all ears