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* TradeYourPassionForGlory: [[spoiler:The group starts to lose sight of their original goal to inspire people to change when they try to win support from the public by going after more high-profile targets that they allow the people to choose, unintentionally turning themselves into a fad rather then true social reformists in the public's eyes. Shido and Goro take advantage of it to screw them over.]]
** [[spoiler:A more straight example occurs with the deal offered by Yaldabaoth. After nearly erasing the Phantom Thieves from reality, he offers to cut a deal with Joker that will ensure the Phantom Thieves stay in business and remain famous and loved, at the cost of leaving the Holy Grail (to which people are subconsciously surrendering their free will) alone. Naturally, getting the true ending requires sticking to your principles and refusing the offer.]]
** [[spoiler:A more straight example occurs with the deal offered by Yaldabaoth. After nearly erasing the Phantom Thieves from reality, he offers to cut a deal with Joker that will ensure the Phantom Thieves stay in business and remain famous and loved, at the cost of leaving the Holy Grail (to which people are subconsciously surrendering their free will) alone. Naturally, getting the true ending requires sticking to your principles and refusing the offer.]]
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* TradeYourPassionForGlory: TradeYourPassionForGlory:
** [[spoiler:The group starts to lose sight of their original goal to inspire people to change when they try to win support from the public by going after more high-profile targets that they allow the people to choose, unintentionally turning themselves into a fad rather then true social reformists in the public's eyes. Shido and Goro take advantage of it to screw them over.]]
**[[spoiler:A more straight [[spoiler:An invoked example occurs with the deal offered by Yaldabaoth. After nearly erasing the Phantom Thieves from reality, he offers to cut a deal with Joker that will ensure the Phantom Thieves stay in business and remain famous and loved, at the cost of leaving the Holy Grail (to which people are subconsciously surrendering their free will) alone. Naturally, getting the true ending requires sticking to your principles and refusing the offer.]]
** [[spoiler:The group starts to lose sight of their original goal to inspire people to change when they try to win support from the public by going after more high-profile targets that they allow the people to choose, unintentionally turning themselves into a fad rather then true social reformists in the public's eyes. Shido and Goro take advantage of it to screw them over.]]
**
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* ShooTheDog: [[spoiler:Morgana]] tries this after leaving due to feeling inadequate after one particular palace. After agreeing to a temporary truce, he says he'll drag them down but is told to stop lying to himself, and all is forgiven.
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[[spoiler:'''[[BonusBoss Justine & Caroline]]''': DON'T GET COCKY]]
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[[spoiler:'''[[BonusBoss Justine & Caroline]]''': DON'T GET BE SO COCKY]]
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* YearX: Rather than being a specific year as previous games, the in-story calendar is dated 20XX. Though if one correlates calendars, and given other hints in the game (like Rise still releasing albums while not looking ''terribly'' much older than she did in ''VideoGame/Persona4'', and a TV broadcast later stating that she's 20, it's pretty clear the game takes place in 2016. [[note]]As a refresher, Rise was born on June 1, 1995; she was 16 when ''Persona 4'' happened in 2011 and doing the math tells you that she'll be hitting 21 in 2016.[[/note]]
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* YearX: Rather than being a specific year as previous games, the in-story calendar is dated 20XX. Though if one correlates calendars, and given other hints in the game (like Rise still releasing albums while not looking ''terribly'' much older than she did in ''VideoGame/Persona4'', and a TV broadcast later stating that she's 20, 20), it's pretty clear the game takes place in 2016. [[note]]As a refresher, Rise was born on June 1, 1995; she was 16 when ''Persona 4'' happened in 2011 and doing the math tells you that she'll be hitting 21 in 2016.[[/note]]
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* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: Justified. [[spoiler:Anything involving the Protagonist's plan to fake his death and expose Akechi and his boss isn't shown until the Protagonist is putting it into motion. This is because the Protagonist was heavily drugged, thus he legitimately did not remember that there was a plan until the last minute, and the game fades to white before any scenes involving the plan.]]
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* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: Justified. [[spoiler:Anything involving the Protagonist's plan to fake his death and expose Akechi and his boss isn't shown until the Protagonist is putting it into motion. This is because the Protagonist was heavily drugged, thus he legitimately did not remember that there was a plan until the last minute, and the game fades to white before any scenes involving the plan. In fact, a few crucial mistakes can trigger the interrogation room bad ending, where Sae ends the interrogation before the Protagonist can remember what he's supposed to do.]]
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** [[spoiler:A more straight example occurs with the deal offered by Yaldabaoth. After nearly erasing the Phantom Thieves from reality, he offers to cut a deal with Joker that ensures the Phantom Thieves will stay in business and remain famous and loved, at the cost of leaving the Holy Grail (to which people are subconsciously surrendering their free will) alone.)]]
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** [[spoiler:A more straight example occurs with the deal offered by Yaldabaoth. After nearly erasing the Phantom Thieves from reality, he offers to cut a deal with Joker that ensures will ensure the Phantom Thieves will stay in business and remain famous and loved, at the cost of leaving the Holy Grail (to which people are subconsciously surrendering their free will) alone.)]]alone. Naturally, getting the true ending requires sticking to your principles and refusing the offer.]]
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** [[spoiler:A more straight example occurs with the deal offered by Yaldabaoth. After nearly erasing the Phantom Thieves from reality, he offers to cut a deal with Joker that ensures the Phantom Thieves will stay in business and remain famous and loved, at the cost of leaving the Holy Grail (to which people are subconsciously surrendering their free will) alone.)]]
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* TheUnfought: [[spoiler:While Medjed is built up to be a serious threat, the real objective of that chapter is to help Futaba. Who deals with them by herself off screen.]]
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* TheUnfought: TheUnfought:
** [[spoiler:While Medjed is built up to be a serious threat, the real objective of that chapter is to help Futaba. Who deals with them by herself off screen.]]]]
** The Thieves decide to steal [[spoiler:Mishima]]'s heart late in his confidant chain when it looks like he's becoming a problem. Rather than fight his Shadow however Joker decides to talk to it and convinces him to change on his own.
** [[spoiler:While Medjed is built up to be a serious threat, the real objective of that chapter is to help Futaba. Who deals with them by herself off screen.
** The Thieves decide to steal [[spoiler:Mishima]]'s heart late in his confidant chain when it looks like he's becoming a problem. Rather than fight his Shadow however Joker decides to talk to it and convinces him to change on his own.
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* WaterWakeup: This is how Joker is woken up at the start of the game by the police interrogators. [[PoliceBrutality They proceed to beat a confession out of him]].
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* YourMindMakesItReal: Cognition allows for anything to become real if influenced by a strong enough person's will or a collective. The Metaverse has items there like "red phosphorus", an extremely explosive powder that in real life is only an urban legend, and includes creating perfect versions of objects that also exist in the real world, like the Treasures found within Palaces. [[spoiler:Morgana's words before he disappears also make it clear that ''everything'' is influenced by Cognition, and that what humans consider the "real world" is no more real than the Metaverse. Likewise Morgana thinks it's the Phantom Thieves' Cognition of him that allowed him to continue living even as a cat. His words and the concept strongly suggest Cognition is Persona's equivalent to ''Shin Megami Tensei's'' Observation]].
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* YourMindMakesItReal: Cognition allows for anything to become real if influenced by a strong enough person's will or a collective. The Metaverse has items there like "red phosphorus", an extremely explosive powder that in real life is only an urban legend, and includes creating perfect versions of objects that also exist in the real world, like the Treasures found within Palaces. [[spoiler:This also works in reverse: if ''not enough'' people believe in something, it will ''not'' exist in the Metaverse. Near the ending Yaldabaoth combines Mementos with the real world, resulting in the Phantom Thieves (temporarily) being wiped from existence because no one believes they exist]]. [[spoiler:Morgana's words before he disappears also make it clear that ''everything'' is influenced by Cognition, and that what humans consider the "real world" is no more real than the Metaverse. Likewise Morgana thinks it's the Phantom Thieves' Cognition of him that allowed him to continue living even as a cat. His words and the concept strongly suggest Cognition is Persona's equivalent to ''Shin Megami Tensei's'' Observation]].
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** During the segments when the mini-calendar on the top left fast-forwards to the present, any player would notice the date stops on a certain date once their getting closer to the day Joker gets captured. [[spoiler:Which is November 20th.]]
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** During the segments when the mini-calendar on the top left fast-forwards to the present, any player would notice the date stops on a certain date once their they're getting closer to the day Joker gets captured. [[spoiler:Which is November 20th.]]
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I see this one quite often so I thought it should bear mention.
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* ViewersAreGoldfish: A common complaint against the game is that it repeats itself constantly. It often takes the form of a major discussion being had and then it's contents being repeated on the main characters phone or through more dialogue.
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** The confrontation with the Traitor. [[spoiler: Akechi reveals that he's Shido's bastard son, and he's been causing mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns on his behalf so he can set him up for a fall. However, even more surprising than that, it turns out that he has ''a second Persona'' with the power to induce psychotic breakdowns. And at the end of it all, just when the Thieves seem to be giving him a second chance, he sacrifices himself to save the Thieves from an army of Shadows.]]
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** The confrontation with the Traitor. [[spoiler: Akechi [[spoiler:Akechi reveals that he's Shido's bastard son, and he's been causing mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns on his behalf so he can set him up for a fall. However, even more surprising than that, it turns out that he has ''a second Persona'' with the power to induce psychotic breakdowns. And at the end of it all, just when the Thieves seem to be giving him a second chance, he sacrifices himself to save the Thieves from an army of Shadows.]]
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** In the path to the good ending, a cutscene shows the reaction of the Phantom Thieves to [[spoiler: Joker's arrest and apparent "suicide"]]. They are all appropriately concerned and horrified by the turn of events, and then...
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** In the path to the good ending, a cutscene shows the reaction of the Phantom Thieves to [[spoiler: Joker's [[spoiler:Joker's arrest and apparent "suicide"]]. They are all appropriately concerned and horrified by the turn of events, and then...
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** [[spoiler: Akechi summoning Loki.]]
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** [[spoiler: Akechi [[spoiler:Akechi summoning Loki.Loki, and by extension revealing he has more than one Persona.]]
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** The confrontation with the Traitor. [[spoiler: Akechi reveals that he's Shido's bastard son, and he's been causing mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns on his behalf so he can set him up for a fall. However, even more surprising than that, it turns out that he has ''a second Persona'' with the power to induce psychotic breakdowns. And at the end of it all, just when the Thieves seem to be giving him a second chance, he sacrifices himself to save the Thieves from an army of Shadows.]]
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** [[spoiler: Akechi summoning Loki.]]
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* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: While the game is much more DarkerAndEdgier than it's predecessor, it is just as Idealistic as it, with characters managing to overcome both their flaws and their opposition [[spoiler:with an ultimately happy conclusion]].
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* TruthInTelevision: Futaba's sleeping habit before joining the team, falling asleep suddenly and for long periods of time, actually is a symptom of heavy depression, although Futaba's is exaggerated for comedy and plot reasons. People who suffer heavy depression can become fatigued, drowsy, or otherwise tired without any outside input depending on what mental state they're in, to the point of being able to sleep in a state that a healthy person would consider impossible, such as after they've gotten a full nights rest with daylight clearly visible.
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* TruthInTelevision: Futaba's sleeping habit before joining the team, falling asleep suddenly and for long periods of time, actually is a symptom of heavy depression, although Futaba's is exaggerated for comedy and plot reasons. People who suffer heavy depression can become fatigued, drowsy, or otherwise tired without any outside input depending on what mental state they're in, to the point of being able to sleep in a state that a healthy person would consider impossible, such as after they've gotten a full nights night's rest with daylight clearly visible.
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* TruthInTelevision: Futaba's sleeping habit before joining the team, falling asleep suddenly and for long periods of time, actually is a symptom of heavy depression, although Futaba's is exaggerated for comedy and plot reasons. People who suffer heavy depression can become fatigued, drowsy, or otherwise tired without any outside input depending on what mental state they're in, to the point of being able to sleep in a state that a healthy person would consider impossible, such as after they've gotten a full nights rest with daylight clearly visible.
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* SequelHook: A small one, but during the ending cutscene, the heroes find that [[spoiler:they are being tailed by men in black suits. We do not know exactly who they are or what they want, but Morgana sabotages their car and the heroes drive away so the answer is unknown. They could be part of the conspiracy out for revenge or they could be something different.]]
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** [[spoiler:Tae Takemi's]] boss hijacked [[spoiler:her]] research so that he could lay claim to a breakthrough discovery.
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** [[spoiler:Tae Takemi's]] boss hijacked [[spoiler:her]] research so that he could lay claim to a breakthrough discovery. Then blamed [[spoiler:her]] when his recklessness ruined the project.
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** "Our Beginning", the song that plays in the background [[spoiler:as Satanael finishes off Yaldaboath]], is an epic orchestral reprise of both the heroic solo from [[spoiler:Yaldaboath's boss theme]] and "Swear to My Bones".
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** "Our Beginning", the song that plays in the background [[spoiler:as Satanael finishes off Yaldaboath]], is an epic orchestral rock reprise of both the heroic solo from [[spoiler:Yaldaboath's boss theme]] and "Swear to My Bones".
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* TriumphantReprise: The Phantom Thieves' "Life Will Change" theme is a faster, more upbeat version of the opening "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There" theme. It also replaces the questioning, lamenting lyrics of the opening with a triumphant promise that the singers will change the world themselves.
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* TriumphantReprise: TriumphantReprise:
** The Phantom Thieves' "Life Will Change" theme is a faster, more upbeat version of the opening "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There" theme. It also replaces the questioning, lamenting lyrics of the opening with a triumphant promise that the singers will change the worldthemselves.themselves.
** "Our Beginning", the song that plays in the background [[spoiler:as Satanael finishes off Yaldaboath]], is an epic orchestral reprise of both the heroic solo from [[spoiler:Yaldaboath's boss theme]] and "Swear to My Bones".
** The Phantom Thieves' "Life Will Change" theme is a faster, more upbeat version of the opening "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There" theme. It also replaces the questioning, lamenting lyrics of the opening with a triumphant promise that the singers will change the world
** "Our Beginning", the song that plays in the background [[spoiler:as Satanael finishes off Yaldaboath]], is an epic orchestral reprise of both the heroic solo from [[spoiler:Yaldaboath's boss theme]] and "Swear to My Bones".
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* UngratefulBitch: Subverted. The woman whom the protagonist helped before his prosecution is forced to cooperate with her molester or she too will suffer the consequences.
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* UngratefulBitch: Subverted.Justified. The woman whom the protagonist helped before his prosecution is forced to cooperate with her molester or she too will suffer the consequences. [[spoiler:During the protagonist's time in juvie, the protagonist's friends eventually find the woman and get her help in freeing the protagonist, subverting the trope.]]
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* ViewerFriendlyInterface: Mostly averted - almost all of the screens in-game have realistic-looking interfaces, and if what they're displaying is relevant, the cast will speak it aloud for the player's benefit. Played straight with the messenger app, however, which has [[https://i.imgur.com/iR0UMKI.jpg somewhat unrealistically-large text with every contact conveniently having a uniform avatar of their face to let the player know who's saying what]]. Being as it fits the bright red color motif and bringing it up shows Joker's hand as being in a sketchy, chalk white style, however, it's implied the app doesn't ''really'' look like that, and instead takes this appearance as an out-of-universe HUD element.
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* SinisterSubway: Mementos, which resembles a subway system full of Shadows and veins, and carries passengers (people's Shadows) deep into the earth [[spoiler:to the Prison of Regression]].
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--->'''[[spoiler:Ryuji:]]''' You're shitting me....[[spoiler:[[JustAsPlanned We got 'em.]]]]
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--->'''[[spoiler:Ryuji:]]''' You're shitting me.... [[spoiler:[[JustAsPlanned We got 'em.]]]]
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** The cutscene entering [[spoiler:Sae Nijima's]] Palace for the first time places the thieves a good distance away from the actual palace, in a minimally distorted area of the Metaverse. Then the camera pans up to show us a [[spoiler:familiar-looking casino, and we realize we've been here before...]]
** The TraitorShot, wherein [[spoiler:the traitor Goro Akechi]] suddenly obtains a much, much more sinister-looking dialogue portrait than all of their previous ones.
** The TraitorShot, wherein [[spoiler:the traitor Goro Akechi]] suddenly obtains a much, much more sinister-looking dialogue portrait than all of their previous ones.
to:
** During the segments when the mini-calendar on the top left fast-forwards to the present, any player would notice the date stops on a certain date once their getting closer to the day Joker gets captured. [[spoiler:Which is November 20th.]]
** The cutscene entering [[spoiler:Sae Nijima's]] Palace for the first time places the thieves a good distance away from the actual palace, in a minimally distorted area of the Metaverse. Then the camera pans up to showus a [[spoiler:familiar-looking casino, and we realize we've been here before...one that was seen at the game's beginning.]]
** The TraitorShot, wherein[[spoiler:the traitor Goro [[spoiler:Goro Akechi]] suddenly obtains a much, much more sinister-looking dialogue portrait than all of their previous ones.
** The cutscene entering [[spoiler:Sae Nijima's]] Palace for the first time places the thieves a good distance away from the actual palace, in a minimally distorted area of the Metaverse. Then the camera pans up to show
** The TraitorShot, wherein
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** [[spoiler:Shido's]] palace is the National Diet building as a giant cruise ship sailing through the rest of Japan, which is completely underwater. In real estate, "underwater" is a slang term for a property with a mortgage balance that's higher than its market value, which is true of a lot of Japanese land due to a huge financial crisis in 1992.
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** Only a few minutes into the game, a police investigator is reading the crimes Joker has been charged with, the last one possibly leaving a doubt as to how heroic our protagonist really is:
--->'''Investigator:''' Obstruction of justice, blackmail, defamation, possession of weapons.... Manslaughter too, yeah? Talk about the works.
--->'''Investigator:''' Obstruction of justice, blackmail, defamation, possession of weapons.... Manslaughter too, yeah? Talk about the works.
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** [[spoiler:Kunikazu Okumura's death, which breaks Haru's heart, lands the Thieves in hot water with the authorities since it seems like they were responsible, and leads to revelations that TheConspiracy is much more powerful than the Thieves imagined.]]
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** [[spoiler:Kunikazu Okumura's death, which breaks Haru's heart, lands the Thieves in hot water with the authorities since it seems like they were responsible, tanks their public support, and leads to revelations that TheConspiracy is much more powerful than the Thieves imagined.]]]]
** October 26th, wherein [[spoiler:Akechi reveals he knows the identity of the Phantom Thieves and blackmails them into letting him join]].
** October 26th, wherein [[spoiler:Akechi reveals he knows the identity of the Phantom Thieves and blackmails them into letting him join]].
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** In the good ending, a cutscene shows the reaction of the surviving Phantom Thieves to the Protagonist's arrest [[spoiler:and apparent "suicide".]] They are all appropriately concerned and horrified by the turn of events, and then...
--->'''[[spoiler:Ryuji:]]''' You're shitting me....[[spoiler:[[JustAsPlanned we got 'em.]]]]
--->'''[[spoiler:Ryuji:]]''' You're shitting me....[[spoiler:[[JustAsPlanned we got 'em.]]]]
to:
** In the path to the good ending, a cutscene shows the reaction of the surviving Phantom Thieves to the Protagonist's [[spoiler: Joker's arrest [[spoiler:and and apparent "suicide".]] "suicide"]]. They are all appropriately concerned and horrified by the turn of events, and then...
--->'''[[spoiler:Ryuji:]]''' You're shitting me....[[spoiler:[[JustAsPlannedwe We got 'em.]]]]
--->'''[[spoiler:Ryuji:]]''' You're shitting me....[[spoiler:[[JustAsPlanned
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** The cutscene entering [[spoiler:Sae's]] Palace for the first time places the thieves a good distance away from the actual palace, in a minimally distorted area of the Metaverse. Then the camera pans up to show us a [[spoiler:familiar-looking casino, and we realize we've been here before...]]
** A similar effect takes place when the crew enters [[spoiler:Shido's Palace]]; it at first looks the same as reality, and their clothes haven't yet changed... until the camera pulls out to reveal [[spoiler:the Diet Building on the deck of a ship, afloat in a sea that has sunken Tokyo.]] The music especially assists hammering home its impact.
** A similar effect takes place when the crew enters [[spoiler:Shido's Palace]]; it at first looks the same as reality, and their clothes haven't yet changed... until the camera pulls out to reveal [[spoiler:the Diet Building on the deck of a ship, afloat in a sea that has sunken Tokyo.]] The music especially assists hammering home its impact.
to:
** The cutscene entering [[spoiler:Sae's]] [[spoiler:Sae Nijima's]] Palace for the first time places the thieves a good distance away from the actual palace, in a minimally distorted area of the Metaverse. Then the camera pans up to show us a [[spoiler:familiar-looking casino, and we realize we've been here before...]]
**A similar effect takes place when The TraitorShot, wherein [[spoiler:the traitor Goro Akechi]] suddenly obtains a much, much more sinister-looking dialogue portrait than all of their previous ones.
** When the crew enters [[spoiler:Shido's Palace]]; it at first looks the same as reality, and their clothes haven't yet changed... until the camera pulls out to reveal [[spoiler:the Diet Building on the deck of a ship, afloat in a sea that has sunken Tokyo.]] The music especially assists hammering home itsimpact.impact.
** Near the very end of the game, when Morgana [[spoiler:returns to Leblanc and his dialogue portrait is replaced with that of his housecat appearance, conveying he's lost his humanoid form]].
**
** When the crew enters [[spoiler:Shido's Palace]]; it at first looks the same as reality, and their clothes haven't yet changed... until the camera pulls out to reveal [[spoiler:the Diet Building on the deck of a ship, afloat in a sea that has sunken Tokyo.]] The music especially assists hammering home its
** Near the very end of the game, when Morgana [[spoiler:returns to Leblanc and his dialogue portrait is replaced with that of his housecat appearance, conveying he's lost his humanoid form]].
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[[VideoGame/Persona5 Main Page]] | [[Persona5/TropesAToF A-F]] | [[Persona5/TropesGToR G-R]] | '''S-Z'''
[[folder:S]]
* SavePoint: This time around, you use an activity log you're supposed to keep as part of probation to save your current progress through the game, meaning you can save anywhere it's safe enough to take it out and write down what you're doing. During DungeonCrawling however, this means you can only save if you find one of a small number of safe rooms where enemies won't attack you.
* SaveTheVillain: The heroes attempt to save TheHeavy for the villains, "Black Mask" [[spoiler:after [[TheHeartless the Shadows]] turn against him in the BigBad's MentalWorld. Black Mask instead shoots out a bulkhead door, trapping him with the monsters so the heroes can escape.]]
* SaveTheWorldClimax: The game starts out with small-scale conflicts, and the stakes [[SerialEscalation periodically rise]] until the same teenagers that were exposing a sexual predator less than a year ago are now [[spoiler:reclaiming humanity's freedom from the clutches of an evil god.]]
* SchizophrenicDifficulty: Madarame, the second boss, is maybe the hardest in the game; not because of having outrageous stats, or an unbalanced movepool or anything like that, but simply because he's harder than the first boss, Kamoshida, the player lacks many of the options and tricks they gain later in the game, and Madarame isn't a WarmUpBoss like Kamoshida is - he actually presents a real threat. After him, the player's strategic repertoire has expanded so much that there are few challenges remaining, except The Reaper.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: After the Phantom Thieves defeat the cleaner in [[spoiler:Shido's Palace]], he commends them on their strength and gives them his letter, much to the thieves surprise. He no longer sees a point in bothering to stop them, as they're probably going to succeed in bringing down [[spoiler:Shido]] anyway, saying, "the captain was great and all, but he's gonna have to go down with this ship alone."
* SealedGoodInACan: [[spoiler:Igor, the BigGood of the ''[[Franchise/ShinMegamiTenseiPersona Persona]]'' franchise, spends most of the game sealed away by the game's hidden BigBad, who's been [[IdentityImpersonator impersonating him]]. It's only after discovering the villain's deception that Igor is freed and lends you his full aid in the FinalBattle.]]
* SecretlySelfish: Presented as a positive. Several Personas -- most notably [[spoiler:Milady]] -- will only form the contract when their summoner admits what they ''really'' want, beyond more noble and nebulous concepts such as justice. The game does not see "self interest" as a bad thing: in fact, it's often a motivating force. Ryuji and Ann's desire for revenge, Yusuke's need to have his talent acknowledged, Makoto's [[spoiler:desire to change her sister's heart]] and [[spoiler:Haru's]] desire to ''not be sold off to an abusive husband'' are shown as not only understandable, but perfectly legitimate reasons for doing what they do.
* {{Sentai}}: TheHeavy for the bad guys, "Black Mask", dresses as an EvilCostumeSwitch version of heroes from Phoenix Ranger Featherman, ''Persona'''s Japanese Saturday morning superhero ShowWithinAShow. One of your party members, Yusuke Kitagawa, also has a side-story vignette where he and the protagonists do {{Super Sentai Stance}}s while trying to figure out how to repair some superhero team action figures he accidentally broke.
* SequelEscalation: ''Persona 5'' adds {{Stealth Based Game}}play to dungeon traversal, a wider selection of stat improving minigames, a larger overworld filled with hundreds of [=NPCs=], completely remade enemy/demon/Persona models, and even more stylized VideogameInterfaceElements.
* SerialEscalation: In ''VideoGame/Persona3'', the first entry of the soft reboot of the series, Shadows were mostly just monsters of another world with the aspect of reflecting humanity only touched upon at the end. In ''VideoGame/Persona4'', this nature is elaborated on, with Shadows established as the unseen sides of the human soul, the parts of which that are kept buried beneath the surface. However, ''Persona 5'' shows this isn't black-and-white: not that the repressed feelings may only be that which a good person doesn't want to face, but the hidden, distorted desires that a malicious soul might just be keeping from the public eye... in other words, a malevolent Shadow ''on the antagonist's side.''
* SevenDeadlySins: As shown in the opening and the AchievementSystem trophies for beating each dungeon, the Metaverse, a MentalWorld shaped by warped desires, is filled with avatars of the standard 7 deadly sins and 2 non-standard ones, represented by nine Latin words:
** Luxuria (Lust) - Asmodeus/Suguru Kamoshida, a teacher who uses his position to pressure his students into sleeping with him.
** Irritum (Vanity) - Azazel/Ichiryuusai Madarame, a con-man who has spent decades passing off his pupils' work as his own to pretend to be a genius painter.
** Gula (Gluttony) - Bael/Junya Kaneshiro, an overweight mafia boss obsessed with blackmailing others to accumulate more and more money, despite having no plans for it other than to have more.
** Ira (Wrath) - The Sphinx/[[spoiler:Cognitive Wakaba Isshiki]], the representation of a teenage girl's self-hatred over [[spoiler:surviving a car accident where her mother was hit and killed in front of her.]]
** Avaritia (Greed) - Mammon/Kunikazu Okumura, the president of a fast food company engaged in questionable business practices and putting his own daughter in an ArrangedMarriage to grow his massive food distribution company.
** Invidia (Envy) - Leviathan/[[spoiler:Sae Niijima, a rising public prosecutor insecure about proving the equal of her co-workers and providing for her sister, leading her to a SecondPlaceIsForLosers mentality.]]
** Cavum (Emptiness) - [[spoiler:Loki/Goro Akechi, a {{Sociopath}}ic murderer with a dead mother, and father who couldn't care less about him, and no real friends, to the point despite having the AllYourPowersCombined Wild Card ability, he only has 2 Personas.]]
** Superbia (Pride) - Samael/[[spoiler:Masayoshi Shido, a politician who believes the horrible things he's done to complete innocents, including ''half your party'', are entirely justified and that he is ''God's chosen'', simply because he managed to get away with it.]]
** Acedia (Sloth) - Mementos/The people of Tokyo, a massive underground dungeon representing the city's collective BystanderSyndrome [[spoiler:where the BigBad imprisons the hearts of those who will not adhere to his KnightTemplar order, to wallow away forever.]]
** [[spoiler:Yaldabaoth, the God of Control and creator of the Metaverse, meanwhile represents ''all'' the sins, to the point he has skills named after each of them.]]
** [[spoiler:Satanael represents all seven, but as a positive force rather than malicious.]]
** Quite a few of the Mementos targets represent them, particularly Greed and Envy.
* ShipperOnDeck: In some Confidants, various characters may assume that you and the Confidant in question are going out. It's up to you to decide whether to prove them right.
* ShoutOut: [[ShoutOut/Persona5 A full page for them]].
* ShownTheirWork:
** Making coffee at Leblanc will sometimes prompt Sojiro to visit you and give you a history lesson on different types of coffee beans and how they're grown.
** Related to that, making curry at Leblanc can also net you actual real world tips and tricks for cooking up Japanese-style curry (specifically Japanese-style mind you, as the tips don't work as well for other curries from around the world).
* ShowWithinAShow: One of the minigames the protagonist can participate in is playing a video game called ''Star Forneus 1988''.
* SitcomArchnemesis: Futaba seems to have something against Yusuke. She constantly ribs on him, and when he makes a mouse pun later in the game (due to them all being temporarily turned into mice in a palace), she is very unamused. She even insults him out of nowhere in the epilogue. Presumably it started when he rearranged the body parts of her models of the Feathermen to appear more aesthetically pleasing to him though it horrified her.
** The Mementos conversations make it clear that they're on good terms with each other, in spite of their differences. Futaba is quick to alert Yusuke to a sale, and when Yusuke talks about how much he enjoys the Phantom Thief costumes, she offers to recreate the costumes with him.
* SittingOnTheRoof: The heroes use chairs littered around their school's roof for their first "hideout" to secretly plan their PhantomThief activities, before people notice they've been hanging up there a lot, forcing them to relocate. It's also a rare occasion in which the fact that the roof is off-limits to students is openly acknowledged in-story.
* SkeletonKey: Sort of. The Eternal Lock pick item isn't exactly a key, but it ignores the one use limit on lock picks allowing it to unlock every chest.
* SomethingSomethingLeonardBernstein: As usual, Shoji Meguro's themes are in English, despite Meguro not being entirely fluent, and sung by a non-English speaker, resulting in hard to make out lyrics.
* SortingAlgorithmOfEvil: Mostly played straight. The [[FemalesAreMoreInnocent two ladies]] who own palaces each break the pattern, but the overall order in which targets and members of TheConspiracy are faced is true to the trope.
** First up we have [[EvilTeacher Suguru Kamoshida]], an abusive PE coach who makes life hell for his volleyball team, any female students who catch his eye, and pretty much anyone who looks at him the wrong way. He has the ear of the school principal, who covers up his abuses for the sake of prestige and pedigree, and it's even suggested that parents and guardians are also aware of what's going on but do nothing for the same reason. He is a ''very'' [[ItsPersonal personal]] antagonist for three of the four founding members of the Phantom Thieves, having beaten one, sexually harassed another, and [[EvilIsPetty attempting to expel the third]], but is completely unrelated to the overall conspiracy and is small fry compared to what's to come -- small consolation that may be to the broken children he leaves behind.
** The second target is [[PlagiarismInFiction Ichiryuusai Madarame]], a famous artist well-known to the media and the art world. A cynical man with a perpetual [[WritersBlock Artist's Block]], he steals his students' work, tweaks it to make it more financially marketable, and passes it off as his own. Although nowhere near as monstrous and utterly detestable as his predecessor [[spoiler:(though he is morally bankrupt enough to allow one of his acquaintances to die so that he can steal her painting ''and'' her son)]], Madarame holds much greater influence and is a [[AmbiguousSituation nebulous]] financial backer of TheConspiracy, although he himself is being used [[UnwittingPawn unwittingly]]. He is the first person to imply a deeper and more sinister use for Palaces, revealing the existence of a dangerous black-masked assassin rampaging through the Metaverse who won't be dealt with until much later.
** The stakes are raised again with the third target, [[TheMafia Junya Kaneshiro]], a brutal mobster who runs the underground of Shibuya with an iron fist. He extorts money from many a citizen, and has his goons approach and blackmail students to traffic drugs and even sell themselves. Worst of all, his cautious and elusive nature has essentially put him beyond the reach of the law. Not only is Kaneshiro an explicit backer of TheConspiracy, taking him down is what really puts the Phantom Thieves on the map.
** The fourth target is a nebulous group of vigilante hacktivists who attempt to discredit the Phantom Thieves by threatening cyberwarfare against the city unless the Phantom Thieves disband. This leads to the Phantom Thieves crossing paths with the fourth palace ruler who completely smashes the pattern, being a reclusive, heavily depressed young girl who blackmails the thieves into stealing her own heart. Ironically, it turns out that she, through her mother's research, has perhaps the strongest ties to the Metaverse and the ManBehindTheMan using it [[spoiler:who was partly responsible for orchestrating the hacktivist attack to begin with.]]
** Things are back on track with the fifth target, BadBoss Kunikazu [[AmbitionIsEvil Okumura]], the president of popular food chain Big Bang Burger, who's preparing to leave his company behind and begin a political career. He is both personally wealthy and a member of TheConspiracy, using their connections to eliminate key rivals and put himself ahead in business. However, having grown too big for his breeches, the ManBehindTheMan sets him up for a fall [[spoiler:and has him murdered at an opportune time, completely destroying the Phantom Thieves' public image.]]
** [[ZigzaggedTrope Zigzagged]] with the sixth palace ruler, [[spoiler:Sae Niijima,]] who is an UnwittingPawn to TheConspiracy and not so much "evil" as a good person who's lost sight of her values, but still provides a major threat to the Phantom Thieves' existence both inside and outside the Metaverse. Her pragmatism and lack of scruples in [[spoiler:solving the case at any cost]] make her a dangerous enemy, but ultimately [[spoiler:she regains control of herself without requiring a change of heart and becomes a major ally of the heroes against the real villains.]] Speaking of...
** At last we come to the head of TheConspiracy, [[spoiler:VillainWithGoodPublicity Masayoshi Shido and his bastard son/personal assassin [[DragonWithAnAgenda Goro Akechi]].]] Using his vast web of influence, research into the Metaverse, and a very eager Persona-using assassin on a tight leash, [[spoiler:Shido meticulously carries out a bloody bid for Prime Minister.]] He is ultimately behind the mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns, which were used to remove and implicate key individuals [[spoiler:whose downfalls his campaign would benefit from.]] He was directly and indirectly funded by several of the above enemies, although not all of them knew exactly what he was doing. After some personal setbacks and a grueling battle, the Phantom Thieves triumph over [[spoiler:Shido and Goro, the latter of whom reveals himself as TheStarscream and leaves the story on a DeathEqualsRedemption note.]] This is also an ironic case of BookEnds, as the head of the Conspiracy ended up being [[spoiler:the petty sexual harasser who sued the protagonist at the very start of the game -- an astronomical coincidence that our protagonist, at the end of the game, believes to have been preordained by a higher power.]] And perhaps with good reason...
** The final Palace ruler, [[spoiler:Yaldabaoth, AKA the Holy Grail, AKA the Treasure of Mementos, is an EldritchAbomination who usurped the Velvet Room before the story started and began posing as Igor. The "game", as he puts it, was to see whether humanity had a future; if they could be moved to embrace the righteous thieves, embodied by the Trickster, against the chaos and the corrupt establishment, championed by Goro Akechi. As they did not -- as they turned against the thieves to the point of removing them from cognition, choosing instead a life of indolence, passing off all responsibility to the Holy Grail -- Yaldabaoth concludes that they do not deserve to exist. His menace is a threat to the entire world, and he is the fiend that Lavenza, the Velvet Room's true avatar of power, had warned the protagonist of at the start of the game. He also extends a sincere WeCanRuleTogether offer to the heroes, promising to suspend his plan of destruction and rebirth and simply observe the continued actions of the Phantom Thieves provided the Holy Grail is left alone. If he's refused, his defeat comes only after the DarkestHour, and requires the protagonist unleashing his Ultimate Persona, Satanael.]]
* SpeakInUnison: Caroline and Justine do this near the climax of the game, complete with the requisite CreepyMonotone. [[spoiler:it's a sign that their true identity as Lavenza is resurfacing.]]
* SpeechBubbles: Multiple parts of the user interface will pop up as white bubbles with black text in them.
* SpeedStripes: White lines appear around the edges of the screen when the characters move at high speeds.
* SpitTake: Ryuji does this during an optional evening confidant event at Leblanc's if the protagonist mucks up brewing coffee and it ends up way too bitter (by putting some love into it, instead of doing it as instructed).
* SpoilerOpening: Zigzagged. The game's opening sequence hides your future party members in shadow so as not to explicitly give their names, appearances, and thief costumes away. This would probably be a little more meaningful were it not for the "let us start the game" image that appears every time ''Persona 5'' is booted up, which gives us a nice look at [[http://i.imgur.com/rnbfsl4.jpg every single one of the thieves in their metaverse attire]], up to and including [[TheRival Goro Akechi]], whose addition to the team marks a fairly major turning point in the story. Atlus seemed unsure of just how far to market Akechi in general; he was conspicuously absent from a good chunk of promotional material that would've given his addition to the group away, but occasionally showed up in costume previews alongside the other playable characters, along with the box art, which made him joining the gang a ForegoneConclusion.
* StandardStatusEffects: The game introduces many status effects, some similar to status effects from previous ''Persona'' games, and others exclusive to the current iteration of the battle system.
** ''Burn'' - Caused rarely by fire skills, deals minor damage to the target after they complete their turn. Induces bonus "Technical" damage from wind and nuclear attacks.
** ''Shock'' - Caused rarely by electric skills, inflicts paralysis as well as capable of being spread through physical contact (such as attacking via normal attack) and inducing bonus "Technical" damage from physical and nuclear attacks.
** ''Freeze'' - Caused rarely by ice skills, prevents the target from acting during their turn, reduces physical resistance, and induces bonus "Technical" damage from physical and nuclear attacks.
** ''Dizzy'' - A stand-in for blindness; severely drops physical and magical attack accuracy as well as induces bonus "Technical" damage.
** ''Forget'' - A stand-in for silence; disables use of any Persona skills.
** ''Sleep'' - Disables all actions, yet recovers HP and SP each turn. Induces bonus "Technical" damage but wears off immediately afterward.
** ''Hunger'' - A new status effect which severely drops attack power for the afflicted target.
** ''Confuse'' - Afflicted target either does nothing, throws away money, throws an item at the enemy, or uses an item.
** ''Fear'' - Afflicted target is likelier to ignore commands and/or run away from battle.
** ''Despair'' - A unique stand-in for Doom; afflicted target has disabled actions and loses SP every turn, and is eventually incapacitated after three turns.
** ''Rage'' - Also known as berserk; afflicted target can't be controlled, can only use basic attacks, and has their attack power increased while their defense is decreased.
** ''Brainwash'' - Also known as charmed; afflicted target can't be controlled, can heal or cast buffs on the enemy, as well as attack allies.
** ''Rattled'' - Unique status effect in which the target is [[VisualPun turned into a rat]] and takes increased damage and cannot act.
** [[spoiler:Madarame's]] paint attack causes a unique status that makes a character weak to all elements.
** [[spoiler:Yaldabaoth]] inflicts unique status ailments via use of [[spoiler:the SevenDeadlySins. Vanity causes the same effect as Madarame's paint attack while Greed causes Hunger]].
*** [[spoiler:Lust]] causes the afflicted to skip a turn, but only lasts a single turn.
*** [[spoiler:Gluttony]] doubles the party's cost of using skills for a few turns.
*** [[spoiler:Wrath]] appears to be a less serious version of Rage/Berserk. It increases attack power and decreases defense, but the afflicted can still be controlled, and it only lasts one turn.
*** [[spoiler:Envy]] causes a unit to become jealous for a turn, making the affected attack an ally for assisting another ally.
* StarterMon: Arsene, the only level 1 Persona GuardianEntity, who you get at the very start of the game and starts with nothing but a weak physical attack and a weak darkness spell. Leveling him up will take longer than any other Persona in the game, and you'll have to sacrifice dozens of stronger Personas to give him enough high-end skills to make him useful beyond the first dungeon.
* StealingTheCredit: One of the most common abuses of power featured in the game.
** [[spoiler:Madarame]] has passed off his underlings' work as his own for years.
** In Ryuji's link, the [[spoiler:teacher who is supposed to take over the track team]] has every intention of hiring a coach to do the actual work, but claim the credit himself.
** [[spoiler:Tae Takemi's]] boss hijacked [[spoiler:her]] research so that he could lay claim to a breakthrough discovery.
** In a sidequest, a woman's boss tells her to accept that her male coworker [[StealingTheCredit stole the credit for her work]] because she's a woman and that's "the natural order of things".
* StatGrinding: Training in either [=LeBlanc=]'s attic or at the Protein Lovers gym increases Joker's HP and SP each time. Continued training at Protein Lovers will eventually unlock harder training regimens that further increase these stats, and drinking a Protein Shake beforehand will add even more gains per session.
* StealthBasedGame: In dungeons, you can sneak around foes by {{flash step}}ping behind walls, hopping into paintings, and so forth. This allows you to perform {{Back Stab}}s to give your party [[AdvantageBall the first turn]] in battle.
* StealthPun:
** Ann and Morgana are both burglars that dress like/''actually are'' cats.
** [[spoiler:Futaba's Palace is an Egyptian pyramid and her Shadow is an Egyptian princess half wrapped in bandages. This is because she has "mummy" issues.]]
** In dungeons, you can find dirty clothing in locked chests. It's as though you are finding the target's dirty laundry hidden away.
** Joker's wears bright red gloves that stand out against the muted, almost black color scheme of the rest of his outfit. Since he's a thief, this means that if he's found out, he'll be ''caught red handed.''
** They couldn't make the party fight an endgame-tier demon like Mara in the first dungeon, so they [[{{Squick}} put in just the tip]].
** The [[spoiler:ATM people outside of Kaneshiro's palace are malfunctioning and are generally broken. They are broke (in the financial sense) people.]]
* StockRPGSpells: Notable for adding complexity to the ''Persona 3'' and ''4'' set of spells. They are:
** [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer Physical/Phys]].
** [[MoreDakka Gun]]. Gun and Phys skils are CastFromHitPoints and can land critical hits.
** [[PlayingWithFire Fire]]. May burn foes.
** [[AnIcePerson Ice]]. May freeze opponents solid.
** [[BlowYouAway Wind]]. No added effect, but costs less SP.
** [[ShockAndAwe Electric]]. May paralyze foes.
** [[ILoveNuclearPower Nuclear]]. Deals extra damage to burned, frozen, or shocked foes.
** [[MindOverMatter Psychic]]. Deals extra damage to foes suffering from StandardStatusEffects.
** [[CastingAShadow Curse/Dark]].
** [[LightEmUp Bless/Light]]. Curse/Dark and Bless/Light spells are each a flavor of OneHitKill. ''Persona 5'' added Bless/Light and Curse/Dark spells that deal normal damage.
** [[NonElemental Almighty]]. Deals neutral damage against any foe and can't be [[AttackReflector reflected]]. Has higher base power than other spells, but a monstrous SP cost.
* SummonMagic: As in previous ''Persona'' games, all your special attacks and magic are performed by summoning a GuardianEntity representation of a character's psyche. This time around, the Persona will appear as soon as you start looking through your skill list.
* SuperMovePortraitAttack: A cut-in of the character's eyes will flash onscreen any time your Persona performs a critical attack.
* SupernaturalGoldEyes: Shadow Selves once again sport glowing yellow eyes, even when appearing as {{Doppelganger}}s of their human selves.
** As always, the attendants of the Velvet Room sport glowing eyes just a shade lighter than that of Shadows. Caroline and Justine draw even more attention to theirs, since they both wear an eyepatch.
** Interestingly, the protagonists themselves have shadow eyes when they summon their Persona, both in [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration cutscene and in gameplay.]]
* SurprisinglyGoodEnglish: A number of songs, which include battle themes and background music, feature English lyrics that actually aren't complete gibberish and suit the part of the game it goes with.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
** Mementos is a randomly-generated, multi-floor dungeon you can go to any time to level up and which is stated at the start of the game to be the focus of a game-long game quest to uncover its mysteries. It's the location of {{Sidequest}}s, is divided into "paths" named after concepts in Hebrew Mysticism, has calendar-based gates that only clear away by proceeding with the plot, [[spoiler:and the bottom serves as the not-so-optional penultimate dungeon]], making it a mirror image of [[EvilTowerOfOminousness Tartarus]] in ''VideoGame/Persona3''. [[spoiler:And like Tartarus, if you spend too long in one floor, [[BonusBoss the Reaper]] comes after you.]]
** On floor 7 of Mementos' Harmony section, you fight a short haired school girl's Shadow, who as it turns out is a total sadist and who drops a whip as her treasure, a la Chie's Shadow in ''VideoGame/Persona4''.
** The sixth dungeon of the game [[spoiler:was created by a party member's relative]], is [[DiscOneFinalDungeon ostensibly the last dungeon]], has a theme song with lyrics and the choices you make in regard to the fallout determine which ending you get, something that applies to Heaven from ''Persona 4'' and the Casino from ''Persona 5''.
* SweatDrop: Any time characters are suddenly worried, their character model will have 3 little drops of water pop out from their forehead. any time they're embarrassed, an oversized drop of water pops up on the side of their temple instead.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:T-Z]]
* TailorMadePrison: Inverted. The Velvet Room, which changes into a location tailor-made for its current guest, becomes a prison for ''P5''[='=]s Protagonist.
* TakeThat:
** Sadayo basically calls ''The Tale of The Bamboo Cutter'' a story about a woman making unreasonable demands to her suitors, sending them to get expensive shit for her, and then high tailing it to the moon. (This conveniently ignores the fact that the reason she set them an ImpossibleTask was so that they would give up, as she couldn't afford to get attached... but given Sadayo's Confidant link, that's not surprising.)
** Much like ''VideoGame/Persona4DancingAllNight'', this game depicts' Japan's IdolSinger industry ''extremely'' negatively, though it's mostly related to optional sidequests and a few Confidants.
* TakeCover: The protagonist can hide behind walls and furniture while sneaking around.
* TakeYourTime: You can ride trains all across Tokyo, a process that in real life can take hours, without the sun or moon ever moving an inch. Until you actually engage in a side-story quest or a mini-game, time will never change. Additionally, the loading screen invokes the name of this trope.
* TalkingIsAFreeAction: Whenever one of the party members awaken to their Persona, they are surrounded by shadows who have been recently given orders from the Palace ruler which are some variation of "kill them." Each time, the awakening party member is cornered, but then stands up and delivers a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to the villain before awakening to their Persona and entering battle, and the whole time while they go through the motions (the declaration of rebellion, contract, etc) the Shadows and Palace ruler simply stand there and watch them rather than making any sort of motion to stop them. This is likely because the Palace rulers, and by extension the Shadows, are just as stunned as the party members, unable to do more than just watch in awe, since Palace rulers have no conception of anyone standing up to them, let alone awakening a Persona in their presence.
* TalkToTheHand: The protagonist will stick his hand out to the screen when you open the menu, with text reading "Don't look at me like that" in the corner of the screen.
* TarotMotifs: As in previous games, Personas / Shadows, party members and various [=NPCs=] are divided into the 20-odd major arcana of the Tarot deck.
* TearOffYourFace: When party members first rip off their Persona masks, their face becomes appropriately bloodied as if it were their actual face. Ripping the mask off Shadows also hurts them, giving you an advantage in battle.
* TechnicolorFire: Blue flames are a major visual motif in the game.
** In the second teaser, an otherworldly blue flame can be seen in the distance once [[TimeStandsStill time stops]].
** Each protagonist bursts into blue flame when they first awaken to their Persona.
** Persona are now covered in blue flame when they are summoned.
* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: Shadows fought as normal enemies ''usually'' have the same elemental weaknesses/resistances as their Persona counterparts, but not always. For example, Mara as a Persona is weak to Ice, but the Maras that appear as enemies late into [[spoiler:the Mementos Depths]] are not, and in fact have no weaknesses entirely.
* ThematicThemeTune:
** "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There" by Lyn Inaizumi. The lyrics are about stepping out of one's comfort zone to confront the wrongdoings and evils in the world when others are content to just stand by and watch, and that if someone wants change in the world, they have to do it themselves rather than waiting on someone else.
** "Life Will Change" by Lyn Inaizumi. The lyrics have characters who have now gained strength by discarding the masks that once held them back to challenge the established order, inspire others, and change the world around them with their own hands.
** "Rivers in the Desert", which has the hero and villain switching off verses giving their motivations for fighting each other, only to come together in the refrain to declare their NotSoDifferent, WellIntentionedExtremist desires to change the world.
* ThemeMusicPowerUp:
** "Awakening" kicks in any time a character awakens to their GuardianEntity and destroys a bunch of {{Mook}}s.
** "Life Will Change" plays on any day the heroes pull off their latest [[TheCaper heist]]. Notably, the game uses two variants: the early Palaces all use an instrumental version, the final set of Palaces ([[spoiler:starting with the Sae's Casino, as heard in the prologue]]) on the other hand make use of the lyrical version.
** An instrumental version of "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There" plays when [[spoiler:Futaba hijacks all of Japan's airwaves to send out their calling card to Shido.]]
* ThemeTable:
** As usual, each character is associated with a {{Tarot Motif|s}}.
** Each character's starting Persona is based on a {{Picaresque}} hero. Meanwhile, each character's ultimate Persona is based on a RageAgainstTheHeavens mythological figure.
** Each ArcVillain is associated with one of the SevenDeadlySins, including two from less popular traditions (Vanity and Despair).
* ThemeTuneCameo: In the end when [[spoiler:the now-disbanded thieves drive off celebrating their newfound freedom, Makoto turns on the radio and]] "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There" first plays from the radio, before carrying over into the background music.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: The party CombinationAttack has your team hitting the enemies so many times that they errupt into sprays of blood. Even if the opponent is one hit away from death.
* ThisIsAWorkOfFiction: All ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games begin with one of these, but this game stands out in particular by incorporating it into the narrative, with Igor asking the player directly whether they accept the disclaimer. [[ButThouMust Selecting "no" boots the player back to the title screen.]]
* ThreeAmigos: [[TheHero The Protagonist]], [[TheLancer Ryuji]] and [[TheChick Ann]] start as a three man team that are constantly hanging out together, before recruiting the rest of the party.
* TimeStandsStill: When the protagonist first activates the "Metaverse Navi" app, everyone around him in a crowded intersection freezes, leaving only the protagonist and his Persona / Shadow still moving.
* ToBeLawfulOrGood: A central conflict in the game. The Phantom Thieves become criminals to reform those who have manipulated the rules of society to exploit others, and are thus untouchable by traditional authorities. [[spoiler:Akechi's FaceHeelTurn also first appears to be caused by his desire to uphold the law instead of doing the right thing, only to turn out to be the opposite: He takes the Phantom Thieves' methods to the extreme, killing people in order to propel his father to Prime Minister, then revealing said crimes to punish society as a whole for allowing Shido's abuse of others.]]
* TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse: [[spoiler:Being an AnthropomorphicPersonification of KnightTemplar order, the BigBad could have basically manifested anywhere in Japan, or even the world at large. The game implies Shido's collective unconscious research and the Japanese public's tendency to think of themselves as one entity and not question authority much (compared to a country that actively glorifies various types of individualism, like UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates) helped, but there's no direct reason given.]]
* TooLongDidntDub: Due to the game being explicitly set in UsefulNotes/{{Tokyo}}, Japan, various cultural references are untranslated. This includes things like SenpaiKohai, food names, most JapaneseHonorifics with some exceptions[[note]]Morgana calls Ann "Lady" rather than "-dono", and teachers tend to be called "Mr." and "Ms." rather than "sensei."[[/note]] and so on.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: PlayedForLaughs. When you go to a fancy buffet at multiple points throughout the story, female party member Ann will get nothing but desserts, and male party member Ryuji will get nothing but meat.
* TradeYourPassionForGlory: [[spoiler:The group starts to lose sight of their original goal to inspire people to change when they try to win support from the public by going after more high-profile targets that they allow the people to choose, unintentionally turning themselves into a fad rather then true social reformists in the public's eyes. Shido and Goro take advantage of it to screw them over.]]
* TraitorShot: After the game gets to the present from the Protagonist's flashbacks, it's revealed who sold him out after Sae Niijima leaves the interrogation room. [[spoiler:Goro Akechi says he's down there to question the Protagonist, but as Sae walks past, he chuckles and says "Foolish woman," with his in-game portrait looking very menacing.]]
* TransformationOfThePossessed:
** Humans who have had their MentalWorld messed with by TheConspiracy end up with BlankWhiteEyes and start bleeding sludge-like black blood from their mouth and eyes.
** When first offered a DealWithTheDevil by their GuardianEntity "other-self", characters gain SupernaturalGoldEyes just like TheHeartless they battle.
* TranslationConvention: Naturally, since the game is set in modern Japan, the English script still behaves as if everyone is speaking Japanese and English is merely being heard for the benefit of the Anglophone player. Granted, this does make a few scenes where Ann has to read things that are natively in English a little odd, since everyone sounds like they're speaking English and then they need Ann's help...with English. This is somewhat alleviated if the player plays with the Japanese dub.
* TriumphantReprise: The Phantom Thieves' "Life Will Change" theme is a faster, more upbeat version of the opening "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There" theme. It also replaces the questioning, lamenting lyrics of the opening with a triumphant promise that the singers will change the world themselves.
* ATwinkleInTheSky: In the escape from the pyramid dungeon, Ann throws Morgana so high into the air it results in Morgana temporarily disappearing in a tiny flash of light before landing at the base of the pyramid.
* TwoTeacherSchool: Subverted. In the first arc of the game, it appears the only two named teachers at the school are StarterVillain Suguru Kamoshida and your homeroom teacher Sadayo Kawakami. However, ''all'' your teachers end up showing up in PopQuiz sections, and even have {{Character Portrait}}s.
* UndergroundMonkey: Subverted. On [[PreexistingEncounters the field]], enemies are slightly retextured versions of one or two enemies. For instance, the first dungeon only has a knight in silver armor, and the exact same knight with a gold armor texture on him. [[ActuallyFourMooks In battle]] however, the enemies are all custom models from several decades of ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' designs.
* TheUnfought: [[spoiler:While Medjed is built up to be a serious threat, the real objective of that chapter is to help Futaba. Who deals with them by herself off screen.]]
* UngratefulBitch: Subverted. The woman whom the protagonist helped before his prosecution is forced to cooperate with her molester or she too will suffer the consequences.
* UniqueProtagonistAsset: The Protagonist has the unique "Wild Card" ability, that lets him change his GuardianEntity at will and recruit Shadows to his cause. [[spoiler:Subverted when it turns out "Black Mask", TheHeavy for the villains, has the same power.]]
* UnmovingPlaid: In the traditionally animated opening, the plaid pattern present on Joker, Ryuji, and Ann's uniforms is static. This is a stylistic choice, as the plaid used for traditionally animated cutscenes both looks different and matches the characters' movements.
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: Justified. [[spoiler:Anything involving the Protagonist's plan to fake his death and expose Akechi and his boss isn't shown until the Protagonist is putting it into motion. This is because the Protagonist was heavily drugged, thus he legitimately did not remember that there was a plan until the last minute, and the game fades to white before any scenes involving the plan.]]
* TheUntwist:
** In-Universe, [[spoiler:most of the Confidants find out the player is a Phantom Thief, and treat it as this, casually revealing that they've known for a while during their rank 10 scene. [[IntrepidReporter Ichiko Ohya]] in particular laughs at how obvious it is.]]
** Also in-universe, none of your party members are actually caught off guard by [[spoiler:Akechi's betrayal]].
* UrbanFantasy: The game revolves around high school students in contemporary Tokyo, Japan who can summon an AnthropomorphicPersonification of their psyches that take the forms of various fictional and mythological figures. So monsters bearing the appearance of demons and gods are fought both with melee weapons and modern fire arms.
* UselessUsefulSpell:
** The "Hama" and "Mudo" light and dark OneHitKill attacks have even less utility compared to previous games, as there is now an entire line of light and dark attacks that still exploit enemy weaknesses, deal actual damage, and have a near 100% hit rate (instead of 70-80% tops). This is somewhat mitigated by the instant kill spells being able to take advantage of enemy weaknesses to Bless/Curse and have a higher hit rate.
** This trope is otherwise [[AvertedTrope averted]], as usual for the ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' series: although status effect spells are useless against the major plot-relevant bosses, they have surprising accuracy (even the slightly less accurate all-targeting versions still hit most of the time). And as it turns out, many of the bosses in Mementos ARE vulnerable to ailments. And, as veteran SMT players know, stat buff and debuff spells have a very large effect, are 100% accurate, and are not resisted by any enemy, making them absolutely vital.
* UselessUsefulStealth: The opening tutorial seems to suggest that stealthing past enemies can be a viable strategy when it forces you to hide until an agent talking on his cell phone leaves, but in actual gameplay sneaking past enemies will deprive you of experience, money, and items. Unless you're running dangerously low on SP, stealth is primarily useful for ambushing enemies.
* VacationEpisode: Your ClassTrip involves the party traveling by plane out of Japan to ''Hawaii''.
* VendorTrash: Most of the treasure you steal from the various Palaces, include the main Treasure each of your heists are targeting, can only be sold at the weapon shop for cash. They have no other uses and stay in a seperate tab from equipment and other usable items.
* TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: [[spoiler:Assuming that you've reached the path to the True Ending, the final dungeon is Qliphoth World, where Yaldabaoth is starting to overlay his Palace onto the real world.]]
* VictoryPose: Party Members not only have various poses they strike after winning a battle, but unique splash screen poses that'll pop if an All-Out attack they initiated wiped out the enemy party: The Protagonist tightens one of his gloves and pops a SlasherSmile, Ryuji does a devil horns {{Hand Signal|s}}, Ann does a {{V Sign}}, Morgana does a ChairReveal with a cigar, and so on.
* VictoryQuote:
** Your party members will randomly drop various lines when you enter the battle results screen.
--->'''Ann:''' Total victory, yay!
** If you win with an All-Out Attack, you also get a quote in the background of the character you were controlling when you won.
--->'''Joker''': THE SHOW'S OVER\\
'''Ryuji''': FREAKIN' BORING\\
'''Ann''': OMG! We are SO awesome!\\
'''Morgana''': MISSION ACCOMPLISHED\\
'''Yusuke''': IT WAS FUN WHILE IT LASTED, GOODBYE\\
'''Makoto''': JUSTICE HAS PREVAILED\\
'''Haru''': Adieu\\
[[spoiler:'''Akechi''': MY SOLE INTEREST IS IN UNCOVERING THE TRUTH.]]\\
[[spoiler:'''[[BonusBoss Justine & Caroline]]''': DON'T GET COCKY]]
* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment:
** Failing to complete a dungeon [[spoiler:or betraying your friends to Sae]] will result in you getting a BadEnd, [[spoiler:all of which end with you getting [[BoomHeadshot shot in the head]]]]. You monster.
** If you enter the women's bathroom in the first half of Madarame's museum Palace, a female Shadow {{Mook}} will be waiting to get a surprise attack on you.
* VillainousBreakdown: The CallingCard is meant to illicit this, forcing your target to be confronted by their twisted desires and, in turn, causing a shift in cognition that makes the treasure materialize in such a way that it can be pilfered. Doing so also causes security in the Palace to be automatically set to 99%.
* VillainOverForDinner: {{Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist}}s like Sae and Akechi will show up at Cafe Leblanc for coffee throughout the story. For Akechi, this is actually a part of his Confidant.
* VirtualPaperDoll: The ability from ''[[UpdatedRerelease Persona 4 Golden]]'' to equip your party members with different sets of clothes returns. Unlike in that game, though, the costumes are DLC.
* VitriolicBestBuds:
** Ann and Ryuji. While they can give each other a hard time, they're much closer and more affectionate friends than Yukari and Junpei or Chie and Yosuke from the previous games.
** Ryuji and Morgana have this dynamic as well; it actually becomes a plot point. When Morgana's insecurities and uncertain origins are exacerbated by Futaba taking over his role as navigator, he begins to take offense to the flippant comments Ryuji is prone to making and is genuinely hurt, while he usually gives as good as he gets. This eventually comes to a head and [[spoiler:Morgana temporarily leaves the group, feeling he's no longer wanted or needed.]]
** Futaba and Yusuke. The former likes needling the latter, while the latter often responds in kind, but Yusuke's one of the first thieves who manages to have an actual conversation with the highly introverted Futaba. That said, Makoto once tells them to cut out their bickering over IM during a particularly tense time.
* WakeUpCallBoss:
** Shadow Kamoshida/Asmodeus is the first real boss of the game and demonstrates that boss fights are going to be a lot more complex than previous games. First, you have to figure out that you need to take out his cup or he'll just heal himself. Second, he can buff his attack, allowing him to hit for very high numbers, teaching the importance of buffs and dubuffs. Third, both veterans and newcomers will be introduced to special operations, forcing them to learn how to keep up the offensive against the boss with a reduced party.
** Shadow Madarame/Azazel starts the fight as four separate parts that you have to defeat in order to expose his real body. Each part gets a turn and they each have their own resistances and attacks. The first time isn't too much trouble, the second time though, the boss gains a new attack that gives a random party member a weakness to every attack, which you can definitely expect the boss to exploit, and any living parts will use up their turns to resurrect downed parts if you don't take them all down at once.
* WakeUpGoToSchoolSaveTheWorld: Your party spends their days going to school and their afternoons and nights reforming corrupt adults and trying to dismantle a criminal conspiracy.
* WeaksauceWeakness: [[BonusBoss The Reaper]] dies very quickly when [[spoiler:infected with the flu]].
* WeaponForIntimidation: How the concept of gunplay introduces itself into the game; on your second venture into Kamoshida's Palace, after reaching the first [[SavePoint safe room]], Ryuji reveals that he planned ahead and got some medicine and a toy (if incredibly realistic-looking) gun in the hopes that you could scare enemies off with it. However, given the manner in which the [[YourMindMakesItReal cognitive world works]], the model gun can hit as hard as a real gun as long as the Shadows believe it's the genuine article.
* WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou: If the protagonist is defeated during battle, the game ends, even if your party members are at full health. The reason is because if you die before 11/20 it means the drugs Joker was injected with knocked him out in the current time; [[spoiler:[[DisasterDominoes which means that Sae leaves him and then you get shot in the head by the traitor]]]]. In the current timeframe, [[spoiler:you just lose Yaldabaoth's game]].
* WellDoneSonGuy: [[spoiler:Akechi lived his entire life feeling unloved and unwanted, and the primary motivation behind his actions is to gain the respect of his deadbeat father, Shido, before backstabbing him and exacting revenge for ruining his life.]]
* WeWouldHaveToldYouBut: [[spoiler:When Sae asks why the Phantom Thieves didn't upfront tell her that Akechi was working for a conspiracy that was using the Metaverse to commit crimes, the Thieves reply that 1) Sae wouldn't have believed them and 2) they needed Sae in the dark for their plan.]]
* WhamEpisode:
** [[spoiler:Kunikazu Okumura's death, which breaks Haru's heart, lands the Thieves in hot water with the authorities since it seems like they were responsible, and leads to revelations that TheConspiracy is much more powerful than the Thieves imagined.]]
** The entire sequence of events after the story finally catches up to the present day. [[spoiler:Goro Akechi was a traitor and he tries to kill the Protagonist after Sae's interrogation; however, the Thieves were suspicious of him from the start and bugged his phone, meaning that they knew of his plans. It turns out Joker's capture was part of a risky GambitRoulette to convince Sae to join the good guys, use the Metaverse to fake Joker's death, and figure out who the leader of the conspiracy is.]]
** During the Star Confidant, the confrontation with Hifumi's mother Mitsuyo's Shadow reveals that she isn't just trying to use Hifumi's career as a stepping stone to make Hifumi an idol (all so that Mitsuyo can live vicariously through her daughter)- [[spoiler:she fixed several of Hifumi's matches to ensure her rise to fame]].
* WhamLine: Lots of them:
** During the final confrontation with Madarame's Shadow, Yusuke reaches an epiphany that surprises even the party.
--->'''Yusuke:''' I've heard that you destroy your "art" once they [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlive their usefulness]]... [[spoiler:Did that include [[MissingMom my mother]] as well]]?
** It's minor in the grand scheme of things, but when trying to pinpoint Kaneshiro's Palace, the Thieves hit the right answer by accident... and this answer reveals exactly what they're getting into, and just how dangerous he is compared to their earlier targets.
--->[What Kaneshiro sees as his bank is] ''"all of Shibuya."''
** As the interrogation begins to catch up to the present day, Sae pulls out the last CallingCard that was sent and reveals who the Thieves' last target was.
--->'''Sae:''' This was addressed to [[spoiler:"Sae Niijima"...myself.]]
** After the story catches back up to the present, the Traitor's identity is at last revealed after a confrontation with Sae:
--->'''[[spoiler:Goro Akechi]], sporting a PsychoticSmirk:''' [[TraitorShot Hmph, foolish woman]].
** Followed shortly thereafter by the revelation of [[TheManBehindTheMan the guy pulling HIS strings]]:
--->'''The Traitor, on the phone:''' [[spoiler:Shido-san]], my task is complete.
** In the good ending, a cutscene shows the reaction of the surviving Phantom Thieves to the Protagonist's arrest [[spoiler:and apparent "suicide".]] They are all appropriately concerned and horrified by the turn of events, and then...
--->'''[[spoiler:Ryuji:]]''' You're shitting me....[[spoiler:[[JustAsPlanned we got 'em.]]]]
** The final big one, during the game's DarkestHour.
--->'''Igor:''' In accordance to the game's rules, the defeated must pay a price. [[spoiler:Your life is forfeit. I sentence you to be executed.]]
* WhamShot:
** The cutscene entering [[spoiler:Sae's]] Palace for the first time places the thieves a good distance away from the actual palace, in a minimally distorted area of the Metaverse. Then the camera pans up to show us a [[spoiler:familiar-looking casino, and we realize we've been here before...]]
** A similar effect takes place when the crew enters [[spoiler:Shido's Palace]]; it at first looks the same as reality, and their clothes haven't yet changed... until the camera pulls out to reveal [[spoiler:the Diet Building on the deck of a ship, afloat in a sea that has sunken Tokyo.]] The music especially assists hammering home its impact.
* WhatTheHellPlayer:
** If you enter the women's bathroom in the first half of Madarame's museum Palace, Ann will comment on it and ask you to leave.
** On a heavier note, [[spoiler:if you choose to accept Yaldabaoth's deal towards the end of the game, Lavenza expresses her disappointment at you. After which she laments that neither her nor the true Igor saw this turn of events coming, and sadly confirming how Joker really is a Trickster.]]
** In the endgame, [[spoiler:if you dated more than one girl at a time, all of the romanceable Confidants will confront you about his unfaithfulness the day after Valentine's Day.]]
* WhatWouldXDo: A variant. [[spoiler:When the Protagonist has to turn himself in so that Shido can be found guilty, the other Thieves imagine Morgana (who they believed to have disappeared with the other world) making fun of them for giving up too easily. This encourages them find a way to save the Protagonist.]]
* WhatYouAreInTheDark: The Shadows Selves in the Palaces represent the twisted hidden feelings of the respective adults you target. Similarly, when characters' Persona first awaken, they encourage their other selves to ignore society's expectations and unleash their true rage/vengeance/etc. on those who have wronged them.
* WholeEpisodeFlashback: Of the HowWeGotHere variety. The prologue shows Joker's capture by the police after a recent heist, before backtracking six months to his arrival in Tokyo and the start of his adventures. At regular intervals, the story cuts back to Sae and Joker discussing the events that led up to the current situation.
* WithThisHerring: The game starts with your sum total of equipment being nothing but a knife, a toy gun, a giant toy sword, and a giant toy slingshot. In fact, figuring out how to exploit the YourMindMakesItReal properties of the MentalWorld you're traversing and getting better weapons from a military hobby shop end up being such a big issue they get their own {{Sidequest}}.
* WomanScorned: [[spoiler:Cheating on your LoveInterest was already a bad idea in ''P4 Golden'', but doing so here ''will'' result in the girls finding out in the epilogue. [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown It does not end well for Joker]].]]
* WorthlessTreasureTwist: [[spoiler:The treasure from Okumura's palace turns into a model spaceship he wanted as a boy. Subverted as it turns out to have become a valuable collector's item since then.]]
** Later played straight with [[spoiler:Shido's treasure, which turns out to be his legislator's pin. As the party points out, a legislator's pin is worth almost nothing in raw value itself.]] It gets even more anti-climactic when taken into consideration that [[spoiler:this is the [[BigBad Big Bad]]'s treasure, perhaps as a minor foreshadowing that his actual confession is no more satisfying.]]
** [[spoiler:Sae's]] treasure is also suggested to be [[spoiler:a mere police notebook]], though what it actually is remains unrevealed.
** Downplayed/Averted with Kaneshiro's treasure, a golden suitcase filled with obviously fake money, which disappoints the party at first. However, the ''case'' itself is easily the most valuable treasure in the game.
* YearX: Rather than being a specific year as previous games, the in-story calendar is dated 20XX. Though if one correlates calendars, and given other hints in the game (like Rise still releasing albums while not looking ''terribly'' much older than she did in ''VideoGame/Persona4'', and a TV broadcast later stating that she's 20, it's pretty clear the game takes place in 2016. [[note]]As a refresher, Rise was born on June 1, 1995; she was 16 when ''Persona 4'' happened in 2011 and doing the math tells you that she'll be hitting 21 in 2016.[[/note]]
* YouAreAlreadyDead: When you perform an All-Out CombinationAttack that wipes out the enemy party, the enemies will freeze in place for a few seconds so a member of your party can pop a VictoryPose and drop a BondOneLiner, at which point a GoryDiscretionShot shows the enemies' silhouettes erupting into a spray of blood.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: The Phantom Thieves as a whole are all like this barring possibly Futaba, thanks in part to Shigenori Soejima's character design style. They could all realistically pass for young college-goers as opposed to high school students with how they were proportioned. Take the main character for example, who is listed at ''16'' years of age; which means he's exactly in line with his [[VideoGame/Persona3 two]] [[VideoGame/Persona4 predecessors]] who are also listed at 16. On first glance he could easily be seen as two to three years their senior. This even plays into height where amusingly, he's supposed to be all of 5'9" meaning he's only two inches taller than the protagonist of [[VideoGame/Persona3 P3]] (noted as 5'7") while two inches ''shorter'' than the protagonist of [[VideoGame/Persona4 P4]] (noted at 5'11") but it'd hard to tell that from looking at his in-game model where he looks to be should-to-shoulder with most of the adults barring Sae.
** There are dialogue choices throughout the game in which you can try and lie and say that the protagonist is just a [[OlderThanTheyLook youthful-looking college student]] - despite the character design, no one really buys it.
* YourMindMakesItReal: Cognition allows for anything to become real if influenced by a strong enough person's will or a collective. The Metaverse has items there like "red phosphorus", an extremely explosive powder that in real life is only an urban legend, and includes creating perfect versions of objects that also exist in the real world, like the Treasures found within Palaces. [[spoiler:Morgana's words before he disappears also make it clear that ''everything'' is influenced by Cognition, and that what humans consider the "real world" is no more real than the Metaverse. Likewise Morgana thinks it's the Phantom Thieves' Cognition of him that allowed him to continue living even as a cat. His words and the concept strongly suggest Cognition is Persona's equivalent to ''Shin Megami Tensei's'' Observation]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:S]]
* SavePoint: This time around, you use an activity log you're supposed to keep as part of probation to save your current progress through the game, meaning you can save anywhere it's safe enough to take it out and write down what you're doing. During DungeonCrawling however, this means you can only save if you find one of a small number of safe rooms where enemies won't attack you.
* SaveTheVillain: The heroes attempt to save TheHeavy for the villains, "Black Mask" [[spoiler:after [[TheHeartless the Shadows]] turn against him in the BigBad's MentalWorld. Black Mask instead shoots out a bulkhead door, trapping him with the monsters so the heroes can escape.]]
* SaveTheWorldClimax: The game starts out with small-scale conflicts, and the stakes [[SerialEscalation periodically rise]] until the same teenagers that were exposing a sexual predator less than a year ago are now [[spoiler:reclaiming humanity's freedom from the clutches of an evil god.]]
* SchizophrenicDifficulty: Madarame, the second boss, is maybe the hardest in the game; not because of having outrageous stats, or an unbalanced movepool or anything like that, but simply because he's harder than the first boss, Kamoshida, the player lacks many of the options and tricks they gain later in the game, and Madarame isn't a WarmUpBoss like Kamoshida is - he actually presents a real threat. After him, the player's strategic repertoire has expanded so much that there are few challenges remaining, except The Reaper.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: After the Phantom Thieves defeat the cleaner in [[spoiler:Shido's Palace]], he commends them on their strength and gives them his letter, much to the thieves surprise. He no longer sees a point in bothering to stop them, as they're probably going to succeed in bringing down [[spoiler:Shido]] anyway, saying, "the captain was great and all, but he's gonna have to go down with this ship alone."
* SealedGoodInACan: [[spoiler:Igor, the BigGood of the ''[[Franchise/ShinMegamiTenseiPersona Persona]]'' franchise, spends most of the game sealed away by the game's hidden BigBad, who's been [[IdentityImpersonator impersonating him]]. It's only after discovering the villain's deception that Igor is freed and lends you his full aid in the FinalBattle.]]
* SecretlySelfish: Presented as a positive. Several Personas -- most notably [[spoiler:Milady]] -- will only form the contract when their summoner admits what they ''really'' want, beyond more noble and nebulous concepts such as justice. The game does not see "self interest" as a bad thing: in fact, it's often a motivating force. Ryuji and Ann's desire for revenge, Yusuke's need to have his talent acknowledged, Makoto's [[spoiler:desire to change her sister's heart]] and [[spoiler:Haru's]] desire to ''not be sold off to an abusive husband'' are shown as not only understandable, but perfectly legitimate reasons for doing what they do.
* {{Sentai}}: TheHeavy for the bad guys, "Black Mask", dresses as an EvilCostumeSwitch version of heroes from Phoenix Ranger Featherman, ''Persona'''s Japanese Saturday morning superhero ShowWithinAShow. One of your party members, Yusuke Kitagawa, also has a side-story vignette where he and the protagonists do {{Super Sentai Stance}}s while trying to figure out how to repair some superhero team action figures he accidentally broke.
* SequelEscalation: ''Persona 5'' adds {{Stealth Based Game}}play to dungeon traversal, a wider selection of stat improving minigames, a larger overworld filled with hundreds of [=NPCs=], completely remade enemy/demon/Persona models, and even more stylized VideogameInterfaceElements.
* SerialEscalation: In ''VideoGame/Persona3'', the first entry of the soft reboot of the series, Shadows were mostly just monsters of another world with the aspect of reflecting humanity only touched upon at the end. In ''VideoGame/Persona4'', this nature is elaborated on, with Shadows established as the unseen sides of the human soul, the parts of which that are kept buried beneath the surface. However, ''Persona 5'' shows this isn't black-and-white: not that the repressed feelings may only be that which a good person doesn't want to face, but the hidden, distorted desires that a malicious soul might just be keeping from the public eye... in other words, a malevolent Shadow ''on the antagonist's side.''
* SevenDeadlySins: As shown in the opening and the AchievementSystem trophies for beating each dungeon, the Metaverse, a MentalWorld shaped by warped desires, is filled with avatars of the standard 7 deadly sins and 2 non-standard ones, represented by nine Latin words:
** Luxuria (Lust) - Asmodeus/Suguru Kamoshida, a teacher who uses his position to pressure his students into sleeping with him.
** Irritum (Vanity) - Azazel/Ichiryuusai Madarame, a con-man who has spent decades passing off his pupils' work as his own to pretend to be a genius painter.
** Gula (Gluttony) - Bael/Junya Kaneshiro, an overweight mafia boss obsessed with blackmailing others to accumulate more and more money, despite having no plans for it other than to have more.
** Ira (Wrath) - The Sphinx/[[spoiler:Cognitive Wakaba Isshiki]], the representation of a teenage girl's self-hatred over [[spoiler:surviving a car accident where her mother was hit and killed in front of her.]]
** Avaritia (Greed) - Mammon/Kunikazu Okumura, the president of a fast food company engaged in questionable business practices and putting his own daughter in an ArrangedMarriage to grow his massive food distribution company.
** Invidia (Envy) - Leviathan/[[spoiler:Sae Niijima, a rising public prosecutor insecure about proving the equal of her co-workers and providing for her sister, leading her to a SecondPlaceIsForLosers mentality.]]
** Cavum (Emptiness) - [[spoiler:Loki/Goro Akechi, a {{Sociopath}}ic murderer with a dead mother, and father who couldn't care less about him, and no real friends, to the point despite having the AllYourPowersCombined Wild Card ability, he only has 2 Personas.]]
** Superbia (Pride) - Samael/[[spoiler:Masayoshi Shido, a politician who believes the horrible things he's done to complete innocents, including ''half your party'', are entirely justified and that he is ''God's chosen'', simply because he managed to get away with it.]]
** Acedia (Sloth) - Mementos/The people of Tokyo, a massive underground dungeon representing the city's collective BystanderSyndrome [[spoiler:where the BigBad imprisons the hearts of those who will not adhere to his KnightTemplar order, to wallow away forever.]]
** [[spoiler:Yaldabaoth, the God of Control and creator of the Metaverse, meanwhile represents ''all'' the sins, to the point he has skills named after each of them.]]
** [[spoiler:Satanael represents all seven, but as a positive force rather than malicious.]]
** Quite a few of the Mementos targets represent them, particularly Greed and Envy.
* ShipperOnDeck: In some Confidants, various characters may assume that you and the Confidant in question are going out. It's up to you to decide whether to prove them right.
* ShoutOut: [[ShoutOut/Persona5 A full page for them]].
* ShownTheirWork:
** Making coffee at Leblanc will sometimes prompt Sojiro to visit you and give you a history lesson on different types of coffee beans and how they're grown.
** Related to that, making curry at Leblanc can also net you actual real world tips and tricks for cooking up Japanese-style curry (specifically Japanese-style mind you, as the tips don't work as well for other curries from around the world).
* ShowWithinAShow: One of the minigames the protagonist can participate in is playing a video game called ''Star Forneus 1988''.
* SitcomArchnemesis: Futaba seems to have something against Yusuke. She constantly ribs on him, and when he makes a mouse pun later in the game (due to them all being temporarily turned into mice in a palace), she is very unamused. She even insults him out of nowhere in the epilogue. Presumably it started when he rearranged the body parts of her models of the Feathermen to appear more aesthetically pleasing to him though it horrified her.
** The Mementos conversations make it clear that they're on good terms with each other, in spite of their differences. Futaba is quick to alert Yusuke to a sale, and when Yusuke talks about how much he enjoys the Phantom Thief costumes, she offers to recreate the costumes with him.
* SittingOnTheRoof: The heroes use chairs littered around their school's roof for their first "hideout" to secretly plan their PhantomThief activities, before people notice they've been hanging up there a lot, forcing them to relocate. It's also a rare occasion in which the fact that the roof is off-limits to students is openly acknowledged in-story.
* SkeletonKey: Sort of. The Eternal Lock pick item isn't exactly a key, but it ignores the one use limit on lock picks allowing it to unlock every chest.
* SomethingSomethingLeonardBernstein: As usual, Shoji Meguro's themes are in English, despite Meguro not being entirely fluent, and sung by a non-English speaker, resulting in hard to make out lyrics.
* SortingAlgorithmOfEvil: Mostly played straight. The [[FemalesAreMoreInnocent two ladies]] who own palaces each break the pattern, but the overall order in which targets and members of TheConspiracy are faced is true to the trope.
** First up we have [[EvilTeacher Suguru Kamoshida]], an abusive PE coach who makes life hell for his volleyball team, any female students who catch his eye, and pretty much anyone who looks at him the wrong way. He has the ear of the school principal, who covers up his abuses for the sake of prestige and pedigree, and it's even suggested that parents and guardians are also aware of what's going on but do nothing for the same reason. He is a ''very'' [[ItsPersonal personal]] antagonist for three of the four founding members of the Phantom Thieves, having beaten one, sexually harassed another, and [[EvilIsPetty attempting to expel the third]], but is completely unrelated to the overall conspiracy and is small fry compared to what's to come -- small consolation that may be to the broken children he leaves behind.
** The second target is [[PlagiarismInFiction Ichiryuusai Madarame]], a famous artist well-known to the media and the art world. A cynical man with a perpetual [[WritersBlock Artist's Block]], he steals his students' work, tweaks it to make it more financially marketable, and passes it off as his own. Although nowhere near as monstrous and utterly detestable as his predecessor [[spoiler:(though he is morally bankrupt enough to allow one of his acquaintances to die so that he can steal her painting ''and'' her son)]], Madarame holds much greater influence and is a [[AmbiguousSituation nebulous]] financial backer of TheConspiracy, although he himself is being used [[UnwittingPawn unwittingly]]. He is the first person to imply a deeper and more sinister use for Palaces, revealing the existence of a dangerous black-masked assassin rampaging through the Metaverse who won't be dealt with until much later.
** The stakes are raised again with the third target, [[TheMafia Junya Kaneshiro]], a brutal mobster who runs the underground of Shibuya with an iron fist. He extorts money from many a citizen, and has his goons approach and blackmail students to traffic drugs and even sell themselves. Worst of all, his cautious and elusive nature has essentially put him beyond the reach of the law. Not only is Kaneshiro an explicit backer of TheConspiracy, taking him down is what really puts the Phantom Thieves on the map.
** The fourth target is a nebulous group of vigilante hacktivists who attempt to discredit the Phantom Thieves by threatening cyberwarfare against the city unless the Phantom Thieves disband. This leads to the Phantom Thieves crossing paths with the fourth palace ruler who completely smashes the pattern, being a reclusive, heavily depressed young girl who blackmails the thieves into stealing her own heart. Ironically, it turns out that she, through her mother's research, has perhaps the strongest ties to the Metaverse and the ManBehindTheMan using it [[spoiler:who was partly responsible for orchestrating the hacktivist attack to begin with.]]
** Things are back on track with the fifth target, BadBoss Kunikazu [[AmbitionIsEvil Okumura]], the president of popular food chain Big Bang Burger, who's preparing to leave his company behind and begin a political career. He is both personally wealthy and a member of TheConspiracy, using their connections to eliminate key rivals and put himself ahead in business. However, having grown too big for his breeches, the ManBehindTheMan sets him up for a fall [[spoiler:and has him murdered at an opportune time, completely destroying the Phantom Thieves' public image.]]
** [[ZigzaggedTrope Zigzagged]] with the sixth palace ruler, [[spoiler:Sae Niijima,]] who is an UnwittingPawn to TheConspiracy and not so much "evil" as a good person who's lost sight of her values, but still provides a major threat to the Phantom Thieves' existence both inside and outside the Metaverse. Her pragmatism and lack of scruples in [[spoiler:solving the case at any cost]] make her a dangerous enemy, but ultimately [[spoiler:she regains control of herself without requiring a change of heart and becomes a major ally of the heroes against the real villains.]] Speaking of...
** At last we come to the head of TheConspiracy, [[spoiler:VillainWithGoodPublicity Masayoshi Shido and his bastard son/personal assassin [[DragonWithAnAgenda Goro Akechi]].]] Using his vast web of influence, research into the Metaverse, and a very eager Persona-using assassin on a tight leash, [[spoiler:Shido meticulously carries out a bloody bid for Prime Minister.]] He is ultimately behind the mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns, which were used to remove and implicate key individuals [[spoiler:whose downfalls his campaign would benefit from.]] He was directly and indirectly funded by several of the above enemies, although not all of them knew exactly what he was doing. After some personal setbacks and a grueling battle, the Phantom Thieves triumph over [[spoiler:Shido and Goro, the latter of whom reveals himself as TheStarscream and leaves the story on a DeathEqualsRedemption note.]] This is also an ironic case of BookEnds, as the head of the Conspiracy ended up being [[spoiler:the petty sexual harasser who sued the protagonist at the very start of the game -- an astronomical coincidence that our protagonist, at the end of the game, believes to have been preordained by a higher power.]] And perhaps with good reason...
** The final Palace ruler, [[spoiler:Yaldabaoth, AKA the Holy Grail, AKA the Treasure of Mementos, is an EldritchAbomination who usurped the Velvet Room before the story started and began posing as Igor. The "game", as he puts it, was to see whether humanity had a future; if they could be moved to embrace the righteous thieves, embodied by the Trickster, against the chaos and the corrupt establishment, championed by Goro Akechi. As they did not -- as they turned against the thieves to the point of removing them from cognition, choosing instead a life of indolence, passing off all responsibility to the Holy Grail -- Yaldabaoth concludes that they do not deserve to exist. His menace is a threat to the entire world, and he is the fiend that Lavenza, the Velvet Room's true avatar of power, had warned the protagonist of at the start of the game. He also extends a sincere WeCanRuleTogether offer to the heroes, promising to suspend his plan of destruction and rebirth and simply observe the continued actions of the Phantom Thieves provided the Holy Grail is left alone. If he's refused, his defeat comes only after the DarkestHour, and requires the protagonist unleashing his Ultimate Persona, Satanael.]]
* SpeakInUnison: Caroline and Justine do this near the climax of the game, complete with the requisite CreepyMonotone. [[spoiler:it's a sign that their true identity as Lavenza is resurfacing.]]
* SpeechBubbles: Multiple parts of the user interface will pop up as white bubbles with black text in them.
* SpeedStripes: White lines appear around the edges of the screen when the characters move at high speeds.
* SpitTake: Ryuji does this during an optional evening confidant event at Leblanc's if the protagonist mucks up brewing coffee and it ends up way too bitter (by putting some love into it, instead of doing it as instructed).
* SpoilerOpening: Zigzagged. The game's opening sequence hides your future party members in shadow so as not to explicitly give their names, appearances, and thief costumes away. This would probably be a little more meaningful were it not for the "let us start the game" image that appears every time ''Persona 5'' is booted up, which gives us a nice look at [[http://i.imgur.com/rnbfsl4.jpg every single one of the thieves in their metaverse attire]], up to and including [[TheRival Goro Akechi]], whose addition to the team marks a fairly major turning point in the story. Atlus seemed unsure of just how far to market Akechi in general; he was conspicuously absent from a good chunk of promotional material that would've given his addition to the group away, but occasionally showed up in costume previews alongside the other playable characters, along with the box art, which made him joining the gang a ForegoneConclusion.
* StandardStatusEffects: The game introduces many status effects, some similar to status effects from previous ''Persona'' games, and others exclusive to the current iteration of the battle system.
** ''Burn'' - Caused rarely by fire skills, deals minor damage to the target after they complete their turn. Induces bonus "Technical" damage from wind and nuclear attacks.
** ''Shock'' - Caused rarely by electric skills, inflicts paralysis as well as capable of being spread through physical contact (such as attacking via normal attack) and inducing bonus "Technical" damage from physical and nuclear attacks.
** ''Freeze'' - Caused rarely by ice skills, prevents the target from acting during their turn, reduces physical resistance, and induces bonus "Technical" damage from physical and nuclear attacks.
** ''Dizzy'' - A stand-in for blindness; severely drops physical and magical attack accuracy as well as induces bonus "Technical" damage.
** ''Forget'' - A stand-in for silence; disables use of any Persona skills.
** ''Sleep'' - Disables all actions, yet recovers HP and SP each turn. Induces bonus "Technical" damage but wears off immediately afterward.
** ''Hunger'' - A new status effect which severely drops attack power for the afflicted target.
** ''Confuse'' - Afflicted target either does nothing, throws away money, throws an item at the enemy, or uses an item.
** ''Fear'' - Afflicted target is likelier to ignore commands and/or run away from battle.
** ''Despair'' - A unique stand-in for Doom; afflicted target has disabled actions and loses SP every turn, and is eventually incapacitated after three turns.
** ''Rage'' - Also known as berserk; afflicted target can't be controlled, can only use basic attacks, and has their attack power increased while their defense is decreased.
** ''Brainwash'' - Also known as charmed; afflicted target can't be controlled, can heal or cast buffs on the enemy, as well as attack allies.
** ''Rattled'' - Unique status effect in which the target is [[VisualPun turned into a rat]] and takes increased damage and cannot act.
** [[spoiler:Madarame's]] paint attack causes a unique status that makes a character weak to all elements.
** [[spoiler:Yaldabaoth]] inflicts unique status ailments via use of [[spoiler:the SevenDeadlySins. Vanity causes the same effect as Madarame's paint attack while Greed causes Hunger]].
*** [[spoiler:Lust]] causes the afflicted to skip a turn, but only lasts a single turn.
*** [[spoiler:Gluttony]] doubles the party's cost of using skills for a few turns.
*** [[spoiler:Wrath]] appears to be a less serious version of Rage/Berserk. It increases attack power and decreases defense, but the afflicted can still be controlled, and it only lasts one turn.
*** [[spoiler:Envy]] causes a unit to become jealous for a turn, making the affected attack an ally for assisting another ally.
* StarterMon: Arsene, the only level 1 Persona GuardianEntity, who you get at the very start of the game and starts with nothing but a weak physical attack and a weak darkness spell. Leveling him up will take longer than any other Persona in the game, and you'll have to sacrifice dozens of stronger Personas to give him enough high-end skills to make him useful beyond the first dungeon.
* StealingTheCredit: One of the most common abuses of power featured in the game.
** [[spoiler:Madarame]] has passed off his underlings' work as his own for years.
** In Ryuji's link, the [[spoiler:teacher who is supposed to take over the track team]] has every intention of hiring a coach to do the actual work, but claim the credit himself.
** [[spoiler:Tae Takemi's]] boss hijacked [[spoiler:her]] research so that he could lay claim to a breakthrough discovery.
** In a sidequest, a woman's boss tells her to accept that her male coworker [[StealingTheCredit stole the credit for her work]] because she's a woman and that's "the natural order of things".
* StatGrinding: Training in either [=LeBlanc=]'s attic or at the Protein Lovers gym increases Joker's HP and SP each time. Continued training at Protein Lovers will eventually unlock harder training regimens that further increase these stats, and drinking a Protein Shake beforehand will add even more gains per session.
* StealthBasedGame: In dungeons, you can sneak around foes by {{flash step}}ping behind walls, hopping into paintings, and so forth. This allows you to perform {{Back Stab}}s to give your party [[AdvantageBall the first turn]] in battle.
* StealthPun:
** Ann and Morgana are both burglars that dress like/''actually are'' cats.
** [[spoiler:Futaba's Palace is an Egyptian pyramid and her Shadow is an Egyptian princess half wrapped in bandages. This is because she has "mummy" issues.]]
** In dungeons, you can find dirty clothing in locked chests. It's as though you are finding the target's dirty laundry hidden away.
** Joker's wears bright red gloves that stand out against the muted, almost black color scheme of the rest of his outfit. Since he's a thief, this means that if he's found out, he'll be ''caught red handed.''
** They couldn't make the party fight an endgame-tier demon like Mara in the first dungeon, so they [[{{Squick}} put in just the tip]].
** The [[spoiler:ATM people outside of Kaneshiro's palace are malfunctioning and are generally broken. They are broke (in the financial sense) people.]]
* StockRPGSpells: Notable for adding complexity to the ''Persona 3'' and ''4'' set of spells. They are:
** [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer Physical/Phys]].
** [[MoreDakka Gun]]. Gun and Phys skils are CastFromHitPoints and can land critical hits.
** [[PlayingWithFire Fire]]. May burn foes.
** [[AnIcePerson Ice]]. May freeze opponents solid.
** [[BlowYouAway Wind]]. No added effect, but costs less SP.
** [[ShockAndAwe Electric]]. May paralyze foes.
** [[ILoveNuclearPower Nuclear]]. Deals extra damage to burned, frozen, or shocked foes.
** [[MindOverMatter Psychic]]. Deals extra damage to foes suffering from StandardStatusEffects.
** [[CastingAShadow Curse/Dark]].
** [[LightEmUp Bless/Light]]. Curse/Dark and Bless/Light spells are each a flavor of OneHitKill. ''Persona 5'' added Bless/Light and Curse/Dark spells that deal normal damage.
** [[NonElemental Almighty]]. Deals neutral damage against any foe and can't be [[AttackReflector reflected]]. Has higher base power than other spells, but a monstrous SP cost.
* SummonMagic: As in previous ''Persona'' games, all your special attacks and magic are performed by summoning a GuardianEntity representation of a character's psyche. This time around, the Persona will appear as soon as you start looking through your skill list.
* SuperMovePortraitAttack: A cut-in of the character's eyes will flash onscreen any time your Persona performs a critical attack.
* SupernaturalGoldEyes: Shadow Selves once again sport glowing yellow eyes, even when appearing as {{Doppelganger}}s of their human selves.
** As always, the attendants of the Velvet Room sport glowing eyes just a shade lighter than that of Shadows. Caroline and Justine draw even more attention to theirs, since they both wear an eyepatch.
** Interestingly, the protagonists themselves have shadow eyes when they summon their Persona, both in [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration cutscene and in gameplay.]]
* SurprisinglyGoodEnglish: A number of songs, which include battle themes and background music, feature English lyrics that actually aren't complete gibberish and suit the part of the game it goes with.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
** Mementos is a randomly-generated, multi-floor dungeon you can go to any time to level up and which is stated at the start of the game to be the focus of a game-long game quest to uncover its mysteries. It's the location of {{Sidequest}}s, is divided into "paths" named after concepts in Hebrew Mysticism, has calendar-based gates that only clear away by proceeding with the plot, [[spoiler:and the bottom serves as the not-so-optional penultimate dungeon]], making it a mirror image of [[EvilTowerOfOminousness Tartarus]] in ''VideoGame/Persona3''. [[spoiler:And like Tartarus, if you spend too long in one floor, [[BonusBoss the Reaper]] comes after you.]]
** On floor 7 of Mementos' Harmony section, you fight a short haired school girl's Shadow, who as it turns out is a total sadist and who drops a whip as her treasure, a la Chie's Shadow in ''VideoGame/Persona4''.
** The sixth dungeon of the game [[spoiler:was created by a party member's relative]], is [[DiscOneFinalDungeon ostensibly the last dungeon]], has a theme song with lyrics and the choices you make in regard to the fallout determine which ending you get, something that applies to Heaven from ''Persona 4'' and the Casino from ''Persona 5''.
* SweatDrop: Any time characters are suddenly worried, their character model will have 3 little drops of water pop out from their forehead. any time they're embarrassed, an oversized drop of water pops up on the side of their temple instead.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:T-Z]]
* TailorMadePrison: Inverted. The Velvet Room, which changes into a location tailor-made for its current guest, becomes a prison for ''P5''[='=]s Protagonist.
* TakeThat:
** Sadayo basically calls ''The Tale of The Bamboo Cutter'' a story about a woman making unreasonable demands to her suitors, sending them to get expensive shit for her, and then high tailing it to the moon. (This conveniently ignores the fact that the reason she set them an ImpossibleTask was so that they would give up, as she couldn't afford to get attached... but given Sadayo's Confidant link, that's not surprising.)
** Much like ''VideoGame/Persona4DancingAllNight'', this game depicts' Japan's IdolSinger industry ''extremely'' negatively, though it's mostly related to optional sidequests and a few Confidants.
* TakeCover: The protagonist can hide behind walls and furniture while sneaking around.
* TakeYourTime: You can ride trains all across Tokyo, a process that in real life can take hours, without the sun or moon ever moving an inch. Until you actually engage in a side-story quest or a mini-game, time will never change. Additionally, the loading screen invokes the name of this trope.
* TalkingIsAFreeAction: Whenever one of the party members awaken to their Persona, they are surrounded by shadows who have been recently given orders from the Palace ruler which are some variation of "kill them." Each time, the awakening party member is cornered, but then stands up and delivers a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to the villain before awakening to their Persona and entering battle, and the whole time while they go through the motions (the declaration of rebellion, contract, etc) the Shadows and Palace ruler simply stand there and watch them rather than making any sort of motion to stop them. This is likely because the Palace rulers, and by extension the Shadows, are just as stunned as the party members, unable to do more than just watch in awe, since Palace rulers have no conception of anyone standing up to them, let alone awakening a Persona in their presence.
* TalkToTheHand: The protagonist will stick his hand out to the screen when you open the menu, with text reading "Don't look at me like that" in the corner of the screen.
* TarotMotifs: As in previous games, Personas / Shadows, party members and various [=NPCs=] are divided into the 20-odd major arcana of the Tarot deck.
* TearOffYourFace: When party members first rip off their Persona masks, their face becomes appropriately bloodied as if it were their actual face. Ripping the mask off Shadows also hurts them, giving you an advantage in battle.
* TechnicolorFire: Blue flames are a major visual motif in the game.
** In the second teaser, an otherworldly blue flame can be seen in the distance once [[TimeStandsStill time stops]].
** Each protagonist bursts into blue flame when they first awaken to their Persona.
** Persona are now covered in blue flame when they are summoned.
* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: Shadows fought as normal enemies ''usually'' have the same elemental weaknesses/resistances as their Persona counterparts, but not always. For example, Mara as a Persona is weak to Ice, but the Maras that appear as enemies late into [[spoiler:the Mementos Depths]] are not, and in fact have no weaknesses entirely.
* ThematicThemeTune:
** "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There" by Lyn Inaizumi. The lyrics are about stepping out of one's comfort zone to confront the wrongdoings and evils in the world when others are content to just stand by and watch, and that if someone wants change in the world, they have to do it themselves rather than waiting on someone else.
** "Life Will Change" by Lyn Inaizumi. The lyrics have characters who have now gained strength by discarding the masks that once held them back to challenge the established order, inspire others, and change the world around them with their own hands.
** "Rivers in the Desert", which has the hero and villain switching off verses giving their motivations for fighting each other, only to come together in the refrain to declare their NotSoDifferent, WellIntentionedExtremist desires to change the world.
* ThemeMusicPowerUp:
** "Awakening" kicks in any time a character awakens to their GuardianEntity and destroys a bunch of {{Mook}}s.
** "Life Will Change" plays on any day the heroes pull off their latest [[TheCaper heist]]. Notably, the game uses two variants: the early Palaces all use an instrumental version, the final set of Palaces ([[spoiler:starting with the Sae's Casino, as heard in the prologue]]) on the other hand make use of the lyrical version.
** An instrumental version of "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There" plays when [[spoiler:Futaba hijacks all of Japan's airwaves to send out their calling card to Shido.]]
* ThemeTable:
** As usual, each character is associated with a {{Tarot Motif|s}}.
** Each character's starting Persona is based on a {{Picaresque}} hero. Meanwhile, each character's ultimate Persona is based on a RageAgainstTheHeavens mythological figure.
** Each ArcVillain is associated with one of the SevenDeadlySins, including two from less popular traditions (Vanity and Despair).
* ThemeTuneCameo: In the end when [[spoiler:the now-disbanded thieves drive off celebrating their newfound freedom, Makoto turns on the radio and]] "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There" first plays from the radio, before carrying over into the background music.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: The party CombinationAttack has your team hitting the enemies so many times that they errupt into sprays of blood. Even if the opponent is one hit away from death.
* ThisIsAWorkOfFiction: All ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games begin with one of these, but this game stands out in particular by incorporating it into the narrative, with Igor asking the player directly whether they accept the disclaimer. [[ButThouMust Selecting "no" boots the player back to the title screen.]]
* ThreeAmigos: [[TheHero The Protagonist]], [[TheLancer Ryuji]] and [[TheChick Ann]] start as a three man team that are constantly hanging out together, before recruiting the rest of the party.
* TimeStandsStill: When the protagonist first activates the "Metaverse Navi" app, everyone around him in a crowded intersection freezes, leaving only the protagonist and his Persona / Shadow still moving.
* ToBeLawfulOrGood: A central conflict in the game. The Phantom Thieves become criminals to reform those who have manipulated the rules of society to exploit others, and are thus untouchable by traditional authorities. [[spoiler:Akechi's FaceHeelTurn also first appears to be caused by his desire to uphold the law instead of doing the right thing, only to turn out to be the opposite: He takes the Phantom Thieves' methods to the extreme, killing people in order to propel his father to Prime Minister, then revealing said crimes to punish society as a whole for allowing Shido's abuse of others.]]
* TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse: [[spoiler:Being an AnthropomorphicPersonification of KnightTemplar order, the BigBad could have basically manifested anywhere in Japan, or even the world at large. The game implies Shido's collective unconscious research and the Japanese public's tendency to think of themselves as one entity and not question authority much (compared to a country that actively glorifies various types of individualism, like UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates) helped, but there's no direct reason given.]]
* TooLongDidntDub: Due to the game being explicitly set in UsefulNotes/{{Tokyo}}, Japan, various cultural references are untranslated. This includes things like SenpaiKohai, food names, most JapaneseHonorifics with some exceptions[[note]]Morgana calls Ann "Lady" rather than "-dono", and teachers tend to be called "Mr." and "Ms." rather than "sensei."[[/note]] and so on.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: PlayedForLaughs. When you go to a fancy buffet at multiple points throughout the story, female party member Ann will get nothing but desserts, and male party member Ryuji will get nothing but meat.
* TradeYourPassionForGlory: [[spoiler:The group starts to lose sight of their original goal to inspire people to change when they try to win support from the public by going after more high-profile targets that they allow the people to choose, unintentionally turning themselves into a fad rather then true social reformists in the public's eyes. Shido and Goro take advantage of it to screw them over.]]
* TraitorShot: After the game gets to the present from the Protagonist's flashbacks, it's revealed who sold him out after Sae Niijima leaves the interrogation room. [[spoiler:Goro Akechi says he's down there to question the Protagonist, but as Sae walks past, he chuckles and says "Foolish woman," with his in-game portrait looking very menacing.]]
* TransformationOfThePossessed:
** Humans who have had their MentalWorld messed with by TheConspiracy end up with BlankWhiteEyes and start bleeding sludge-like black blood from their mouth and eyes.
** When first offered a DealWithTheDevil by their GuardianEntity "other-self", characters gain SupernaturalGoldEyes just like TheHeartless they battle.
* TranslationConvention: Naturally, since the game is set in modern Japan, the English script still behaves as if everyone is speaking Japanese and English is merely being heard for the benefit of the Anglophone player. Granted, this does make a few scenes where Ann has to read things that are natively in English a little odd, since everyone sounds like they're speaking English and then they need Ann's help...with English. This is somewhat alleviated if the player plays with the Japanese dub.
* TriumphantReprise: The Phantom Thieves' "Life Will Change" theme is a faster, more upbeat version of the opening "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There" theme. It also replaces the questioning, lamenting lyrics of the opening with a triumphant promise that the singers will change the world themselves.
* ATwinkleInTheSky: In the escape from the pyramid dungeon, Ann throws Morgana so high into the air it results in Morgana temporarily disappearing in a tiny flash of light before landing at the base of the pyramid.
* TwoTeacherSchool: Subverted. In the first arc of the game, it appears the only two named teachers at the school are StarterVillain Suguru Kamoshida and your homeroom teacher Sadayo Kawakami. However, ''all'' your teachers end up showing up in PopQuiz sections, and even have {{Character Portrait}}s.
* UndergroundMonkey: Subverted. On [[PreexistingEncounters the field]], enemies are slightly retextured versions of one or two enemies. For instance, the first dungeon only has a knight in silver armor, and the exact same knight with a gold armor texture on him. [[ActuallyFourMooks In battle]] however, the enemies are all custom models from several decades of ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' designs.
* TheUnfought: [[spoiler:While Medjed is built up to be a serious threat, the real objective of that chapter is to help Futaba. Who deals with them by herself off screen.]]
* UngratefulBitch: Subverted. The woman whom the protagonist helped before his prosecution is forced to cooperate with her molester or she too will suffer the consequences.
* UniqueProtagonistAsset: The Protagonist has the unique "Wild Card" ability, that lets him change his GuardianEntity at will and recruit Shadows to his cause. [[spoiler:Subverted when it turns out "Black Mask", TheHeavy for the villains, has the same power.]]
* UnmovingPlaid: In the traditionally animated opening, the plaid pattern present on Joker, Ryuji, and Ann's uniforms is static. This is a stylistic choice, as the plaid used for traditionally animated cutscenes both looks different and matches the characters' movements.
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: Justified. [[spoiler:Anything involving the Protagonist's plan to fake his death and expose Akechi and his boss isn't shown until the Protagonist is putting it into motion. This is because the Protagonist was heavily drugged, thus he legitimately did not remember that there was a plan until the last minute, and the game fades to white before any scenes involving the plan.]]
* TheUntwist:
** In-Universe, [[spoiler:most of the Confidants find out the player is a Phantom Thief, and treat it as this, casually revealing that they've known for a while during their rank 10 scene. [[IntrepidReporter Ichiko Ohya]] in particular laughs at how obvious it is.]]
** Also in-universe, none of your party members are actually caught off guard by [[spoiler:Akechi's betrayal]].
* UrbanFantasy: The game revolves around high school students in contemporary Tokyo, Japan who can summon an AnthropomorphicPersonification of their psyches that take the forms of various fictional and mythological figures. So monsters bearing the appearance of demons and gods are fought both with melee weapons and modern fire arms.
* UselessUsefulSpell:
** The "Hama" and "Mudo" light and dark OneHitKill attacks have even less utility compared to previous games, as there is now an entire line of light and dark attacks that still exploit enemy weaknesses, deal actual damage, and have a near 100% hit rate (instead of 70-80% tops). This is somewhat mitigated by the instant kill spells being able to take advantage of enemy weaknesses to Bless/Curse and have a higher hit rate.
** This trope is otherwise [[AvertedTrope averted]], as usual for the ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' series: although status effect spells are useless against the major plot-relevant bosses, they have surprising accuracy (even the slightly less accurate all-targeting versions still hit most of the time). And as it turns out, many of the bosses in Mementos ARE vulnerable to ailments. And, as veteran SMT players know, stat buff and debuff spells have a very large effect, are 100% accurate, and are not resisted by any enemy, making them absolutely vital.
* UselessUsefulStealth: The opening tutorial seems to suggest that stealthing past enemies can be a viable strategy when it forces you to hide until an agent talking on his cell phone leaves, but in actual gameplay sneaking past enemies will deprive you of experience, money, and items. Unless you're running dangerously low on SP, stealth is primarily useful for ambushing enemies.
* VacationEpisode: Your ClassTrip involves the party traveling by plane out of Japan to ''Hawaii''.
* VendorTrash: Most of the treasure you steal from the various Palaces, include the main Treasure each of your heists are targeting, can only be sold at the weapon shop for cash. They have no other uses and stay in a seperate tab from equipment and other usable items.
* TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: [[spoiler:Assuming that you've reached the path to the True Ending, the final dungeon is Qliphoth World, where Yaldabaoth is starting to overlay his Palace onto the real world.]]
* VictoryPose: Party Members not only have various poses they strike after winning a battle, but unique splash screen poses that'll pop if an All-Out attack they initiated wiped out the enemy party: The Protagonist tightens one of his gloves and pops a SlasherSmile, Ryuji does a devil horns {{Hand Signal|s}}, Ann does a {{V Sign}}, Morgana does a ChairReveal with a cigar, and so on.
* VictoryQuote:
** Your party members will randomly drop various lines when you enter the battle results screen.
--->'''Ann:''' Total victory, yay!
** If you win with an All-Out Attack, you also get a quote in the background of the character you were controlling when you won.
--->'''Joker''': THE SHOW'S OVER\\
'''Ryuji''': FREAKIN' BORING\\
'''Ann''': OMG! We are SO awesome!\\
'''Morgana''': MISSION ACCOMPLISHED\\
'''Yusuke''': IT WAS FUN WHILE IT LASTED, GOODBYE\\
'''Makoto''': JUSTICE HAS PREVAILED\\
'''Haru''': Adieu\\
[[spoiler:'''Akechi''': MY SOLE INTEREST IS IN UNCOVERING THE TRUTH.]]\\
[[spoiler:'''[[BonusBoss Justine & Caroline]]''': DON'T GET COCKY]]
* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment:
** Failing to complete a dungeon [[spoiler:or betraying your friends to Sae]] will result in you getting a BadEnd, [[spoiler:all of which end with you getting [[BoomHeadshot shot in the head]]]]. You monster.
** If you enter the women's bathroom in the first half of Madarame's museum Palace, a female Shadow {{Mook}} will be waiting to get a surprise attack on you.
* VillainousBreakdown: The CallingCard is meant to illicit this, forcing your target to be confronted by their twisted desires and, in turn, causing a shift in cognition that makes the treasure materialize in such a way that it can be pilfered. Doing so also causes security in the Palace to be automatically set to 99%.
* VillainOverForDinner: {{Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist}}s like Sae and Akechi will show up at Cafe Leblanc for coffee throughout the story. For Akechi, this is actually a part of his Confidant.
* VirtualPaperDoll: The ability from ''[[UpdatedRerelease Persona 4 Golden]]'' to equip your party members with different sets of clothes returns. Unlike in that game, though, the costumes are DLC.
* VitriolicBestBuds:
** Ann and Ryuji. While they can give each other a hard time, they're much closer and more affectionate friends than Yukari and Junpei or Chie and Yosuke from the previous games.
** Ryuji and Morgana have this dynamic as well; it actually becomes a plot point. When Morgana's insecurities and uncertain origins are exacerbated by Futaba taking over his role as navigator, he begins to take offense to the flippant comments Ryuji is prone to making and is genuinely hurt, while he usually gives as good as he gets. This eventually comes to a head and [[spoiler:Morgana temporarily leaves the group, feeling he's no longer wanted or needed.]]
** Futaba and Yusuke. The former likes needling the latter, while the latter often responds in kind, but Yusuke's one of the first thieves who manages to have an actual conversation with the highly introverted Futaba. That said, Makoto once tells them to cut out their bickering over IM during a particularly tense time.
* WakeUpCallBoss:
** Shadow Kamoshida/Asmodeus is the first real boss of the game and demonstrates that boss fights are going to be a lot more complex than previous games. First, you have to figure out that you need to take out his cup or he'll just heal himself. Second, he can buff his attack, allowing him to hit for very high numbers, teaching the importance of buffs and dubuffs. Third, both veterans and newcomers will be introduced to special operations, forcing them to learn how to keep up the offensive against the boss with a reduced party.
** Shadow Madarame/Azazel starts the fight as four separate parts that you have to defeat in order to expose his real body. Each part gets a turn and they each have their own resistances and attacks. The first time isn't too much trouble, the second time though, the boss gains a new attack that gives a random party member a weakness to every attack, which you can definitely expect the boss to exploit, and any living parts will use up their turns to resurrect downed parts if you don't take them all down at once.
* WakeUpGoToSchoolSaveTheWorld: Your party spends their days going to school and their afternoons and nights reforming corrupt adults and trying to dismantle a criminal conspiracy.
* WeaksauceWeakness: [[BonusBoss The Reaper]] dies very quickly when [[spoiler:infected with the flu]].
* WeaponForIntimidation: How the concept of gunplay introduces itself into the game; on your second venture into Kamoshida's Palace, after reaching the first [[SavePoint safe room]], Ryuji reveals that he planned ahead and got some medicine and a toy (if incredibly realistic-looking) gun in the hopes that you could scare enemies off with it. However, given the manner in which the [[YourMindMakesItReal cognitive world works]], the model gun can hit as hard as a real gun as long as the Shadows believe it's the genuine article.
* WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou: If the protagonist is defeated during battle, the game ends, even if your party members are at full health. The reason is because if you die before 11/20 it means the drugs Joker was injected with knocked him out in the current time; [[spoiler:[[DisasterDominoes which means that Sae leaves him and then you get shot in the head by the traitor]]]]. In the current timeframe, [[spoiler:you just lose Yaldabaoth's game]].
* WellDoneSonGuy: [[spoiler:Akechi lived his entire life feeling unloved and unwanted, and the primary motivation behind his actions is to gain the respect of his deadbeat father, Shido, before backstabbing him and exacting revenge for ruining his life.]]
* WeWouldHaveToldYouBut: [[spoiler:When Sae asks why the Phantom Thieves didn't upfront tell her that Akechi was working for a conspiracy that was using the Metaverse to commit crimes, the Thieves reply that 1) Sae wouldn't have believed them and 2) they needed Sae in the dark for their plan.]]
* WhamEpisode:
** [[spoiler:Kunikazu Okumura's death, which breaks Haru's heart, lands the Thieves in hot water with the authorities since it seems like they were responsible, and leads to revelations that TheConspiracy is much more powerful than the Thieves imagined.]]
** The entire sequence of events after the story finally catches up to the present day. [[spoiler:Goro Akechi was a traitor and he tries to kill the Protagonist after Sae's interrogation; however, the Thieves were suspicious of him from the start and bugged his phone, meaning that they knew of his plans. It turns out Joker's capture was part of a risky GambitRoulette to convince Sae to join the good guys, use the Metaverse to fake Joker's death, and figure out who the leader of the conspiracy is.]]
** During the Star Confidant, the confrontation with Hifumi's mother Mitsuyo's Shadow reveals that she isn't just trying to use Hifumi's career as a stepping stone to make Hifumi an idol (all so that Mitsuyo can live vicariously through her daughter)- [[spoiler:she fixed several of Hifumi's matches to ensure her rise to fame]].
* WhamLine: Lots of them:
** During the final confrontation with Madarame's Shadow, Yusuke reaches an epiphany that surprises even the party.
--->'''Yusuke:''' I've heard that you destroy your "art" once they [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlive their usefulness]]... [[spoiler:Did that include [[MissingMom my mother]] as well]]?
** It's minor in the grand scheme of things, but when trying to pinpoint Kaneshiro's Palace, the Thieves hit the right answer by accident... and this answer reveals exactly what they're getting into, and just how dangerous he is compared to their earlier targets.
--->[What Kaneshiro sees as his bank is] ''"all of Shibuya."''
** As the interrogation begins to catch up to the present day, Sae pulls out the last CallingCard that was sent and reveals who the Thieves' last target was.
--->'''Sae:''' This was addressed to [[spoiler:"Sae Niijima"...myself.]]
** After the story catches back up to the present, the Traitor's identity is at last revealed after a confrontation with Sae:
--->'''[[spoiler:Goro Akechi]], sporting a PsychoticSmirk:''' [[TraitorShot Hmph, foolish woman]].
** Followed shortly thereafter by the revelation of [[TheManBehindTheMan the guy pulling HIS strings]]:
--->'''The Traitor, on the phone:''' [[spoiler:Shido-san]], my task is complete.
** In the good ending, a cutscene shows the reaction of the surviving Phantom Thieves to the Protagonist's arrest [[spoiler:and apparent "suicide".]] They are all appropriately concerned and horrified by the turn of events, and then...
--->'''[[spoiler:Ryuji:]]''' You're shitting me....[[spoiler:[[JustAsPlanned we got 'em.]]]]
** The final big one, during the game's DarkestHour.
--->'''Igor:''' In accordance to the game's rules, the defeated must pay a price. [[spoiler:Your life is forfeit. I sentence you to be executed.]]
* WhamShot:
** The cutscene entering [[spoiler:Sae's]] Palace for the first time places the thieves a good distance away from the actual palace, in a minimally distorted area of the Metaverse. Then the camera pans up to show us a [[spoiler:familiar-looking casino, and we realize we've been here before...]]
** A similar effect takes place when the crew enters [[spoiler:Shido's Palace]]; it at first looks the same as reality, and their clothes haven't yet changed... until the camera pulls out to reveal [[spoiler:the Diet Building on the deck of a ship, afloat in a sea that has sunken Tokyo.]] The music especially assists hammering home its impact.
* WhatTheHellPlayer:
** If you enter the women's bathroom in the first half of Madarame's museum Palace, Ann will comment on it and ask you to leave.
** On a heavier note, [[spoiler:if you choose to accept Yaldabaoth's deal towards the end of the game, Lavenza expresses her disappointment at you. After which she laments that neither her nor the true Igor saw this turn of events coming, and sadly confirming how Joker really is a Trickster.]]
** In the endgame, [[spoiler:if you dated more than one girl at a time, all of the romanceable Confidants will confront you about his unfaithfulness the day after Valentine's Day.]]
* WhatWouldXDo: A variant. [[spoiler:When the Protagonist has to turn himself in so that Shido can be found guilty, the other Thieves imagine Morgana (who they believed to have disappeared with the other world) making fun of them for giving up too easily. This encourages them find a way to save the Protagonist.]]
* WhatYouAreInTheDark: The Shadows Selves in the Palaces represent the twisted hidden feelings of the respective adults you target. Similarly, when characters' Persona first awaken, they encourage their other selves to ignore society's expectations and unleash their true rage/vengeance/etc. on those who have wronged them.
* WholeEpisodeFlashback: Of the HowWeGotHere variety. The prologue shows Joker's capture by the police after a recent heist, before backtracking six months to his arrival in Tokyo and the start of his adventures. At regular intervals, the story cuts back to Sae and Joker discussing the events that led up to the current situation.
* WithThisHerring: The game starts with your sum total of equipment being nothing but a knife, a toy gun, a giant toy sword, and a giant toy slingshot. In fact, figuring out how to exploit the YourMindMakesItReal properties of the MentalWorld you're traversing and getting better weapons from a military hobby shop end up being such a big issue they get their own {{Sidequest}}.
* WomanScorned: [[spoiler:Cheating on your LoveInterest was already a bad idea in ''P4 Golden'', but doing so here ''will'' result in the girls finding out in the epilogue. [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown It does not end well for Joker]].]]
* WorthlessTreasureTwist: [[spoiler:The treasure from Okumura's palace turns into a model spaceship he wanted as a boy. Subverted as it turns out to have become a valuable collector's item since then.]]
** Later played straight with [[spoiler:Shido's treasure, which turns out to be his legislator's pin. As the party points out, a legislator's pin is worth almost nothing in raw value itself.]] It gets even more anti-climactic when taken into consideration that [[spoiler:this is the [[BigBad Big Bad]]'s treasure, perhaps as a minor foreshadowing that his actual confession is no more satisfying.]]
** [[spoiler:Sae's]] treasure is also suggested to be [[spoiler:a mere police notebook]], though what it actually is remains unrevealed.
** Downplayed/Averted with Kaneshiro's treasure, a golden suitcase filled with obviously fake money, which disappoints the party at first. However, the ''case'' itself is easily the most valuable treasure in the game.
* YearX: Rather than being a specific year as previous games, the in-story calendar is dated 20XX. Though if one correlates calendars, and given other hints in the game (like Rise still releasing albums while not looking ''terribly'' much older than she did in ''VideoGame/Persona4'', and a TV broadcast later stating that she's 20, it's pretty clear the game takes place in 2016. [[note]]As a refresher, Rise was born on June 1, 1995; she was 16 when ''Persona 4'' happened in 2011 and doing the math tells you that she'll be hitting 21 in 2016.[[/note]]
* YouAreAlreadyDead: When you perform an All-Out CombinationAttack that wipes out the enemy party, the enemies will freeze in place for a few seconds so a member of your party can pop a VictoryPose and drop a BondOneLiner, at which point a GoryDiscretionShot shows the enemies' silhouettes erupting into a spray of blood.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: The Phantom Thieves as a whole are all like this barring possibly Futaba, thanks in part to Shigenori Soejima's character design style. They could all realistically pass for young college-goers as opposed to high school students with how they were proportioned. Take the main character for example, who is listed at ''16'' years of age; which means he's exactly in line with his [[VideoGame/Persona3 two]] [[VideoGame/Persona4 predecessors]] who are also listed at 16. On first glance he could easily be seen as two to three years their senior. This even plays into height where amusingly, he's supposed to be all of 5'9" meaning he's only two inches taller than the protagonist of [[VideoGame/Persona3 P3]] (noted as 5'7") while two inches ''shorter'' than the protagonist of [[VideoGame/Persona4 P4]] (noted at 5'11") but it'd hard to tell that from looking at his in-game model where he looks to be should-to-shoulder with most of the adults barring Sae.
** There are dialogue choices throughout the game in which you can try and lie and say that the protagonist is just a [[OlderThanTheyLook youthful-looking college student]] - despite the character design, no one really buys it.
* YourMindMakesItReal: Cognition allows for anything to become real if influenced by a strong enough person's will or a collective. The Metaverse has items there like "red phosphorus", an extremely explosive powder that in real life is only an urban legend, and includes creating perfect versions of objects that also exist in the real world, like the Treasures found within Palaces. [[spoiler:Morgana's words before he disappears also make it clear that ''everything'' is influenced by Cognition, and that what humans consider the "real world" is no more real than the Metaverse. Likewise Morgana thinks it's the Phantom Thieves' Cognition of him that allowed him to continue living even as a cat. His words and the concept strongly suggest Cognition is Persona's equivalent to ''Shin Megami Tensei's'' Observation]].
[[/folder]]
