Sliding Scale Of Gameplay And Story Integration / Persona 5

• As Joker's Proficiency stat is ranked up in gameplay, his Idle Animations during story events change. When studying, a low Proficiency Joker will just tap his pen on the table, while at high Proficiency, he starts spinning it around. Similarly, a Joker with high Proficiency will spin his phone during meetings at the hideout. On a similar note, Joker's animation at the hideout will change based on whether this is before or after the interrogation. If it's before, he will do the phone spin animation. If it's after, he'll rub his head on the spot where the investigator stepped on him.
• Ryuji was the star of the track team of Shujin until Kamoshida crippled him by breaking his leg. In the present, Ryuji runs with a noticeable limp and cannot jump high. Gameplay-wise, he retains the vitality and strength from those days (since he keeps himself in shape), but is also the slowest playable character due to the lingering pain and complications from the injury.
• During the boss fight against Shadow Kamoshida, the player is told to choose which of the Phantom Thieves should be sent to steal Kamoshida's crown. While Ann is one of the options, using her will result in failure, as Kamoshida is so fixated on her that he'll immediately notice if she's gone. Royal adds another example from this fight. When Kamoshida begins his second Gold Medal Spike, he summons a Cognitive Shiho to help perform the attack, who Morgana advises to kill in order to stop the attack. This Cognitive Shiho is weak to literally everything, a representation of just how much Kamoshida abuses her.
• Ann's profile in the art book notes that she's good at talking with other people. This is reflected in one of her Confidant abilities, which grants the player another chance if they pick the wrong answer during a Hold-Up. While other party members also have this ability, hers is particularly notable, because whereas other party members' versions of the ability just grants the player another chance, hers will make it so that the Shadows response will always count as a positive result.
  • Rank 5 of Ann's Confidant involves Mika screwing Ann out of a photo shoot via fake crying. After that rank is completed, Ann gains the Crocodile Tears ability, which is used to assist in negotiations during Hold-Ups.
• Mishima sees himself as the unofficial PR guy for the Phantom Thieves, being the admin of the Phan-site. Because of that, his Confidant bonuses come in the form of increased EXP in order to help party members grow and get stronger.
• Minor, but the amounts of money the Mementos mini-bosses throw when confused, are generally in-line with how rich-or-poor said targets in the real world are at that point. For instance, the couple behind Kawakami's troubles (extorting her for "apology money") are loaded beyond belief, whereas the couple in Futaba's Confidant (forcing their daughter to "sell" herself for cash) barely have a yen to their name... literally even; the male Shadow of the group throws a single yen if you use this trick on him.
• Makoto is tasked by Principal Kobayakawa with finding the Phantom Thieves. After that point, Makoto will start conspicuously following Joker whenever the player is roaming the school or Shibuya. Royal adds to this by having having her be explicitly seen following Joker and Ryuji when they go to Kichijoji.
• Madarame is a serial plagiarist who raises up artistic prodigies only to steal their work and claim it as his own, ruining their lives if they try to bust him or strike out on their own. When you fight his Shadow as the boss Azazel, he has "Madare" spells which are variations on the normal elemental attacks his own "artistic flair" to them... and like the talentless hack he actually is, the damage on them is utterly pitiful. This is especially notable with his "Madare-Megido" spell — Megido family spells are usually the Infinity +1 Element in any given game, so any veteran Megami Tensei player would be extremely nervous to see the second boss of the game use even the first ranked Megido spell, only for it to do even less damage than his already pitiful rip-off elemental spells. His plagiarism is made even more apparent in Royal. His second phase now involves summoning copies of himself — literally called Ersatz Anger/Joy/Sorrow/Mirth — who cast the same renamed elemental attacks, but somehow do even less damage. The only real threat from them is that they'll reflect attacks of the same type, which makes crowd control difficult. He'll create new ones whenever these are destroyed, but if the fight drags on for long enough, the copies spawn at low HP and with negative status ailments, making them easy to kill in one hit. A man who built a career on stealing and profiting off the work of others can't even replicate his own correctly.
• Fukurai, the second target of Chihaya's Confidant, specializes in inflicting his targets with the Brainwashed status effect and then attacking with Psy spells, representing how Fukurai convinces people that his Holy Stones are genuinely supernatural and then exploits them for profit. To drive the point home, the Persona his Shadow transforms into for his fight is Baphomet, who is weak to Bless spells.
• Hifumi's Confidant bonuses tie into how the story of her Confidant progresses. She initially agrees to play Shogi with Joker so that she can study obscure moves. For that reason, ranking up her Confidant causes Joker's Knowledge stat to increase. Similarly, Rank 9 of her Confidant has her forfeit a match for the first time, upon which the player gains the ability to instantly escape battles.
• Joker's guardian, Sojiro Sakura, is pretty cold and hostile towards him at first, mostly limiting interaction with telling the protagonist to not cause any trouble for him or his business. This is reflected by his Confidant link being extremely slow to rank up compared to the others and outright locks at a certain point in the story. After you save his daughter Futaba from committing suicide and help her with her social anxiety, Sojiro's Confidant link starts leveling up much faster and normally, reflecting his Defrosting Ice King shift towards the Protagonist.
• One of the plot points about halfway into the story is that Morgana begins to feel that the group doesn't want or need him around anymore. This is reflected in two main ways; first, by this point in the game Morgana's utility in battle has dropped significantly. He is a Squishy Wizard, but early access to high-level healing spells makes him an almost mandatory party member at the beginning of the game. However, as the game wears on, Ann comes in to her own as a sturdier and more powerful spellcaster, Makoto joins the party, and Joker gathers more and more Personas. All three have access to similar or better healing spells, and Joker can even access Morgana's otherwise unique Garu spells. Secondly, Makoto and Futaba take over the roles of analyzing enemies and navigating the Palace/Mementos respectively after they join the party, both of which were Morgana's job previously (Futaba even assumes the role of battle commentary from him). This also integrates into the story when he re-ignites his passion and rejoins the Phantom Thieves, he learns his third level Garu skills faster than any other character, and his magic ability skyrockets, letting him do much more damage much sooner than almost any other character (Haru/Noir does as much damage, but lacks Morgana's accuracy).
• During the period of time in which Haru is absent due to grieving her father's death, it is impossible to perform Mementos Requests, since in the story, the whole party must make a unanimous decision to go after a target.
• Akechi's abilities are reflected by the story in several ways. When he joins the Phantom Thieves, he has access to both Curse and Bless spells, but by this point in the game, Joker will have access to to far more powerful ways to use these elements, causing him to end up as a party member who lacks any clear niche in gameplay. This serves as subtle foreshadowing that the Phantom Thieves had already Out-Gambitted Akechi and are steps ahead of him in their plan. On a similar note, party members have resistance to whatever element their Persona specializes in. That is, with the exception of Akechi, whose Persona, Robin Hood, uses both of the previously mentioned abilities, but not only is he not resistant to either of these abilities, he's weak to Curse. This serves as foreshadowing that Robin Hood is not Akechi's primary Persona. Royal adds a few additional layers to this. In his Confidant, Akechi's lack of niche due to Joker's greater strengths gets reflected by the reveal of his frustration over being constantly outdone by Joker. And during the Third Semester, he ends up ditching Bless abilities entirely and becomes solely focused on Curse abilities, which symbolizes how he is now free of living his double identity.
• If you invite Akechi to play darts in Royal, none of the Thieves will show up to hang out with him (other than Morgana, who you carry around everywhere in the first place). He'll also insist on playing 701, the most difficult darts game. This makes it so that he's the slowest party member to level up his Baton Pass rank, as it's impossible to build up trust with him quickly by giving him advice in the fourth round.
• Once Akechi joins the Phantom Thieves in Royal, he'll be available to play Tycoon against in the Thieves Den. However, when choosing opponents, the random selection will make it so that it is impossible for a scenario in which Akechi plays against Futaba or Haru, due to the fact that the latter two likely aren't willing to play a casual game of cards against their parents' killer.
• In Royal, the final rank of Maruki's Confidant will have him treat Joker to lunch, only for the steam from their food to fog up their glasses. This gets shown in their Character Portraits.
• Confidants generally give you a boost to Personas of the same Arcana when you fuse them and a whole bunch of other character-specific bonuses. Prosecutor Sae Niijima, the woman interrogating Joker in the Framing Device, is added to your Confidant list in early July. However, since Joker doesn't properly meet her until November, the player doesn't receive any of the Confidant's benefits until the story catches up to the interrogation.
• When the player starts a new Confidant, the game will fast-forward to the interrogation, where Sae will question Joker about an expertise related to the Confidant. Should the player instigate the Confidant after the story has caught up to the interrogation, this scene won't play out. Similarly, this scene won't play out whatsoever when the player starts and Fool or Strength Confidants, as Sae has no knowledge of the Velvet Room and therefore has no reason to question Joker about it. Moreover, when the game transitions back to the interrogation, this will be shown by the calendar fast-forwarding a month and a half. However should the player instigate this transition when the story is less than a month and a half away from the events of the interrogation (which takes place on 11/19), the date will stop when it reaches that point.
• During Akechi's boss fight, he has a tendency to target Joker more than any other party member. Fitting, considering how much of a Green-Eyed Monster Akechi is towards him.
• In vanilla Persona 5, Akechi does not receive the Protect skill upon reaching Rank 9 in his Confidant like other party members. While gameplay-wise, this is just due to him no longer being a party member at this point, from a plot perspective, this skill instead takes the form of him sacrificing himself to save the Phantom Thieves from an army of Shadows. Royal plays it a bit straighter by having him actually get the Protect skill upon reaching Rank 9, though he only gains access to it starting from the Third Semester.
• The Royal exclusive Mementos Target Hikaru Arihara is a man who uses his looks to manipulate women into fighting over him. For that reason, he is resistant to Fire, Nuclear, and Psy spells, the spells used by the three female party members the player will have access to when they first receive this request.
• Throughout the entire game, Joker will fuse Personas via the Velvet Room's guillotine. Shortly after Justine and Caroline remember the truth about their "master", they ask Joker to fuse them through said guillotine to restore their true form, Lavenza.
• Okumura's ultimate attack, Big Bang Challenge, normally deals heavy damage and inflicts hunger. However, if a person is already hungry, then the attack will instead heal them and cure their hunger.
• The Game Over screen changes once the player reaches the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, now having Igor and Lavenza lament that there's no one left to stop Yaldabaoth or Maruki.
• Akechi is the most experienced of any character in traversing the Metaverse, having been doing so for years prior to the Phantom Thieves forming. As a result, when Futaba is out of commission at the beginning of Royal's Third Semester, Akechi is the one to take up the role as navigator.
• In Royal, when Sumire chooses to fight Joker when he refuses to accept Maruki's world, her Dull Eyes of Unhappiness combined with her obviously declining sanity makes it pretty clear that she's in no condition to fight, with Akechi choosing not to involve himself in the fight due to recognizing that he could end up accidentally killing her. Sure enough, she can be defeated in 3 or 4 turns. On top of that, she has no way of countering Personas that null Bless and Physical abilities, and should they outright reflect those elements, she can end up knocking herself out with her own attacks.
• The Security Meter icon for Royal's Third Semester Palace, prior to the discovery of the ruler's identity, is the most threatening in the game. Once the ruler is revealed to be Maruki, and it's made clear that he isn't anywhere near as vile as the game's previous Palace rulers, the portrait changes into the least threatening in the game.
• Throughout Kasumi's Confidant in Royal, she displays obvious and extreme klutziness, such as when she plays at the batting cage and misses six balls in a row while obviously concentrating. During the Third Semester, after she regains her identity as Sumire and joins the Phantom Thieves, she can be invited to play darts... where her AI is programmed to be awful at the game^note Specifically, she's programmed to try and imitate whatever dart throws the player makes, but will always be worse at it.
• Throughout the series, new Personas are obtained by fusing two other Personas into a single one. In Royal's Third Semester, the Phantom Thieves' third-tier Personas are obtained through fusing their first and second-tier Personas.
• During Royal's Third Semester, a recording shows how Maruki discovered his powers when he accidentally altered his catatonic girlfriend Rumi's cognition to change her memories in order to heal her, which included erasing the one's of him. At the end of the recording, Maruki tells Rumi that his girlfriend had "passed away". To symbolize this, Rumi's character portrait disappears after Maruki says that. A similar situation happens in the "Stay" ending. In Maruki's reality, none of the characters recognize him, having essentially turned himself into a background character in everyone else's story. The result is that he loses his character portrait and his name disappears, with him simply being referred to as "Man Wearing Hat".
• The most powerful attacks of Royal's Final Boss, Maruki, are Nuclear and Bless abilities. These make Sumire the party member he is the least effective against, as her third-tier Persona, Ella, resists Nuclear and outright nullifies Bless, representing how Sumire has been able to steadily outgrow and reject Maruki and his philosophy. By contrast, Akechi is weak to Bless and therefore the party member Maruki is most effective against, representing how Akechi is most actively hostile and philosophically opposed to Maruki of any of the Phantom Thieves.
• The Post-Final Boss of Royal features a minor case of this. Because the Metaverse is breaking down, neither Joker nor Maruki can use their Personas anymore, resorting to slugging each other with their bare fists, and this looks about as cool as you'd expect a high school student fighting a counselor/researcher to look in real life. Joker's in-game portrait also reflects his lack of a Persona by no longer having a mask.

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