9 Essential Persona 5 Tips You Should Know Before Starting

Persona 5 is split between the daily life of a high-schooler--where you're encouraged to socialise with friends or work on self-improvement--and classic RPG dungeon crawling. The interlocking mechanics between the two create a satisfying back-and-forth investment and reward system, but you'll need to properly manage your time to maximise your gains. To help you make the most of every day in the game we've put together a few Persona 5 tips to improve the stats you want and make the friends you need to conquer the Palaces.

Warning: Although there aren't any story spoilers in this gallery, some of the images include characters that are unlocked later in the game. These characters have been featured in pre-release artwork, however.

As in real life, reading books is a great way of improving your characteristics and learning about the city you live in. Head to the bookstore in Central Street and you'll be greeted with a selection of books and magazines to buy, and each of them will improve a different stat. Some will make you more knowledgeable, others will improve your proficiency--which is key for crafting items. There are also books dedicated to uncovering new places in the city that you can travel to when hanging out with friends. Once you've read about a new place, it'll be added to the map and, depending on who you choose to hang out with, you could improve your Confidant rank quicker--handy for when you're wooing your waifu or husbando. There's a lot of travelling on the subway in Persona 5 and if you've got a book in hand you can spend that time improving your stats. Try and always have something new to read to make the best use of this time.

There are also various ways to boost your stats. Part time jobs will improve a specific characteristic, as will hanging with friends, and doing extracurricular activities. However, for a quick bump, head to the Underground Walkway in Shibuya Station on Sundays. There you'll find a Juice Stand where you can buy a special Fruit Juice. Drinking this tasty virtual beverage will add a point to one of your characteristics. However, it's different every week, so if you're focusing on improving select attributes, you may be better served doing something else. This is a nice, randomised bonus.

When you boot up the game, you'll be prompted to connect to the Thieves Guild. You may be tempted not to since Persona 5 is primarily a single-player RPG but DO IT. Connecting to the Thieve's Guild is a super useful way to call upon the many other players out there for their assistance. If one of your teammates gets taken hostage in battle, you can summon a Thieve's Guild member to rescue them. If you're wondering what level you should be at that particular time in the game, or want to see how other players spent their day you can with a press of the touchpad. If you're in class and you're stumped on a question the teacher has thrown your way, your pals at the Thieves Guild have your back. It's basically Ask the Audience from Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, where the answer percentages are displayed, giving you what is most likely to be the correct response. Note that this doesn't work during exam season. Cheating is bad, m'kay.

Making friends is important, in life and in Persona 5. The closer you are to your allies, the more they'll watch your back in battle or help you out in the real world. Make nice with Kawakami and she'll let you slack off in class, meaning you can spend that time doing something more useful like reading a book or making lockpicks. Spend time with Hifume, and she'll teach you some awesome Shogi moves that you can apply in the Metaverse to turn the tides on your enemy. Spend as much time as possible strengthening those bonds. Or, if you don't want to put the time in, once you reach rank 7 with the fortuneteller Chihaya, you can pay her 5,000¥ to boost the amount of Co-op points you get each time you hang out with a Confidant, meaning you'll be hitting Max Rank in no time.

Not really a tip as much as a 'reminder of the tutorial menu that pops up on screen,' but one of Persona 5's new functions is the very handy AUTORECOVER, which is genuinely a game changer and time saver. No longer after fights are you trawling through menus looking for Dia so you can heal everyone up. Now all you have to do is just tap square as you're running around Palaces and everyone will be topped up and ready to party. Get in the habit of doing it regularly and get into it early. As the game progresses it introduces enemies that can wipe your team out in the blink of an eye, so you don't want to be going into encounters with half health.

Lockpicks are important because Palaces are literally full of chests, ripe for the taking. Once a Treasure has been taken from the Palace and your target's heart has been changed, the Palace collapses, meaning that that chest you missed is gone forever. Spend your evenings crafting lockpicks (which also ups your Proficiency stat) so that you can loot chests as and when you find them. Additionally, try and make the Unbreakable Lockpick as soon as possible. You'll need Aluminium Sheet and Liquid Mercury which you can find in Mementos. Having one of these will save you a lot of time and make your treasure hunting life much easier.

Your Third Eye ability is super useful when solving puzzles as it highlights key items or footprints in blue. Tap the Left Trigger and you'll see elements of the environment glow gold. This signifies that there's there's something worth pinching. And once you've liberated that item from the Palace in which you found it, you can then sell it in the real world for mega ¥, no questions asked. Make sure you use your Third Eye in every new room you enter, you never know what kind of valuable is hiding away in the corner.

Save yourself some bother in battle by fully utilising Persona 5's combo mechanic to make light work of your demonic foes. If an enemy is burning as a result of your fire attack, follow up with a wind attack to fan those flames and do extra damage. If enemies have a status effect from a Psi attack, say hit it with a Nuclear ability to add an extra dose of pain. If an enemy is asleep … well, actually, don't hit them or they'll wake up. Instead, use this time to buff a member of your party so they can deal a devastating blow.

The many (and I mean MANY) levels of Mementos may be daunting, but honestly, it's a great place to grind, so don't ignore it. If you want to make things easier for yourself, pay attention to the weather. Since Mementos is connected to the real world, you can use changes in the weather to your advantage. If there's a Heatwave, some of the enemies may be inflicted with a burning status effect that chips away at their health. If there's a high pollen count, they'll be sleepy and less inclined to attack you on sight. Use this time to avoid battles and travel deeper into the depths of the mysterious dungeon. This will help you complete side-quests quicker and take care of some pesky citizens of the city.

Buy the old TV from the second hand store in Yongen-Jaya as soon as you can. As an added bonus, you'll get a used DVD player thrown in for free. You can rent DVDs from the video store on Central Street to improve your stats. Here's a cheeky hint: You can keep these DVDs for as long as you like. You're threatened with a late fee, but for some reason the game waives it every time you take a DVD back--must be all the good karma you're racking up by helping people. This never would have happened in Blockbusters, but it's a nifty little exploit that happened to me. There is a chance that it may not work for you, but it's worth testing out anyway.