Persona 5 Royal has five different difficulty settings available at the start. However, the game does not explain clearly what each difficulty level does or changes.
Each mode will offer a different challenge to the player, but choosing the right mode for you is crucial to avoid making the game not too cumbersome, easy, or boring.
You do not receive unique trophies or achievements for beating the game on higher difficulties. Each mode is based on the Normal setting and has the attributes of Damage Received, Damage Dealt, experience, and items.
Safe difficulty
Safety mode is the easiest difficulty setting in Persona 5 Royal. This mode is generally for those new to gaming who want to enjoy the story without worrying about resources and difficulty.
Safe mode, being for beginners, has one flaw: you cannot change from Safe to any other difficulty until you have completed the game and are now going for the new game plus.
In Safe difficulty, if you are downed in a battle, you can retry as many times as you want and never get a game over in this Difficulty setting. The stats of safe difficulty are.
- You will receive 50% of the normal damage from enemies.
- You will deal 60% more damage than normal.
- The Alert meter will increase very slowly when outside of battle.
- The Experience and money will be 50% more than normal, which will help in easy leveling-ups.
- The items in the game are 50% more abundant and easily available, which avoids grinding in this mode.
Easy difficulty
The Easy setting is a bit harder than Safe, mainly intended for players who don’t know how difficult the game is. From Easy, you can change the difficulty setting to any other setting available.
In Easy, the enemies become harder to kill and more hits will be required. In easy difficulty, you will get the following perks.
- The damage from enemies will be 50% less than in normal settings.
- You will afflict the same damage as in the normal difficulty.
- The experience from battles will be 20% more than Normal setting
- The items in Palaces are 20% more likely to be discovered.
Normal difficulty
Normal difficulty is perfectly balanced and the best way to play Persona 5 Royal. The Normal Difficulty is for players who can take a bit of beating and grinding while moving on in the game. The normal battles may not be challenging, but the boss battles will test your mettle.
Normal Difficulty can be changed anytime in the game, just like easy. In the Normal difficulty, these are the perks you will find.
- You will receive the standard amount of damage from enemies.
- You can deal the standard amount of damage from enemies.
- The experience is the default amount that you will receive from battles.
- In Palaces, the items are discovered in a standard way.
Hard difficulty
Hard difficulty will test you and your skills. This mode is for those players who are experienced in playing Persona 5 Royal and can handle the intense pressure of resource scarcity and tough enemies. The bosses in this mode are particularly difficult, and they will force you to grind the game.
Hard difficulty is not suitable for beginner players. It is also generally not suitable for first-time players. The Hard is even more difficult than the next setting because the stats are brutal. Also, you cannot get as much advantage of weaknesses as in Merciless.
The stats you will get in the game when choosing Hard difficulty are as follows.
- The enemies will deal 60% more damage than normal difficulty.
- You will get 20% more damage than the standard damage to the enemies.
- You will get a standard amount of experience from enemies.
- The items, which will be available in Palaces, are available in the standard amount.
Merciless difficulty
The Merciless is the last option in the difficulty-selecting menu. You might think this option is harder than Hard, but it is more like an alternative. Merciless is for hardcore gamers, but it is not more difficult than Hard.
This difficulty option is heavily influenced by the weaknesses of your characters and the enemies you are fighting against. The damage is greatly increased if the enemy or you are vulnerable to the attacks.
The Merciless difficulty has the following stats.
- You can deal 35% less damage than the standard, but this can be increased if the enemy is weak to your attacks.
- The enemy will deal 60% more damage than the standard, which will increase if you are weak to the enemy’s attacks.
- The experience you will receive from fights is 20% more than the default amount.
- The items in palaces will be available 20% more than when they were available with standard settings.
How to change difficulty in Persona 5 Royal
If at any time the difficulty seems too much too handle, or if you want more of a challenge, you can change the difficulty of Persona 5 Royal to better fit your skills. To do so, simply open up the main menu, then tab over to System, select Config, and then finally System Settings.
Scrolling to the bottom will bring up the change difficulty option. You can further customize the difficulty in Persona 5 Royal through the use of mods. Though mods for P5R are far and few between, you can head on over to several forums to check out ones that suit your fancy. The Level Scaled Enemy mod allows you to increase the HP of enemies as you level up while the Ultimate Rebalance mod completely changes up the flow of the game.
