Quests

Side quests in Persona 5 Strikers are called Requests, you take them from the hideout menu, and a REQ marker sits on the left of the screen while one is running. Our all requests page walks through 81 of them in the order the calendar hands them out, but the calendar is not the useful way to sort them. The useful split is the small square the game prints beside some names: a request with the square can be replayed for a second, different reward every time, and one without it is done once and gone. Counted that way the list is 50 repeatable requests and 31 one-offs, and the two halves behave like different systems. The one-offs are where the skill cards, recipes and Bond level caps live, and they are the ones you can lose by leaving a city, because the page is explicit that a skipped request does not come back on your next visit. The repeatables are the game's economy.

The 31 you can only do once

Prison Mail is the clearest example of a one-off worth planning for. Nine times Lavenza asks for a specific Persona carrying a specific skill, and our page gives the recipe for the first three: High Pixie and Hua Po at level 14 for an Archangel with Amrita Drop, Lilim at 25 with Ame-no-Uzume at 29 for an Eligor with Divine Grace, and Principality at 27 with Setanta at 26 for a Kaiwan with Makouga. The later orders name only the target, a Mithra with Regenerate 1, a Unicorn with Zionga, a Queen Mab with Technical Adept, a Trumpeter with Diarahan, a Cuchulainn with Concentrate and a Dominion with Nuclear Amp. The pay is seven skill cards, Diarama through Fortify and a Restore 3, plus two permanent skill improvements, and none of it can be farmed. The fusion menu these orders send you into is explained on our mechanics guide.

The eight Forgotten Desire requests, all titled Trapped in something, are the same kind of asset. Each sends you into a Jail for a single cube, and the rewards are two rounds of new accessories at Sophia's shop, two Bond skill level cap increases, the Divine Grace and Concentrate skill cards, a Power Incense and the Master Coffee recipe. Where each cube is hidden is the subject of our hidden desire locations page. The last group of one-offs never enters a Jail at all. Sendai Sweets and Lending a Paw are shopping runs around Sendai Station and Mt. Aoba Park, Love Soupreme is a two-step errand at the Suzushino pharmacy, and Cooking Papa, Obanzai Ingredients and Forging the Ultimate Menu are an Osaka chain with Zenkichi, Haru and Futaba that ends in the Obanzai recipe. Those pay in Bond EXP, which is the currency the hideout's Bond skills run on.

The 50 that pay every time

Our beginner's guide tells new players not to sell their junk, and the requests page shows why in numbers. Kuon Ichinose's Junk Collection deliveries are the four largest repeat payouts in the game, and the later Jails pay the most, though not in a straight line: 72,000 yen for nine pieces of text data from Kyoto, 70,000 for twelve Odd Reports from Osaka, 102,000 for fifteen Illegible Documents from the Abyss and 120,000 for fifteen Unnatural Samples from the Tree of Life and Wisdom. Even the first delivery, fifteen Chipped Microchips from Shibuya's named Shadows, repeats for 19,200, which is more than any combat request pays until the Painful Past+ series. The items come from the Named Shadows in each Jail, so a run through an old Jail with the drop in mind is the money route our pages keep pointing at.

Below the money there are two other reasons to replay. The Strong Shadow hunts are how the fusion page's materials arrive: Seth in Sendai, Cerberus in Osaka, King Frost in Sapporo, Black Frost in Shibuya, Siegfried in Kyoto, Mara in Okinawa and Metatron at the Tree each drop their own fusion item on the first kill, and the Reaper in Okinawa drops Paradise Lost S. The five Painful Past+ rematches, against Alice, Ango, Mariko, Akira Konoe and the Demiurge, each hand a character a weapon on the first win, four of them S-ranked, Naraku Whip S for Panther, Usumidori S for Fox, Fleurs Du Mai S for Noir and Mjolnir S for Skull, then Forbidden Fruit for Sophia, and then settle into a 21,000 to 30,000 yen rhythm. Our best weapons page draws most of its recommendations from these same requests, and the base-game versions of the Monarchs being replayed are broken down on our bosses guide. The elemental hunts are the quiet third reason: fourteen of the eighteen repeat, mostly for consumables such as Medicine, Super Jolt or Revival Bread or for 1,200 to 8,000 yen, and two of them, Gusts of Punishment and Blessing the Wicked, repeat for ingredients such as Rice, Onion, Lamb Meat, Flour or Pork, which is one way the kitchen on our cooking recipes page stays stocked without a shopping trip.

Kyoto Jail: the story once, then six reasons to go back

Our Kyoto Jail walkthrough is our only full route through a Jail, and it shows both halves of the split in one place. The story visit has two objectives. The first puts you in control of Zenkichi for a stealth section, reaching a marker through the dark without a Shadow spotting him. The second is a hunt for the Father Fox Shrine that runs on eavesdropping: a Fox Couple statue serves as the checkpoint, portals scatter you around the map, and overheard guards place the shrine in the northeast of the complex, behind the Calamitous Cat God, a mini-boss weak to Wind that spawns minions and throws fire. Beating it opens a second riddle, a prayer order that has to be followed at the Couple, Harmony, Parental, Daughter and Fortune shrines in sequence, and the final portal drops you in front of the Monk of the Valley, weak to Ice and gunfire, with Akane's Joker waiting past the Fox Couple statue after that.

That is the once. The requests page then lists six reasons to walk back in: Trapped in the Shrine Gates for a Concentrate skill card, Sophia's Armor Shop Redux for ten Koppa Tengu with Wolf, Sophia's Weapon Shop Redux for five Neko Shogun with the Phantom Move, A Thief's Challenge: Sophie for a tower run without checkpoints or detection, Dragon Slayer Enters the Fray for Siegfried's Dragonslayer Blade, and Junk Collection, Part 5 for the 72,000 yen repeat above. Four of the six can be replayed, so a Jail you finished in an evening keeps paying for the rest of the game.

Questions our pages answer

Do you have to do requests? One of them, Take Back the Desire, which Futaba hands over during the evening of August 2, is part of the main story and cannot be skipped; the rest are optional, but the page recommends them because they raise the party's strength and pay Bond EXP. Can you miss them? Yes: leave a city with a request undone and it will not be offered on your next visit, which is why the one-off half of the table above deserves a look before every departure. Which ones repeat? The ones with a square beside the name, and their second reward is always different from the first. Where does this fit in the game as a whole? The rhythm of city, Jail and return is the subject of our Persona 5 Strikers guide.