Atlusd’ highly anticipated Persona 5 finally made its way to the West after releasing in September, 2016 in Japan. The game features a massive story that spans dozens of hours featuring a colorful cast of characters. The game is extremely lengthy, spanning up to 100 hours in playtime, but that hasn’t stopped some people from putting together some fairly detailed walkthroughs.

There’s a playlist for Persona 5 covering the game’s stylistically intense story courtesy of YouTuber Shirrako, which you can check out below.

The beginning parts of the game will walk you through the basics of the gameplay, teaching you how to fight, how to move around, and how to utilize the minor stealth elements.

Majority of the early goings of the game will take place through cinematics. After getting captured and you’re forced to sign in a name, you can choose what you want the name to be when you sign the confession.

You’ll have more cinematics and dialogue sequences to watch as the game then transitions back a year and a half before the events that led to Akira Kurusu into his current predicament.

The game will literally guide you through each of the parts of the early goings of the game, including guiding players to Sakura’s house. There’s a mini-map that will help give you an idea of where you are and where to go.

From there you’ll need to head into Cafe Leblanc where Sojiro Sakura is located – which is just around the corner from Sakura’s house from whence you just came.

Once the sequence is finished with Sojiro explaining Akira’s situation, you’ll have the option to examine the room and/or clean it up, which will zap all of Saturday.

They warn you about time being limited and how sleeping will advance time but at the same time will also limit the amount of time you have available.

More cinematics ensue, and players will see the Velvet Room for the first time, meeting Igor,
Caroline and Justine in the place between the real world and the dream world.

By the time players have control again it’ll be Sunday evening. You’ll need to flip the sign after Sojiro calls on the shop’s phone, but you could technically walk around outside… it’s not advised, though. It’s best to follow the instructions and go to sleep after flipping the sign to “Closed”.

The next day you’ll be tasked with going to school – simply head outside the shop and into the subway cart at Shibuya.

You’ll need to transfer over to the Ginza Line by moving through the subway station.

More cinematics ensue.

After the two students reach the school castle, the game will finally let you save your progress – after an hour in – and then the duo will wake up in a cell after being taken away.

Sakamoto and Akira are sentenced to death by Kamoshida.

Akira finally unlocks his inner power, Arsene, and manages to end up in the first proper turn-based fight. Battle tactics can be unleashed using the face buttons on the DualShock.

Triangle is for Persona skills, X is for melee attacks, Square is to use an item, Circle is to guard, L2 changes up the order of your attacks. You can also hit enemies at their weak point to gain a bonus move during the fight. You can also auto-recover your HP using square at the cost of your team’s SP.

Move through the dungeon toward the exit, follow the instructions, and eventually Morgana will briefly join the team.

The game will be move Akira through the grind of the school life after escaping the castle. Igor – during another dream sequence – will explain to Akira about training to become a thief and using the Metaverse Navigator.

During the first actual day of school on Tuesday morning, when Mr. Ushimaru asks about the soul, the answer is ”Logic”.

You won’t get back into control until Tuesday after school, where Akira, Ryuji Sakamoto and Morgana sneak back into Kamoshida’s Pervert Castle. They’ll also teach you about ambushing enemies by creeping up behind them and tapping ‘X’ when you’re in range.

Morgana will finally start to explain what’s going on as well as inform Akira about using guns during battle. You’ll have limited ammo but can access a gun (if you have one on you) by pressing up on the digital pad. You can refill ammo by returning to the real world.

On the way out of the castle Ryuji will finally unlock his Persona abilities, giving the player access to three characters in battle.

The game moves you along the story as Akira and Ryuji prep to confront Kamoshida.

The early goings – after the cinematics play – will see Ryuji and Akira searching for some of the witnesses from the Pervert Castle. You’ll find one of them in 3-C on the first floor. Even after talking to the students Akira and Ryuji have a hard time convincing any of the abused students to fess up.

On Thursday, 4/14 after school… you’ll have a bit of freedom to go around but once you exit the school another cinematic will play with Ann. You can move around a bit but once you go back into the sub station to talk to Ann another cinematic will play.

Persona 5 plays out a lot like a visual novel, with some short interactive travel sequences and the obvious combat training segments sprinkled in.

Ann, Ryuji and Akira venture back into the Perv Castle to face Kamoshida; Ann ends up unlocking her Persona.

After Ann joins the team the Shinjin rooftop will open up and the team can use it as a hideout.

Also, on 4/16 Saturday after school you’ll finally get a few moments to roam around a little bit before visiting the suspicious clinic. Of course, once you visit the clinic more dialogue cinematics will play.

After Tae gets done talking, you’ll be able to purchase healing supplies.

4/17 on Sunday is spent getting weapons to prepare for the raid, while school on 4/18 Monday will begin an expulsion timer where you’ll have until May 2nd – 14 days – to finally steal Kamoshida’s heart and defeat the pervert.

You’ll be able to choose when to infiltrate the castle, but once you go inside to fight the boss you won’t be able to purchase any new gear or items, so be sure to stock up on everything you need. If you want to spend a few days just exploring the city or talking with other NPCs, it’s possible possible to do so before infiltrating the castle.

When it’s time to start the castle raid, however, Igor will introduce the ability to select new Personas by fusing Personas together and executing the old Persona.

You can actually train more freely for the first time while raiding the castle.

You’ll find the treasure chest through the tower interior. Depending on your skill, it might take you up to three days to get through the castle and defeat Kamoshida, so technically, you could spend a week just exploring more of the city… if you want.

Basically, before you finalize the treasure hunt on the Kamoshida mission, you will unlock the ability to send calling cards. When you send a calling card it means you’re ready to raid the treasure room in a Palace, which will then trigger the boss fight. As the tutorial suggests, make sure you grab all the treasure and explore every room in a Palace before snagging the treasure, because once the treasure is snatched up and the boss is defeated, you can’t re-enter the Palace again.