Mementos means business in Persona 5 Royal, and so does our tips guide! The seemingly endless dungeon is home to deadly shadows and the nigh unkillable Reaper. But there are ways around it all. It’s just a shame the game doesn’t tell you more of them… That’s what we’re here for. Take a look at our Mementos tips for Persona 5 Royal and learn the best ways to farm, make money, work around weather, and take advantage of Jose. Let’s get started!
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Really Look at the Walls
Persona 5 Royal hints that you can break certain walls to reveal secret areas. These spots almost always contain chests, which can include things like SP restoring drinks (a damn good addition to your inventory early in the game). They’re not that hard to spot, either! Mementos is full of dead ends. However, the ones that are truly false leads have grimy gunk and/or shadowy bars all over them. The paths that appear as dead ends on your mini-map, but otherwise appear to be made from normal material, are the secret zones.
Jose Appears Randomly
Jose is a new addition made to Persona 5 Royal. The mysterious character mostly appears in Mementos — selling you items and upgrades if you take the time to find him flowers and stamps. He makes your trips much more profitable and much less of a slog. Unfortunately, his appearances are also totally random. Even if you find Jose on one floor at some point, there’s no guarantee he’ll be there when you get back. However, he will appear if you keep changing floors often enough. The game will even play a tiny cutscene of him arriving on whatever floor you enter at the same time as you. And he appears on your mini-map!
Stamps Also Appear Randomly
As you go deeper in the dungeon, new layers of the structure will include more and more stamps for Jose. At first it seems like these only appear on certain floors — usually at the exit leading down to the next level. That’s only kinda true. The end-of-floor stamp machines are set in stone. However, many stamps also appear randomly throughout the dungeon. They’re pretty obvious once you see them. But you need to actually explore every floor thoroughly in order to find these randomized stations. It might also take a few trips up and down the layer to unlock every single stamp. Speaking of which…
Most Things Reset Constantly
Morgana tells your party that Mementos changes every time you enter it. That’s not technically the case. Mementos is always shifting. Every time you exit and return to a floor, its layout will be different. The upside is that all the flowers and item spawns also reset. This is one great way to collect tons of items (and potential money) without putting yourself in danger on lower floors (or by angering the Reaper).
This is Your Money Maker
Any trip to Mementos can be incredibly lucrative. It has infinite enemies and a relatively easy layout to traverse. That only gets truer as you go deeper. The money and item drop upgrades you get from Jose lead to an endless supply of cash. That’s if your SP pools can keep up, of course, but Takemi can take care of that by selling you accessories that regenerate your mana every turn. With the right items, you can stay and grind indefinitely.
And there are a couple of tricks to make this even easier. One is to hang out with Yoshida. The small-time politician will give you skills that let you ask for far more money than usual when interrogating shadows. On that same note, recruiting every shadow you can find at least once, whether you keep them or fuse them, will make them easier to deal with when you negotiate again. Weather is also a factor. Rainy days in particular can net you a tidy sum! That’s because they spawn all sorts of Treasure Demons inside Mementos — visible before you even start the battle as floating gems you can ambush.
Then there’s Jose. His stamp collection will let you buy money, XP, and item boosters within the labyrinth. What’s interesting about the item boost, in particular, is that it affects the objects you pick up off the ground. You can hoover up items to sell later without fighting a single battle this way!
Watch the Weather
Different weather conditions have different effects on Mementos. The game lays that out pretty quickly! But it doesn’t really specify what those conditions are until you get to the dungeon. And even then, you kind of have to puzzle it out for yourself. That’s why we’ve listed all the bonuses here.
- Pollen Warning: Enemies will often start battle asleep, opening them up to easy Technicals, and ask for Eye Drops during negotiations.
- Rain: Far more rare enemies appear — including Treasure Demons. This is an incredibly good time to farm for money (but means you won’t get bonus stats from studying or similar activities in the real world).
- Heat Wave: Enemies may begin battle inflicted with the Burn status ailment. You can cause a Technical against them with wind or nuclear attacks.
- Flu Season: Shadows may begin battle inflicted with Despair. This is a deadly status ailment that causes its victim to die after just three turns. It’s also a great way to kill the Reaper and get one of the most difficult trophies in the game!
- Freezing Weather: Shadows may suffer from freeze at the start of battle.
Limit Your Visits
One major downside to Mementos is that it eats up time. Besides taking up your day, it also locks you into Cafe Leblanc that same evening. You won’t be able to go out or all people over! There are activities to do inside the store, of course, but they’re relatively limited. And the later you get in the game the less important those can become.
That’s why, if you’re going for maximum efficiency, it’s best to limit your visits to Mementos. Try to fit as much grinding and as many mini-bosses into a single run as possible. One visit between Palaces will be good enough for most people! Just make sure you get your money’s worth and have enough to live on till your next mission.
Mishima Is Your Guide & Your Gate
Mishima, the Moon Arcana Confidant, is a little special compared to most other NPCs in Persona 5 Royal. Your interactions with him are mostly determined by the number of side quests, or “Requests” you get from the Phan-site. This cuts both ways.
Your progress in Mishima’s relationship is gated by the special Requests you complete for him. If the game says you’re ready to rank him up, but you still can’t do it, it’s likely that’s because you still need to find a mini-boss to slay in Mementos. And by slaying said shadow you can then start to unlock a whole host of other Requests that weren’t available. This can get a little bit frustrating… Mishima has a number of good skills that make grinding easier. In order to unlock them, however, you need to waste time in Mementos. It’s better to stick to our “one trip per arc” rule, though. You’ll get through his requests (and Mementos) eventually!
Don’t Worry About Deadlines
Besides Mishima, a number of your Phantom Thieves will nag you about Requests in Mementos. They’ll even imply that you might run out of time to do them later. Don’t fall for the trap! Mementos Requests stay open for as long as you want. The one exception is reaching the end of the game, of course, but by then you’ll have access to all of Mementos anyway. Basically: just don’t worry about side quests expiring. They don’t — or at least not for an incredibly long time!
Shadows Are Slow on the Uptake
Palaces have you worry about things like stealth and cover and puzzles. Shadows in Mementos are much more forgiving. The slow and dimwitted blobs you encounter provide a lengthy grace period on approach. You can ambush them by attacking head on! Just make sure you’re quick about it and you’ll never get surrounded. That’s pretty important, too, because death is comparatively punishing in Mementos. That brings us to our next tip.
Death Is Dangerous
Palaces offer some decent protection for players. Losing to a boss will simply let you restart the battle, for instance. And Safe Rooms are common enough that you’re basically never far away from a place to save your game. Mementos is a lot less forgiving. Dying to a random shadow will erase any progress you made after your last save — and gives you the option to return to the last Safe Room.
This creates a bit of a conundrum. You can go back to the last safe spot, sure, but you’ll lose everything you collected up to that point. That includes the stamps you found along the way, as well as XP and flowers. It’s almost less of a slog to restart from your previous save altogether. That way you don’t have to go up and down between the same few floors, hoping for random encounters. It sucks either way. Make sure to protect Joker!
There’s More Than One Kind of Fast Travel
Here’s one tip that will make getting around way less of a pain, though. Fast travel doesn’t just work in Safe Rooms. Well… It does in the traditional sense. You can only warp willy nilly inside those spots (or a layer’s entrance). However, you can still save time floor-by-floor. You just need to pull up the map.
Hitting R1 will show everywhere you’ve explored on a given floor up to that point. That includes the entrance to that floor (usually leading up, assuming you descended to whatever level you’re on). And you can instantly return to the previous floor without walking back to the entrance from the map menu. The same goes for exits, too! You just have to actually find it first. But as long as an exit or entrance appears on your map, you can immediately go up or down as you please, without fighting or sneaking your way past shadows. You don’t even need to step outside the Morgana bus!
We hope this guide helps you on your journey through Mementos. The dank, dark labyrinth can be a bit of a pain. But it’s also an incredibly useful and ultimately rewarding part of the Persona 5 experience. Take care!
