Persona 5 Negotiation Guide (2024)

By Matt Espineli on April 23, 2017 at 10:06PM PDT

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In Persona 5, there are over a hundred Personas to collect, each with their own distinct skills and affinities. But you can't harness their strength if you lack the skills to convince them to join your cause. Effectively negotiating with a shadow requires finesse, as you need a thorough understanding of their personality and temperament to win their favor. That's why we've compiled tips and tricks to help you take your shadow communication skills to the next level.

How To Trigger A Negotiation

In order to negotiate, you need to trigger a Hold Up. This only occurs when all shadows on the field have been knocked down. To initiate a Hold Up, use skills that exploit a shadow's weakness. It's also possible to weaken an enemy with a critical hit. Whether it's from fire, ice, physical, electrical, or even gun attacks, each shadow has particular vulnerabilities. For example, an Incubus is weak to gunfire. A shadow's weakness is not revealed to you until you discover it yourself, so make sure to experiment with your skills whenever you meet one you've never fought before.

A successful blow to a shadow's weakness temporarily renders it defenseless, which gives your party ample time to surround it. This also grants your current character an extra turn, ideally to weaken another shadow. Once you’ve knocked down all the opponents in battle, a Hold Up begins and you're given two choices for what to do: Talk or All-Out Attack. Highlight the shadow you wish to negotiate with and press X to start a negotiation. You're then given three options: "lend me your power," "give me some money," and "I want an item." Ask it to offer you its power.

Be mindful that you cannot convince a shadow that is higher in level than you to join your team. Doing so causes it to flee. However, it's still possible to ask it for money or items.

How To Properly Negotiate

When you talk to a shadow, it asks you two questions. For each, you're given three responses to choose from. Depending on how you answer its questions, the shadow will either like you, feel indifferent toward you, or heavily dislike you. Its interest in you is determined by how well your replies accommodate its personality type.

There are a total of four types: Gloomy, Irritable, Timid, and Upbeat. You can decipher what personality a shadow has by analyzing it mid-battle or observing its type on the top left portion of the screen during a Hold Up. To get each shadow personality type to like you, simply answer its questions in the following ways:

Oftentimes finding the right dialogue response can be easy to decipher, but there are times when the correct choice might seem ambiguous or obtuse. When in doubt, refer to our table and go with your gut.

It's important to note that if you've already acquired a specific Persona and are holding it up, you can skip the negotiation entirely and get it for free (provided you don't already have a copy in your party), which is a great way to obtain a Persona if you don't want to summon one from your compendium.

Negotiation Buffs

While it's possible to survive by paying attention to the likes and dislikes of each shadow personality type, there are actually ways to enhance your negotiation skills further. Below you can find two unique ways to better your chances at a negotiation.

Improving Your Relationship With Ann

If you increase your relationship with Ann to Rank 2, you obtain an ability called Girl's Talk, which gives you a second chance when you fail a negotiation. To get this ability, increase your Kindness to two and offer to take her out on a date. In addition, when you reach Rank 5, you get Crocodile Tears, which gives Ann the chance to lower a shadow's demands, resulting in a second chance to bribe.

While many of your party members obtain similar or equivalent abilities as you increase your rank with them, you get Ann's much sooner. Make sure to rank up your bond with other party members to increase the number of people in your crew that can help you negotiate.

Befriending Toranosuke Yoshida

Another way to enhance your negotiation skills is to take on the Sun Social Link, which unlocks the ability to obtain Persona without the need for negotiation, as well as options that allow you to obtain rare items, more money, and recruit Persona higher in level than you.

To do so, talk to Toranosuke Yoshida, the politician outside the Shibuya train station. But in order to start the Social Link, you need to get a part-time job at the nearby beef bowl restaurant. Once you've worked there twice, Yoshida will speak to you at the end of your shift. You then build your relationship with him by holding a sign advertising his political campaign.

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