Completing the extensive journey of Persona 5 Royal is a massive achievement, but finishing the main story is often just the beginning for dedicated players. Starting a New Game Plus playthrough allows fans to experience Tokyo's supernatural adventure with significant advantages, retained progress, and exclusive content. Understanding which systems transfer directly into your second run ensures you can maximize your time and focus on missed social interactions or challenging achievements.
Retained Character Parameters and Social Stats
One of the largest benefits of starting a fresh playthrough on clear data is retaining all five of your Social Stats. Knowledge, Guts, Proficiency, Kindness, and Charm carry over at their fully maxed levels, saving dozens of calendar days. This allows Joker to bypass early stat checks completely and interact with confidants much earlier in the timeline.
Additionally, HP and SP bonuses earned through gym training or temple meditation remain permanently intact for Joker. While party member levels reset to the beginning baseline, Joker retains his expanded pool of health and spirit points. This substantial stat boost gives you a clear combat edge right from the very first palace exploration.
Inventory Items and Equipment That Transfer
Players keep all weapon upgrades, armor pieces, and accessories collected throughout their initial playthrough. Equipping endgame gear on high-level party members during early story battles makes combat swift and efficient. Important crafting materials, Skill Cards, and Valentine's Day chocolates also remain in your personal inventory.
Your total financial reserves carry directly into the new file, allowing you to summon powerful personas right away. However, standard consumable healing items, infiltration tools, and key quest items will be wiped to preserve story progression logic. Special farewell gifts received from fully maxed confidants also carry over, granting instant access to specific perks once those bonds restart.
Compendium Access and Exclusive Boss Battles
The Persona Compendium retains its entire completion rate, granting immediate access to every fused demon from your past journey. As long as you have the required yen, you can summon end-game personas regardless of Joker's current character level. This allows for diverse strategic setups during early palace boss encounters.
New Game Plus also unlocks exclusive content not available during a standard first play, including a formidable secret boss fight against the Velvet Room wardens. Players can also fuse Satanael, Joker's ultimate persona, which requires a multi-fusion process only accessible on clear data runs. These unique challenges provide great incentive for veteran players seeking to test their combat mastery.
Confidant Progress and Time Management Advantages
While rank progress for each individual confidant resets back to rank one, ranking them up becomes significantly faster. Having maximum social stats removes all gating requirements that normally delay bond progressions. You can freely spend evenings engaging in activities you previously skipped due to stat grinding.
Farewell gifts earned at the end of your previous run unlock vital abilities as soon as a confidant is re-established. Features like special massages or gear cleaning services become available far earlier than normal. This streamlined loop allows players to easily maximize all confidants and view every missing narrative scene in a single smooth run.
