If you haven’t played Persona 4 Golden: There’s a cursory explanation of the plot but it’s not going to make any sense to you, and there will be major spoilers for that game, up to and including whodunnit.

If you haven’t played Persona 3: Ehhhh. Arena doesn’t assume knowledge of 3’s plot, but you’ll get some significant spoilers. (Though P3 doesn’t have the sort of puzzle-box plot of 4, so imo it matters less.)

• To get the four story mode achievements, you will need to play Episode P4, P3 and the True Ending. You do not need to play P4A or Episode Adachi.
  
• If you’re just starting the game, story mode does NOT include a combat tutorial.
  
• Story mode combat difficulty can be changed from the main menu > Options > Game Options
  
• P4A will let you “bookmark” between scenes, but the other episodes have no manual save feature, so if you need to exit during a scene in progress, you’ll want to use the skip feature to get back to where you were.

P4A is the story from the original P4 Arena. Start here.

Episode P4 is the main story for Ultimax and a direct continuation of P4A. Complete to unlock Episode P3 and Episode Adachi.

Episode P3 and Episode Adachi are just different perspectives on the same events as Episode P4 and can be played in either order.

This is set up like a visual novel which tells the same story from the perspective of each character. Initially there are four characters available: Yu, Yosuke, Chie, Yukiko. Generally, characters on the same row/who unlock concurrently have the same sets of story reveals, just from different perspectives. In most routes, you will eventually hit a ‘to be continued’, which will require you to play other characters’ stories before you can advance again.

• Play to TBC one of the first four to unlock Kanji and Teddie
  
• Play to TBC any two characters to unlock Naoto, Mitsuru, Akihiko, and Aigis.
  
• Play to TBC two of the bottom row characters to unlock Labrys
  
• Complete Labrys to continue the first six characters
  
• Complete one of the first six to unlock continuations for bottom four
  
• Complete one of the bottom four to unlock Elizabeth

Once you’ve unlocked a route’s conclusion, you will have the option to (re)start from the cliffhanger, so don’t stress about the limited save slots.

There’s no achievement for completing the P4A story, so if you just want to know what the hell is going on in Episode P4, you can get by with the following: Yu – Teddie – Naoto - Mitsuru – Labrys, then the conclusions of Yu and Mitsuru.

Some choices do lead to bad ends. You can skip these if you’re not going for 100% completion, but they are pretty funny. Correct answers:

Yu: Choose the first option every time for a bonus scene with Margaret

Chie: “Keep looking for the girl”

Yukiko: “Have faith in myself”

Kanji: “Could this be reality?” then “Is this actually not a dream?”

If you still have % missing, it means you have unread text in any story where “CLEAR” is in yellow. For Yu’s route, do a run with all choice 1’s. Leave a bookmark at scene 19 (after beating possessed Labrys) so you can easily grab both options in the Margaret scene. Then start fresh and pick 2 all the way down.

On Chie, make sure to get both options after the Akihiko steak fight.

This flowchart is pretty straightforward. Sometimes you get to choose your fighter; pick whoever you like, because this has absolutely no impact on the story. The only important choice in the P4 story comes in chapter 12; the correct answer, unsurprisingly, is “It’s founded on the strength of your bonds.” Once you’ve read the epilogue, Episode P3 and Episode Adachi will unlock. You should be at 94%.

(If you get stuck on the boss fight, you’re trying too hard. Just dash up to him and spam autocombo.)

Next, you’ll need to play Episode P3, which is the same story just from the Shadow Ops’ perspectives. The correct choice in chapter 10 is “… power of a bond supported you.” Once you’ve read the epilogue, the “True Ending” will unlock.

Note: If the True End does not unlock, make sure "...power of a bond supported you" and "It’s founded on the strength of your bonds" were your most recent choices in Episodes P3 and P4. (Thanks to Appleandroid in the comments for pointing this out!)



To get the final 1%, go back to chapter 10 “Source of his Strength” and choose the solitude option. Once General Teddie appears -- no need to fight Kagutsuchi again -- exit to the story menu to read the alternate version of Chapter 11 “Mission Complete”.

Hop back to Episode P4 to play the true end. And if you haven’t already, reload P4 chapter 12 and choose the solitude option for that final %.

Like I said up top, it doesn’t matter when you play Episode Adachi relative to Episode P3. There are no choices here, so my only advice is on Kagutsuchi (yes, again). Thanks to Adachi’s stubby little arms, I had trouble getting enough regular attacks to connect to trigger autocombo. The best solution I found was to stand in melee range and spam