So I am playing through Persona 5, and I have a question regarding the romance options.  I heard of many people accidentally ending up in a romance before they even knew what was happening, and then being stuck with that romance or being a player.

So without spoiling anything, is it possible to aquire all characters and explore options without blowing it with any of them, or are there certain points where you HAVE to decide if you want to be with one or pass before all options have been explored.

I am asking because I see Ann as a potential choice, but she is also one of the first chances you get from my understanding and the one a lot of people accidentally get locked into.  I just want to know if I can explore all options before committing to Ann or if I have to decide before everyone has joined, and no I do not want my main to be a player on my first playthrough.

Thank you!

If I'm not mistaken there comes a point in the relationship where they essentially straight up ask you if you want to take things further. They don't say those words exactly but it's heavily implied. For instance the Doctor did this with me and I turned her down because I wanted Ann.

You will never "blow it" with any character, the only difference multiple romances makes is you will get an additional scene right at the end of the game . It doesn't affect anything outside of that short scene either.

But if you don't want to be a "player",You will be asked a two questions in a row when you reach a certain point in your relationship with a character, which basically asks if you're interested in them, and then a final confirm question. Though they can be quite vague questions, with some characters you don't necessarily know, or at least when the option first appeared for me I accidentally told them I wasn't interested.

You don't have to make a decision before you've met everyone, just don't advance a characters social rank to nearly complete. It will ask you when you get to Social Link 09 if you don't want to have the question forced on you. But if you have decided on the character you want just go for it, entering a relationship with a character has zero affect on the content and events you can experience with the other characters.

Once you get to Rank 9 of a female character's confidant, they basically outright ask you what you think of them, and that's when you can either say "I like you a lot" or "we're just friends" with the following rank unfolding based off how you responded.

If you really wanna explore your options, you could intentionally hold off from completing certain confidants I guess, but just know that it's not difficult to reject a girl if you don't wanna go that route with them, and to be safe, you can always just save before starting the next confidant rank.

Romance everybody that's the only way to go you are called joker after all.

My main concern was saying no to meet the other choices, then decide later on that I wanted to go with the first choice.  It seems to unfold like I suspected, I guess the people who got stuck just went wild with social ranks too soon.

And I know the impact is minor/nill, but when I play games like this with multiple choices, I try to put myself in the main character's shoes and deal with the consequences of my decision, so reloading an old save intentionally is out for me lol (unless I just legit selected something I did not mean to).

Thank you all for the response, that is all I needed to know.  =)

I have persona 5 but haven’t played through it. How far do the romances go? Is there sex/nudity ala The Witcher 3?

No, it's usually implied (sometimes vaguely) that you're going to have sex and then it fades. A lot of the characters are 16-17.

In 3 playtroughs including 2 full harem routes, I never had any (bad) interaction between the confidants. If anything, it unlocks a funny cutscene at the end of the game.

You can do a 100% playtrough in NG Persona 5 too, with the exception of a few gifts (that don't serve any purpose other than bragging rights) and watching all DVDs (games and books have trophies, dvds don't).

So no, you won't miss anything by choosing Ann early in the playtrough. You also can't go for the romance route as a mistake, the game warns you before the branching and there is even a second choice right after just in case.

OT : I want a romance option for Sojiro.

Oh, yeah that’s gross. Why do they sexualize the characters in the first place then?? That’s weird!