I mean unusual in the sense of 1) a kanji not on the Joyo kanji list, 2) a reading of a kanji not on the Joyo kanji list, or 3) ateji or other kanji constructions typically written in kana in most written text. I actually kept a list of the ones I came across in the game, which numbered maybe 500+ by the time I hit the fourth palace. Here’s some examples:
- Verbs are almost always written in their kanji forms, even when uncommon otherwise: 強請る、 彷徨う、躊躇う、竦める、挫く
- Lots of Buddhist terminology: 虚仮、懺悔、贖罪、醍醐味
- Lots of plant and animal names: 苔、豹、獅子、閑古鳥
- And Igor and the demons spit out so many archaisms (汝 is just the tip of it) that I stopped writing them down lol
While these characters are not necessarily uncommon in literary Japanese, even in novels they tend to be marked with furigana, which are not present in Persona 5. While they are individually low frequency words, Persona 5 as a whole has a high frequency of low frequency words, if that makes sense. This is why having an OCR reader is very handy, as all these novel constructions are going to be hard to keep up with at a JLPT N3 level.
Thankfully, there is some advantages to playing Persona 5 as a learner. Sentences are short, since the game’s text boxes are a maximum of two lines of text long. There is no narration, so the game is almost entirely in dialogue, which is easier to read (in my subjective option). And the game has a tendency to repeat major themes and plot points over and over and over again, which means it’s hard to get lost if you do have to skip through a conversation. It’s not a bad choice for a starting game, especially if you have a passion for it already.