Review: Persona 3 (PS2)

[Rasix]

A big fire attack.

It's not fire, it's strike damage.

Who cares about the rest of your party if you're invincible?

They'll debuff you if you head in invincible to lightning.  Which is a good thing, because it wastes a turn of theirs every now and then.

[Yoru]

That sounds like a job for Marakukaja, Matarunda, Revolution and Rush. We shall see.

[Lum]

I think I got through that boss through having a juiced-up persona that could do mediarama (think it was Titania?) that had divine grace as well, so I could pump out a full heal every turn. It was nasty though. But there's worse!

And yeah, always debuff bosses, it helps a TON. Debuffs hit magic damage as well.

You can date other women once you get your current to level 10.

[Lum]

Floor 146 is complete bullshit. I fucking HATE when a game forces you to grind, just for the extra HP.

Round one, I cast an AE debuff, my other people do their things. Hell knights debuff Aki, one prolly charges up, and one will ae nuke. If I am lucky, no one is dead.

Round 2, I cast mediarama. Anyone who was hit is probably not at full health. This is why I have left Mitsuru on act freely, because she may heal someone back to full if they're lower in health.

It doesn't matter, because the fucking knights will nuke back-to-back, usually leaving only my main character alive.

You never have to grind in this game. I only ground once, at the very end, for jollies (Hi level 99!) and the final optional dungeon makes even that ridiculously easy. You DO have to exploit weaknesses and switch out your party members/personas to match or you will get clobbered on bosses. Unfortunately the hell knights HAVE no weaknesses, so you want tanks that can take/dish out physical damage (Akihiko, Koromaru the Wonder Dog) and use Same Target to make sure they stay on the same knight instead of casting wacky useless spells while you cast Mediarama every turn after the first. If someone dies, raise em and hope the other survives the turn. If both die... reload!

It gets a lot worse. Wait till the enemy starts tossing out Mudo spells like candy! Oh, hi, instadeath, how ya doin.

[Phildo]

You know, I  never once used a buff spell with the hero.  And once you start finding the dolls that save you from instant death, that's not so terrible either.  The only trick to the game is having a good variety of personae(?) in your stable.  That, and make sure you max out Star as soon as possible, because the final Star persona makes the end-game a breeze.  He made the final ten floors of Tartarus a joke.

[Yoru]

I Koromaru and his ungodly evasion. And resistance to fire. And resistance to dark. Throw a Tarukaja and Rakukaja on him and he's the Dog Of Steel.

Mudo I've never had an issue with. Whenever I see any enemy with Hama/Mudo, I just swap to one of my light/dark-immune personae and let the party do any potential knockdowns. Or put those Ma-* damage gems to work. Or just poke it with a stick until it dies. Cool Breeze helps too, since then you just have to Recarm people that died in the final round.

I just wish there was a "conserve HP" option, so I could stop Aigis from murdering herself with Fatal End over and over and over...

And the Star final persona being overpowered makes me :) -- I'm at 9 with his SLink and maxing him was next on my docket. Just finished Chariot too. Next up, Annoying Frenchman and Yukari. I think I might be able to max out six or seven SLinks before the endgame at this pace. :D

[Strazos]

I might have to jump down and grind a bit or something, as I don't have any persona with mass attack buffas/debuffs. I have a mass defense debuff, but I'm more concerned with their damage output. Back-to-back Maziodyne is just plain mean.

I'll figure it out I am sure. I have some really nice personae, but I generally neglect the status-type spells; Hell, I practically ignore them in any game I play. I'd rather just do the damage usually, but this is the first time that I've actually needed such abilities this much.

[Quinton]

Floor 146 is complete bullshit. I fucking HATE when a game forces you to grind, just for the extra HP.
...
It doesn't matter, because the fucking knights will nuke back-to-back, usually leaving only my main character alive.

...
Unfortunately the hell knights HAVE no weaknesses,
...

Sexy Dance works wonders on them.  They can be charmed. 

It doesn't always stick and it doesn't always hit all three, but it sure does help. 

(edit to add)
Oh, general observation on P3 (and SMT stuff in general):  The game is utterly brutal and merciless if you don't maintain an advantage.  Exploit weaknesses, use buffs/debuffs, never ever let the enemy initiate combat in tartarus if you can help it, etc. Things can still go wrong for you, but if you're careful about stacking the odds in your favor it's much less painful.  Somehow it all walks the fine line between nicely challenging and want-to-throw-the-controller-at-the-tv for me.

-Q

[Yegolev]

My current controller-toss item is finding the damn rare glove creature in the first block.  Rarg.

[Phildo]

My current controller-toss item is finding the damn rare glove creature in the first block.  Rarg.

Occasionally you'll come across a floor where your support character tells you something unusual about the enemies.  I forget if it's "more than usual" or "the enemies are different", but you'll tend to encounter a whole bunch of them.  It's rare to get those floors, but when you do it's an almost guaranteed encounter.

[Quinton]

My current controller-toss item is finding the damn rare glove creature in the first block.  Rarg.

Oddly, I usually don't have much trouble with the rare gloves.  I usually wait on taking the timed quests until I've hit the roadblock before the next fullmoon event so that I can do untimed requests whenever, but I pretty much always take the rare glove one right away -- odds seem good that I'll run into one of 'em on my way up to the next roadblock.

Most infuriating battle recently was the "Fortune" fullmoon boss.  I heard elsewhere that the random element that was driving me nuts is actually 100% predictable, which makes me feel kinda dumb, but hey I managed to survive the battle in one (long) go, so I guess I can't complain too much.

- Q

[Yegolev]

I decided it was silly to even go into Tartarus unless it was the day before the full moon, so I have about a month of fighting to make up for.  Seems like the best tactic is to run through the first block repeatedly without spending unnecessary time on any floor.

[Strazos]

Most infuriating battle recently was the "Fortune" fullmoon boss.  I heard elsewhere that the random element that was driving me nuts is actually 100% predictable, which makes me feel kinda dumb, but hey I managed to survive the battle in one (long) go, so I guess I can't complain too much.

- Q

Heh, yeah, that boss is actually kinda fun once you get the "trick." I was even hitting the sweet spots once Fortune swaps to the "Alternate" dials.

Fuuka's reactions are priceless; "Aww, that's just not fair!"


Anyway....finally beat the Hell Knights, and just ground the hell out of the following boss. Keeping him debuffed was nice. I was finally able to get by the Knights by spamming Mediarama, setting Yukari on support, and boosting everyone's Electric dodge as much as possible with items.

I'm sitting on about 63 hours, with the last Shadow finished....And there's still TONS of game left. Where's my FES disc at, Schild?

[Quinton]

Most infuriating battle recently was the "Fortune" fullmoon boss.  I heard elsewhere that the random element that was driving me nuts is actually 100% predictable, which makes me feel kinda dumb, but hey I managed to survive the battle in one (long) go, so I guess I can't complain too much.

Heh, yeah, that boss is actually kinda fun once you get the "trick." I was even hitting the sweet spots once Fortune swaps to the "Alternate" dials.

Yeah, I guess my timing was just lousy.

Fuuka's reactions are priceless; "Aww, that's just not fair!"

That totally killed me.  Made up for how painful it was in general.

I'm still wishing I could have had the original voice track, but I have to admit the localized one could be far, far worse.

- Q

[Quinton]

I decided it was silly to even go into Tartarus unless it was the day before the full moon, so I have about a month of fighting to make up for.  Seems like the best tactic is to run through the first block repeatedly without spending unnecessary time on any floor.

I usually hit Tartarus 2-3 times in a month.  First is a sprint to the next boss, save, see how horribly he destroys me (though often the first boss is not too scary).  Then a bit of leveling & questing, defeat the first boss and head up to the next boss, save, possibly defeat him.  Day before full moon is for wrapping up quests, killing off particularly nasty tower bosses, and usually a bit of leveling and fusing and mucking about.

I like that the Tartarus bosses generally are rougher than the event bosses (at least so far), such that if I do all the quests and take care of the tower bosses and am at the next roadblock by the full moon, odds are I'll survive the event boss just fine.

The balance between school/relationship-sim, dungeon crawler, and event/storyline battles has been great.  Somehow it works out to be more fun than tedious even though it is a little repetitive in some ways.

- Q

[Yegolev]

I just like segregating my gameplay since I get a lot of mileage out of the social half.  I also segregate my meals, eating all of one thing before moving onto another, so I do realize this isn't normal.  The drawback, if you can call it that, is when I get frustrated in Tartarus (rare shadow escaped, then Death came a-knockin') and decide to play Atelier Iris 3 for a while.

[Riggswolfe]

I just like segregating my gameplay since I get a lot of mileage out of the social half.  I also segregate my meals, eating all of one thing before moving onto another, so I do realize this isn't normal.  The drawback, if you can call it that, is when I get frustrated in Tartarus (rare shadow escaped, then Death came a-knockin') and decide to play Atelier Iris 3 for a while.

I do the same thing with meals. It wasn't until my teens that someone told me it was "abnormal" to eat all of one thing before moving on to the next. It probably has something to do with a buried neurosis about my mother. Or I just don't like mixing food tastes.

[caladein]

Oddly enough, I'm really looking forward to a New Game+ simply so I can blow through all the social stuff I missed and not have to spend much time in Tartarus. I mean, it's fun and all by itself (until you get walloped by group instadeaths, of both types!), but the Effort : Fun ratio is pretty soundly in favor of the social stuff.

[Riggswolfe]

Well, I'm closing in on end game. I'm level 90 and have Yukari, Ahihiko, and Ken in their late 70s to early 80s. I've been thinking of switching Ken out for Junpei and taking Junpei, Yukari, and Ahihiko into the final battle, though I have a sneaky suspicion it doesn't matter at this point who I take with me.

So, for those who beat the game, what final party did you go after the lass boss with?

[Phildo]

Yukari, Mitsuri and Aigis.

[Strazos]

I generally keep my people fairly even by swapping people out between each "checkpoint." Though Yukari, being a main healer, tends to be a bit higher.

I just eclipsed 70 hours, and I've just breached floor 201 and I'm at December 1st. Am I just somehow slow at the game, thorough, or am I somehow taking my time without knowing it? This might give my time-played times for the BG series a run for their monies.

[Riggswolfe]

When I ended the game I had 76 hours played Strazos. Man, I wish we had a spoiler thread to talk about the game ending. This may be my favorite storyline in a video game ever. I want FES!

[Strazos]

The last time I played a game for at least 60 hrs was Star Ocean 3, and that was akin to applying a tack hammer to my testicles.

I can't get enough of this damn game. And what's the only thing that pisses me off? That I won't have enough time to date All of the girls; Yuko will probably go un-dated.

[Yegolev]

Yuko is hawt.

[Riggswolfe]

Yuko is hawt.

I really liked what little of Yuko's storyline I got to experience. I liked that she was this big jock team manager, but was also insecure and didn't feel girlish. That said I just didn't have time for her. My biggest ARGH moment is that I only got Mitsuru's link to level 9 before the end of the game. I wanted to see how it would end.

[Yegolev]

Ganguro.

[Rasix]

Yuko's storyline isn't that interesting in the later parts.  Gah, I've got to get back to this game.  Too much skate and TF2.

[Phildo]

I only got Mitsuru to 6.  But getting Yuko to level 4 is crucial for another S. Link, so it's worth at least getting her started.

[Yoru]

Okay, just finished it after a marathon session. My final party was mostly core folks that I chose primarily because I had damage-augmenting gear for them, and I became the unstoppable healer of doom in the mid-late game. (And then broke the game in the very late stages. Armageddon + Victory Cry = w00t.) Ended up being Mitsuru, Akihiko and Yukari, although I just let them do whatever in the final battle as I was almost invincibly overleveled and had a huge stock of heal-all/heal-all&restore-sp items built up.

81 hours played. I think I'm gonna play some shorter games for a while. A long while. I've been losing a lot of sleep trying to finish this game over the past couple weeks, but it was worth it.

[schild]

Atlus announced that they are going to have a PS2 lineup for 2008 before moving to next-gen.

Aside from Trauma Center: New Blood for the Wii, the PS2 stuff should, maybe, possibly include Fes.

I say this because Persona 4 and SMT4 will not be ready in 08 for the PS3.

Please start celebrating.

I hear someone found some cake?

[schild]

Whoops. From the English Voice Actor's blog (Takaya in Persona 3).

Yea, Fes, Baroque and Riviera. Hur hur hur WIN!

[Strazos]

Win, indeed, my friend.


Win, Indeed.

[Phildo]

That's so cheating!

[Riggswolfe]

So, FES is coming? Shit Schild, that's all you had to say!

[schild]

So, FES is coming? Shit Schild, that's all you had to say!

:)

Yea, this is good juju. I'm going to hold off on any further play in case they bring over the full addition where it's all on one disc.