After playing a while I guess the outside-world game is in fact somewhat easier. There are so many more options that you wind up with fewer “wasted” time slots. Praying at the shrine while in “great” shape is much better for academics than going to the library or studying late at night.
I maxed out my noncombat stats in July with most of the available s-links up to 3 or more, so it’s all s-links from here on in.
I’ve been playing this obsessively since I picked it up in March and then FES in May. I’m in the beginning of September, and finally have all of the characters that I think join my party. This is my first time playing, and I’ve maxed out my noncombat stats, I’ve gotten all but a few social links started (no Judgement yet, and is there one for The World? The guide’s got nothing on it, but the tarot card was mentioned during summer school).
I am stunned – stunned! – at the quality of the voice acting in this game. When I got it, I figured I’d slog through the voice acting because it’s a niche Japanese RPG and so that part probably wouldn’t be that good. And the voice actors for the other two characters on the cover? One’s Sun Shang Xiang in Dynasty Warriors (and TERRIBLE), and the other is Broly from the Dragon Ball Z movies. Oh yeah, those’ll go well.
I don’t think I’ve heard better voice-acting in a video game. Yukari is fantastic. When she sniped at Mitsuru and then turned to the protagonist and said “It’s not that I don’t LIKE her…” in that perfect dismissive teenage inflection, I died laughing. Junpei is frighteningly realistic in all of his lines – the scenes leading up to the September full moon event with Chidori were great; my fiancee and I are watching those, and she’s saying, “Aww… he’s trying so HARD with her! It’s adorable!”
The added scenes with the console up on the fourth floor are hysterical. I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard at a game in a long time, at least not one that I laughed at genuinely.
You have to love any RPG that has, as a line in an important social link-establishing event, “She’s got fake tits!” I’m also reasonably certain this is the first console RPG to include the word “roflcopter.”
This is up there with Final Fantasy XII and Okami for me right now as far as my favorite PS2 games go. I didn’t expect it at all.
Yeah, Atlus has a fantastic localization team. Disgea had some really funny dialog as well.
Atlus localized Disgaea? I know they’ve distributed some Nippon Ichi games, but I didn’t think they did that one.
Atlus localised Disgaea first. Then Mastiff localised La Pucelle. Then Nippon Ichi setup its USA division, and localised the rest themselves (Phantom Brave, Disgaea 2, Makai Kingdom, Disgaea PSP).
while I’m here… I’m at Jan 19, lvl 80, gaining levels in monad, but trying to stop myself from grinding for Messiah. I am going to finish this game this weekend, dammit!
I just snatched up Fes, having not really played the original, and reading through this thread I feel really intimidated about the game. I’ve leafed through the manual but I almost feel like I need to read a gargantuan 800 page faq to comprehend the subtleties of the game.
Any initial tips?
As you suggested, there are a lot of subtleties to both combat and character development that you will not realize without poring through the faq or guide. A trail of save games is of course a good idea.
For the Journey, some random suggestions.
In the outside world, focus on stats first, especially academics. One of the mall restaurants is good for this, as is donation to the shrine when you are in “great” shape. Studying late at night is actually not such a good thing, I think it’s actually much more efficient to rest, and then use the shrine the next day, even though this sacrifices a time slot you could be using for something else. Anyhow, later in the game you can’t get some s-links without high enough stats.
But don’t neglect s-links, either. In the early stages of the game, bringing them all up to level 3 or so is a good idea, but later on, it’s better to focus on bringing some up to level 10 at the expense of others. If you can avoid it, try not to accept too many Sunday invitations, as there are a couple of s-links, including the funniest, that can only be done on Sundays.
The key normal combat technique is downing all foes to sweep them away with an all-out attack. This gives you a certain “shuffle” after the fight. Your allies are sometimes a bit dumb about this, so you have to manage your own skills and persona switching carefully to get this to happen reliably.
If a boss seems impossible, it’s either because you have the wrong team fighting, don’t have a good persona selection, or are too low level (rarely the last). There are always personas around who are at least “strong” against the boss’s attacks (except for the megido sequence, for which defense is very rare).
Try to make as many of the fusions as possible, even if they don’t seem that useful. Just make them, and then fuse them again into something more useful. Later on, when you have to make specific fusions out of random smaller ones, this will be helpful, as you will be able to use the compendium to buy back things you’ve previously fused.
Unless you are obsessive, you won’t be able to complete all of Elizabeth’s requests the first time through, so don’t worry about it too much – but many have very useful rewards, and others are prereqs for further requests, so do as many as you can. Most of the time you shouldn’t accept a request until you’ve already completed it, but the “kill mobs to get their item drops” quests will not drop the items unless you have the quest. The “find the katana” series are particularly annoying, but often you can get the katana in the next dungeon block by “sword” card draws.
Thanks for the tips. Spent some time reading over the massive thread at NeoGAF as well as a couple faqs to get a better understanding on S-links and such.
Seems it’s possible to max out everything in a single playthrough, but it must be expertly planned and exacting, almost daunting to attempt and easy to goof.
Given the hefty focus on role-play and choice, the design seems geared to just taking a casual approach, choosing S-link and activities you’d rather witness than concerning over min/max potential. It definately appears to be one of the most interesting RPG’s Japan has crafted in a long time. I look forward to diving in.
One fyi regarding S-Links that I didn’t realize until it was hurting me. The reason you want to get all S-Links somewhat focused on before moving on to maxing one or two is that they determine what personas you will be able to find after battles. I made the mistake of focusing on one or two early on and was only getting a few types that couldn’t handle some of the boss fights in the tower.
Noted. Sounds very familiar to grinding specific demons in Nocturne for boss weaknesses.
Are you sure? I thought that only happened due to level. I know that I was getting low-level Devil personas (Lilim) in the first block of Tartarus, long before I got the Devil S. Link. Same for Empress, Priestess, and so on.
When they’re blacked out, that’s just because you’re not high enough in level. At least that’s been my understanding.
Has anyone found a good walkthrough somewhere for the Answer yet? I don’t really find playing guess-the-one-counter-intuitive-strategy-that-works-per-boss-fight very fun.
If I remember right when you see which personas are available with the S-Link, I think you can check this when your given the option to attend the specific S-link event it will give you a list of personas associated with that S-link along with their required levels. The personas mentioned are ones unlocked and can be found after a battle, the level is the level you need to be to be able to have them join.
Once I started going thru the other S-links my choices after battles went up dramatically. This may not be related to the S-Links but getting new personas became easier as I got more S links.
edit: I am talking about the original version of Persona 3, haven’t gotten around to getting FES yet so this could have been altered in the newer version.
Ok, this game is incredibly cool. Couple more quickie questions though…
Should I only start fusing personas once the compendium unlocks? Just afraid that if I start now that I won’t have access to say…Orpheus again.
Also, when upgrading charm/academics and such, is there a way to judge how close you are to upgrading each of those base stats? Finally, the status page only lists three of those stats(Charm, Academics, Courage), but the arcade lets me upgrade stuff like Speed and Strength…umm where do those factor in?
I have not, and I’ve gotta say I’m pretty underwhelmed by The Answer thus far. It removed the best parts of the game and added more grinding. Yay?
I haven’t seen any useful faqs yet for the Answer, but there are a few out there with updated info for the Journey.
However, it doesn’t seem all that hard to me so far. Try out a few area attacks and you find what the mid-bosses are vulnerable to. For that matter, in several cases, it seemed pretty obvious by “color” and appearance of the foe. I’ve seen a lot worse boss battles in many other games. Of course this version is harder than the basic game due to the lack of s-links and so on, but not frustratingly so.
I believe that all personas are registered to the compendium once they’ve been put into your party , similar to Nocturne that once you gotten them you can force them to leave and their basic version will be registered.
The 3 stats (charm, academics, courage,) effect whether or not you’ll be able to do different events and meet people but have no effect on combat. Speed and Strength and others effect how well you are in combat but don’t effect anything outside of combat.
I had no idea this is how it worked. I thought that I could get those personas no matter what, and that list of associated personas was just to show me which ones I could fuse now.
Now that I think about it, I only started to get Empress personas via Oracle shuffle after I opened that link up in November. So I think there is something there.
I’d be interested to see if it lists Personas in that arcana conversation that can only be achieved through fusion (like Daisoujou). That’d cement how it works.
The Compendium, to BDGE – you can fuse prior to opening it up. You won’t be able to register the leveled versions of those that you’ve fused, but it will save the base versions of those Personas, so you can go ahead and get started on fusion. You should, too – the higher stats from those fused Personas help out a lot in battle.
At least as far as P3 is concerned, I never noticed a link between S link and card draws, or between the availability of personas in a tarot category and your S link level generally apart from the final persona in that category or others that require items to create. I did notice a direct correlation between cards I drew and dungeon level, and that seemed to be it since the game had no qualms about giving me higher level personas from S links I’d neglected and presenting me with blacked out cards when my level was too low. So I think dungeon level is the main variable.
I believe that all personas are registered to the compendium once they’ve been put into your party , similar to Nocturne that once you gotten them you can force them to leave and their basic version will be registered.
I’m almost positive the guide says something to this effect, but I’m pretty sure you need to at least leave Tartarus with the persona in your party for them to go into the compendium. It’s highly unlikely you would ditch a persona you haven’t had yet before getting out at least once, but just in case.
Keep in mind that dungeon level availability is set in stone, so the only way you could really test for this is if you frequented only lower levels and got more empresses after opening the link, or something along those lines (and even then it’s possibly connected to the max dungeon level available). I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case, but my inclination would be to think that dungeon level is the primary trigger.
Of course, since a lot of s links are more or less scheduled in a fairly linear manner for all but the most eccentric players as well, it’s difficult to say for sure.
I was pretty slow to fuse before the compendium, and I didn’t regret it because I found Cadenza somewhat useful (which requires both Orpheus and Apsaras) and I didn’t like to get rid of my Agi persona until I had one to replace it (and likewise for other basic forms, since my primary strategy is cheapest possible individual knockdowns and pile on, as I imagine most people’s is, especially until your team members have “tactics” available that make them more reliable in combat).
But I guess it all depends on how much you enjoy experimenting with the fusion system. It’s just a means to an end for me, so I just didn’t really want to mess with it until I had plentiful ingredients.
Also, when upgrading charm/academics and such, is there a way to judge how close you are to upgrading each of those base stats?
No, unfortunately there isn’t. It helps if you keep the ranges in mind, with Charm and Courage being dirt cheap at Ranks 1-6 being covered with 80+ points, and academics being a monster at 260+ points to max it out. Which is why in the original P3 everybody spams the naganaki shrine like there’s no tomorrow.
I finished my original P3 game 2 weekends ago (just like I said). What a fitting ending to a game about life & relationships.
*** SPOILER FINAL BATTLE ***
well, not really, but the at its final form, the stupid boss charmed Yukari and she Mediarahan the boss. <cries> But I persevered. I bet this happened to everyone…
Also, isn’t the final boss battle soundtrack totally rocking?!??? Especially when the hymn part comes on.
*** end spoiler ***
I’ve started the Answer, and I’m currently at the 4th door / 18 hours. Surprisingly, I don’t miss the daytime stuff for this section. I miss the Compendium, but having to fuse with only what you pick up forces you to make do with what you have, however imperfect. The only thing I didn’t like is that you can’t go back & restock the MP before a boss battle. I’m usually drained by then, so I go back anyways, and then run all the way back down, and fight a boss with only 1/2 the MP.
Hawkeye, if you don’t wanna grind anymore, you can go to youtube and watch the ending to the Answer.