A Persona Topic

elekid

That's pretty reassuring and I wouldn't necessarily want to waltz through it on Easy either. It kind of reminds me of Breath of Fire V from how you describe it with the emphasis on managing resources, using careful tactics to initiate battles and praying that the next save point is just around the corner. I loved that game.

Tartarus is a bit intimidating right now when I don't really know how often I'll get to save or heal or how far I can risk going when characters are fatigued. It's good to know bosses have save points before them, that was another thing I was worried about.

The other main thing I'm wondering about is if there are a limited number of Dark Hours in the game or can you retreat and come back the next night at your leisure even if you don't make a huge amount of progress each time? There's talk of deadlines and full moons in this thread that I don't really understand yet plus I noticed that the in-game calendar only goes up as far as March 2010 so it sounds like you can't afford to take it slow.

Retr0gamer

There's a certain distance you can go before the game stops you and you have to wait for the next full moon boss to progress. With Elizabeths requests you really should be getting to this point before the next full moon. It's tougher at the start of the game to do this since you get fatigued so easily but as the game progresses you can last longer in Tartarus. When your team mates are tired or worse still sick you'll have to wait a day or two for them to get better. However you really should be able to reach the limit before the full moon, it's easily doable.

The game is time based so you really do have to make the best use of your time with getting social links and going to tartarus. Social Links are far more important than levelling up I find since it gives you better stat increases when you fuse stupidly high level personas and gives you unique ones as well when you max them out. You won't be able to max out all the social links on your first go so don't worry if you don't. If you manage your time right you should have no problem being prepared for the final boss when it comes up.

I'm sure there's no harm in checking a faq to see how many floors you have left before the next boss so you know whether to push yourself or give up and try again another day.

elekid

Thanks for all the advice! I'll probably use an faq just to give me a heads-up on when boss encounters are coming. I'm really getting into the game now and I finally feel like I know what I'm doing I just got to floor 7 there before fatigue set in and I'm sure I'll make it floor 10 on my next run.

noodler

Retr0,

Did it happen to you much where you can go through a dungeon (say a floor set) twice and still not meet enough 'glowing' monsters you need to kill for a request?

Its very annoying. A sidequest shouldn't be this tedious.

Retr0gamer

Best way to avoid it is to take the request before you start travelling through the dungeon. Never happened to me before. Also certain monsters will only appear on specific floors, best to check a walkthrough if it's really annoying you so you don't waste anymore time.

noodler

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Best way to avoid it is to take the request before you start travelling through the dungeon.

Ah yeah, thats a given.[/QUOTE]

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Never happened to me before. Also certain monsters will only appear on specific floors, best to check a walkthrough if it's really annoying you so you don't waste anymore time.

Its between floors 102-112, been through it twice and only found 2 "Champion Knights", they come in pairs but you only get 1 of the item per battle so only have 2 of the 4 required for the quest.

elekid

noodler wrote: »

Did it happen to you much where you can go through a dungeon (say a floor set) twice and still not meet enough 'glowing' monsters you need to kill for a request?

Its very annoying. A sidequest shouldn't be this tedious.

Those quests are annoying alright. It's grand if you come across enough of the enemies as you explore naturally but having to go looking for them is a right pain. I'm stuck looking for some rare ones between floors 126-138 and choosing to treat it as training for the boss or else I'd go mad.

Retr0gamer

My advice is not to bother looking for some of the latter swords. They are next to impossible to find and you are better waiting until latter and getting them from weapon cards after battle.

noodler

Not looking for items, just monsters that should be between floors 102-112.

noodler

Anyone who plays Persona also watch Battlestar Galactica?

Just noticed a reference to the show in Persona 3 - I have an item called "Cylon Tea", pointing the cursor to it and it says "it comes in 12 varieties" much like the way there are 12 Cylon models.

Good taste.

Retr0gamer

I'm not surprised. Atlus' localisation team are full of nerds and have a good sense of humour

elekid

noodler wrote: »

Just noticed a reference to the show in Persona 3 - I have an item called "Cylon Tea", pointing the cursor to it and it says "it comes in 12 varieties" much like the way there are 12 Cylon models.

Yeah I noticed that, brilliant

Also, the BauerBar - "Keeps you going 24 hours straight"

noodler

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'm not surprised. Atlus' localisation team are full of nerds and have a good sense of humour

Legends.

elekid wrote: »

Yeah I noticed that, brilliant

Also, the BauerBar - "Keeps you going 24 hours straight"

Is that P3 or four?>


EDIT: Just beat the side-boss on Floor 122, is there much more? Only 3 Full Moons left. Last full moon boss was a cakewalk, too many new characters showed up all at once too.

elekid

The BauerBar is in P3, I haven't played P4 yet.

I don't know how much more there is but I'm on floor 139 and it feels like it's going to go on forever. In a good way of course.

Retr0gamer

There's

A little over 250 floors

although I found you get through a **** load of them very quickly near the end.

There's an atlus localistaion team blog were they talk about localisation, have a picture of one of the projects leads cubicles surrounded by plastic curtains with biohazard signs and even wrote a song about the whole prosess.

http://www.atlus.com/pd.php

GothPunk

Retr0gamer wrote: »

There's

A little over 250 floors

although I found you get through a **** load of them very quickly near the end.

There's an atlus localistaion team blog were they talk about localisation, have a picture of one of the projects leads cubicles surrounded by plastic curtains with biohazard signs and even wrote a song about the whole prosess.

http://www.atlus.com/pd.php

Wow, that's an awesome article. It's strange to feel all warm and fuzzy about a company, heh. Their comments about the testers are extra funny to me, considering SCEA have that reality show 'The Tester'. :pac:

I'm still waiting for my PS2/PS3 memory card transfer majiggey so still no Persona 3 for me, I can only look at this topic with longing for the time being.

elekid

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Some nasty difficulty spikes though particularly one boss that will cream you since there's 3 of them and no discerneable weakness. He is weak to a status attack though and it makes the fight a lot more fair.

Just noticed this reading back over the thread. Does this refer to

the Hell Knights on floor 146? The only reason I managed to beat them was thanks to Mitsuru using Charm on them.

I'm finding the bosses in the game to be very difficult but a good challenge because there's always a way to do it no matter how hard they seem.

Retr0gamer

Yeah that's the ****ers! Had to look up a walkthrough for that, for shame!

There's another boss near the end that was whipping me, had to go in solo with the main character with a persona that was immune to all physical attacks and an item that gave me immunity to his spells.

CodeMonkey

I just used my Daisoujou persona on those HKs. The skill hamaon/samsara skill along with hama boost usually instant kills them. They don't have light/dark resistance. Never knew about charm. I think I just ran if I have no SP :P

noodler

I just killed the third last shadow and something horrible happened

Shinjiro, no!!!!!!! Jeez, he was with us for such a short time party-wise. Knew he was too good to last - some strong attacks. A little disappointed there was no Akhiko revenge reaction - they should be out there hunting Strega Taken-style.

elekid

noodler wrote: »

I just killed the third last shadow and something horrible happened..

Yep, I was totally shocked by that, never saw it coming. Akihiko seems to be taking it pretty well but I'm sure the next encounter with Strega will be interesting... Even worse, I just found Shinji's video in the command room

Retr0gamer

Have you warmed to Jumpei yet Noodler?

noodler

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Have you warmed to Jumpei yet Noodler?

Meh, I honestly thought he was going to end up betraying the group to Strega and go to their side at one stage once you said he "changes the most" but unfortunately it looks like the extent of said change was

just a crappy relationship with Chidori!

elekid

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I found you get through a **** load of them very quickly near the end.

I see what you mean.

I'm on floor 201, I've gone up 36 floors in this run alone and there's still no end in sight so I'm flying though it, or would be except there's been a boss every 10 floors! Tough going to say the least but it feels like I'm making huge progress

Retr0gamer

Nearly there elekid

If you need to level up the best place to go is Monad which you only get access to by killing the reaper, which is a bitch (status buffs and debuffs are essential if you aren't using any cheeky ways to kill him).

noodler

I am getting hammered by the 12th Shadow, annoyingly it is also directly after the fight with the you-know-whats.

It has three statues I need to knock down just to get the fecker to fall so I can actually reach him and then he summons more things to annoy me.

So apart from the fact I am barely denting him after like half an hour - he keeps managing to use his Alashka Arts attack which does strike damage to all. I have a Persona strong to it but the only persona I have with Mediarama is also weak to strike attacks so he keeps getting me when I switch to heal.

That was my fifth attempt there a few minutes ago - tbh I think thats probably just about all the time I can spend on the game. That statue thing is a really cheap way of extending the length of a boss battle.

I am probably underlevelled and I saved the night before the opetation so I could probably make it to Tartarus fro more grinding but would risk being knackered the next day.

elekid

The 12th shadow is annoying alright, it just takes so long. Try fusing a Persona with Mediarama that's also strong against strike damage. Also make sure none of the extra enemies it summons are still around when you defeat the last statue so that you can get an all-out attack in when it falls. Edit: I may be wrong but I think your characters are immune to fatigue the night before a full moon.

I actually just finished the game after a pretty intensive weekend of play!

Massive plot spoilers ahead:

I was level 78, my other characters were mid 70s and I had some really good max-S.Link Personas so, despite being incredibly long, I didn't find the last boss that hard... except for at the very, very end where it charmed my entire party mid-turn and got them to cast Diarahan on it restoring all 6000 of it's HP. Such a cheap and annoying tactic, I wasn't impressed at all.

Anyway, that complaint aside the ending was very good. In fact the final 2 months after the revelation about Nyx were absolutely fantastic, some of the best story-telling I've ever seen in an rpg. Whereas most rpg characters take news of the impending apocalypse in their stride, it really hit the characters hard here. It did a really good job of capturing a sense of impending doom that gradually turned to hope as they came to terms with what was happening.

There was also some really profound and thought-provoking stuff there too, my favourite example being if you choose to kill Ryoji - you get an alternate bad ending where the characters blithely chat about how they don't need to seize opportunites because they have their whole lives ahead of them, unaware that the world is literally about to end at any moment...

I can't see myself doing another playthrough or going near The Answer but I'm more than satisfied with what I got out of it.

Thanks boardsies for recommending this fantastic game, I never would have known it existed otherwise!

Retr0gamer

Hmm, I didn't have much trouble with the 12th shadow. Did you check any walkthrough strategies if you are having that much trouble?

I'm glad you enjoyed the game elekid. I really liked the ending as well. It wasn't exactly mind blowing like the end of panzer dragoon saga but I was very satisfied with it. Loved the end credit theme as well

Lemegeton

i loved P3 more than i expected too. thought some of the battle stuff could be better such as animations for attacks and stuff but i realise its still a last gen time. keep meaning to pick up P4 but have a backlog of games to finish first. Cannot wait for a Ps3 Persona title as that will kick major ass

finalfantasist

So I'm nearing the end of Persona 4. Man, that

Adachi is a bitch.

Gonna kill him so hard.