The Persona 3 Thread

You prefer them waxed and pumped full of silicone?

I prefer that they not make my party instantly descend into hot and deadly girl-on-girl-on-dog action.

Have a Saki Mitama laying around anywhere? Check the fridge, I leave them there a lot.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I prefer that they not make my party instantly descend into hot and deadly girl-on-girl-on-dog action.

I had been tempted to start playing the Persona PSP games in reverse order (3, 2, 1) after finishing Devil Survivor 2.

Now I know that Persona 3 is going to be next.

Minarchist wrote:

Have a Saki Mitama laying around anywhere? Check the fridge, I leave them there a lot.

Five levels above where I am, sadly. I've still got stuff to hunt up for Elizabeth, though, so I might do that first and see if that gets me some better Personas.

I'd just do the fight alone with a null wind Persona, since Natural Dancer doesn't have Wind Break, but my only null wind Persona is weak against light and Natural Dancer does have Mahama.

Tagging, grabbed Persona3:FES for my Ps3, instead of getting it on PSP. Price wise, it was better for me. Guess I'll have the same from either copies, except the platform.

PSP has the female MC. PSN has extra quest (Answer) and more cutscenes I think.

Be careful on PSN and rotate your save files. Make sure you get a "save successful" message when you save. Sometimes it will say "save failed" but still look like the file is there, but if you don't resave then the next time you start up the game that slot will be deleted and sometimes unusable for future saves.

It's an avoidable bug for the most part, as long as you pay attention.

The request from Elizabeth to collect 5 Tiara Hair items can go to hell.

I've been running through the designated floors for awhile now, and I've encountered Shrieking Tiaras just five times out of probably a hundred encounters. And those five encounters (against 4 Tiaras at once) has yielded just 4 Tiara Hair items total.

I've made it my goal to complete all of Elizabeth's requests and have been able to so far, but having to collect 5 items from something with a 5% encounter rate and a 25% drop rate is not making me happy.

Yeah some of the drop rates were silly. But I don't remember having that much difficulty. I finished all her quests except for a couple of the early ones. Some low-level rare sword that I never found a chest for, and apparently didn't drop from cards later? I dunno, but I have two of those rare sword quests I'm missing...

Those items are only found in gold chests in those specific blocks. I've found the best way to get them is to wait until Tartarus is in flux (increases the rare event rate) and then just run from the bottom of the block to the top until I find one. No such luck getting the Tiaras to appear more often, though, as they're not technically a rare event.

I remember the tiara hair request, that took a long time in my last game.

My latest game has had crazy awesome luck with everything request related. I've managed to find every rare item Elizabeth wants to see without having to farm for it, which of course has yielded some really, really good weapons from her. I'm also aiming to get 100% of requests done, so this has made me happy.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Those items are only found in gold chests in those specific blocks. I've found the best way to get them is to wait until Tartarus is in flux (increases the rare event rate) and then just run from the bottom of the block to the top until I find one.

Flux? When's that?

And I've got most of the collection items from cards. It's just two specific ones that seem to be chest-only. One of them is even mentioned in a FAQ that it drops from cards, but I can't figure out what rank, maybe 3 or 4, something I breezed through and haven't seen in a while. Not sure if it's worth hunting just for those couple quests at this point. I should really just hunker down and finish the game.

Stele wrote:

Flux? When's that? :?

There are some nights when Fuuka/Mitsuru will say that Tartarus is in flux so accidents might be more common. I'm not sure if that's in FES or not.

Sometimes when you talk to Fuuka to go to Tartarus (or Mitsuru earlier) they'll say "Tartarus is in flux, strange things may happen" or something like that. It happens on... is it New Moon nights? Specific days trigger it, so you can plan ahead and know when to go.

EDIT: Beat me to it.

Huh. Can't remember that. I know some people say they want to go to Tartarus that night, and it seems those people end up with "great" status on those nights, which is helpful for fighting.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Stele wrote:

Flux? When's that? :?

There are some nights when Fuuka/Mitsuru will say that Tartarus is in flux so accidents might be more common. I'm not sure if that's in FES or not.

Definitely not in FES. However, most of the lower-level katana finds can be found in cards -- the first one is a rank two sword, for instance. And you will occasionally find levels that are all gold monsters, or all purple monsters, but it's completely random.

Minarchist wrote:

And you will occasionally find levels that are all gold monsters, or all purple monsters, but it's completely random.

Those are some of the anomalies I'm talking about. (P3P also adds levels with more experience, higher item drop rates, and [negatively] no map and decreased visibility.) They're more likely during certain phases of the moon (new moon at least; not sure about the others). You just get a warning in P3P when they're more likely before you go to Tartarus, but the mechanic is there in FES.

Will my teammate get more stamina someday?

I do 2 floors, and they are already exhausted. (Or Tired I should say, but once I quit the dungeon, they go back to the dorm.)

How far do you guys push normaly?

Yeah that doesn't sound right. Then again it starts out with only 5 floors between levels, and later ends up being 10-15. There is an endurance stat that should go up as they level.

Minarchist wrote:

(P3P also adds levels with more experience, higher item drop rates, and [negatively] no map and decreased visibility.)

Screw that no map/decreased visibility, man! Not really--I actually think it's a pretty neat mechanic as it makes the dungeon crawl aspect of Tarturus a little more interesting. Although, I've been trying to do the Elizabeth requests and I swear I've spent hours trying to get Bronze Figurines. I'm trolling around the right floors, but the dice were taking forever to decide to show up. That's about the only snag I've ran into so far.

Oh, quick question as I haven't been able to find a definitive answer between P3/P3:FES/P3P, but how the crap do you fuse Vetala? The only consistent answer I've found on forums is that Pyro Jack is a part of the combo and I have him in my collection, but I can't seem to find the right Persona to fuse him with.

Just about to wrap up June and heading into the big Shadow battle. I've cleared out the second block so I'm just waiting for that battle before the next section opens up. I've actually completely forgot about searching for the some of the other S.Links aside from the original group (which I've got them all to around rank 6 or 7)--just befriended the Monk and Gourmet King guy. I'm actually interested to see how those play out as the concept for both characters just seem crazy.

CptDomano wrote:

Oh, quick question as I haven't been able to find a definitive answer between P3/P3:FES/P3P, but how the crap do you fuse Vetala? The only consistent answer I've found on forums is that Pyro Jack is a part of the combo and I have him in my collection, but I can't seem to find the right Persona to fuse him with.

I mentioned it a few pages back and wish it could get added to the OP.

Igor's Index is an amazingly comprehensive program for a few Persona games that will let you find stats and fusion possibilities for every persona. It's fantastic.

Stele wrote:

Igor's Index is an amazingly comprehensive program for a few Persona games that will let you find stats and fusion possibilities for every persona. It's fantastic.

Ohh derp, I remember seeing this now. Thanks again for re-posting it. I get lazy sometimes (*cough*mostofthetime*cough*)

Just got through the Hierophant/Lovers Shadow battles. Surprisingly, the main battles have not been all that difficult yet. I've actually had a harder time getting past guardian Shadows in Tartarus. Not sure if I'm just getting lucky (Hierophant only cast a party spanning electric attack once) or if my S.Links are allowing for powerful Personas, but I haven't been TOO challenged yet. Using an attack/defense debuff while gambling with Rebellion (critical increase for all) pretty much wrapped up both fights after a handful of turns without having to worry about healing.

Not complaining as I'm enjoying how all of the game systems work together and the story is pretty engaging to me. Just wondering if I'll ever have issues in battle provided I'm leveling up S.Ranks and fusing Persona at or near my player level. Basically, have I already figured out the system to the point where I don't have to change much in my approach?

Just got through the Hierophant/Lovers Shadow battles. Surprisingly, the main battle fights have not been all that difficult yet. I've actually had a harder time getting past guardian Shadows in Tartarus.

That's normal. The full moon bosses are pretty much all weaker than their Tartarus counterparts.

Just wondering if I'll ever have issues in battle provided I'm leveling up S.Ranks and fusing Persona at or near my player level. Basically, have I already figured out the system to the point where I don't have to change much in my approach?

It depends on a.) how far you go, and b.) what you mean by "issues in battle." The game has a nice ramp up in difficulty, so you're not likely to hit a wall you can't get past by doing what you're doing. However, if you decide you want to pursue the optional higher-level bosses and encounters, those are going to be crazy hard no matter what. At least one optional boss in Persona 3 is widely considered one of the hardest optional bosses in any game, period.

Yeah if you grind up Tartarus enough before the full moon events then you should be prepared for the bosses.

Early on it feels like fights are about hitting enemies weakness. But pretty quickly the bosses have no weakness, and for them it shifts to preventing your own team getting hit with weaknesses and just slugging out the fights.

Stele wrote:

Early on it feels like fights are about hitting enemies weakness. But pretty quickly the bosses have no weakness, and for them it shifts to preventing your own team getting hit with weaknesses and just slugging out the fights.

Ah okay, that's kind of what I'm getting at. I was just wondering the system changes from "boss has weakness to "X", make sure you fuse a perona that uses that skill. Also, make sure you don't have someone in your party that has a weakness to the boss' main attack.

So yeah, that's pretty much what I meant by "issues in battle". I actually forgot there were optional bosses later on, so I'll be on the lookout for those, too. Thanks for the help!

**WARNING! EXTREMELY LONG POST**

So,I was playing P3P before bed last night, burning through levels of Tartarus like melted butter,snapping up most of the Elizabeth quests for the Yabbashah block. Luckily,I was able to get the collect quests (5 Relic Frag / 3 Greasy Gears) pretty quickly and fairly easily. In addition,I stumbled on the Supreme Hand and a rare chest on the same floor,so the two quests related to that were knocked out too. My main goal before I saved the game and went to bed was to get to the Hierophant Guardian,then save and quit for the night.

I’m starting to get really tired by this time,and I’m dozing in and out of sleep. This has caused a couple of “Enemy Advantage” states because I’ll doze off and run straight into a Shadow. One particular instance had me going up against four enemies with Mamudo who luckily only cast it once during the battle. Realizing how easy it is to die and essentially erase the hour or so I’ve played so far,I shake myself awake and force myself to pay attention. After a few minutes,I find myself on the 85 th floor and the Fanatic Tower.

“Sweet,” I think to myself. “Time to turn on the transporter and go to sleep.”

That,of course,is what my brain was saying. However,my body decided it was going to go Leeroy Jenkins and just go to the fight instead of transporting back to the entrance and saving. After a few turns of the battle just to get a feel for the boss,I put my finger on the power button when the realization smacks me across the face and now I’m completely awake.

“Oh sh*t,” I mumble. “I never saved this.” My wife stirs in the bed beside me,and I silently hope she stays asleep so I don’t annoy her with the glow of the PSP screen. Once I make sure she’s back asleep,I turn my concentration back to the task at hand.

The first turn I cast Zio to start figuring out weaknesses. The result: my zio is reflected back onto me for 80 damage,driving home the point I shouldn’t use electricity. The follow up from the guardian—Maf*ckyouzioanga—instantly kills Yukari who is weak against electricity. Great. Junpei is next up,and I’m hoping that Agi is the thing this guardian is weak against. The result? Another reflection for 80 damage. Super.

Hope is not lost,however! I am far from cashing it in and declaring this battle finished! I equip Oberon,which fortunately nulls electricity. In addition,I have a lot of buffs/debuffs between Junpei,Akihiko,and the MC. The only bad thing is that the guardian gets his turn directly after my main character,which means if I switch out Personas to buff the party’s attack one ally at a time.

While I felt like maybe I used all of my luck getting to this point,I apparently still had some left,as the guardian seemed stuck on Akihiko who is obviously strong against electricity. So begins the war of attrition where I completely forget trying to revive Yukari and face this thing with just the three guys. Buff,attack,debuff, bring out Oberon,have Junpei/Akihiko use strike attacks,rinse repeat.

Of course,once I get in a good rhythm and get the guardian to a sliver of health,it turns the tables and casts something that takes away my electric resistance. I decide at this point to go all-in and instead of wasting a turn healing,I have everyone attack. It unfortunately is not enough and I figure that the guardian will attack my MC directly and everything will be lost. For some reason,though,it decides to Mind Charge instead. A quick attack later and it is defeated! Without hesitating,I teleport back to the entrance,save the game,and relish in my amazing victory. WOO HOO!

This was probably the most intense and exciting battle I’ve had in the game (and possibly any JRPG) yet. I also find it funny that I just got done almost complaining that I “figured out the game”. LOL

I love it when things like that happen. That's why I like the boss fights in Tartarus so much: they're hard enough and tricky enough that victory can sometimes be so sweet.

Yeah but... always go save on the boss floor before fighting the boss. You got lucky.

Stele wrote:

Yeah but... always go save on the boss floor before fighting the boss. You got lucky. ;)

Yeah man...I know that. I really know how lucky I got. Still can't believe I just forgot to save that game. I was fully expecting to just lose that battle right off the bat. I probably could have grinder out a few more levels or fuse some different Persona that would've made that fight easier. However, I'll take a victory any way I can get it