Persona 4 Golden Catch-All

MadGav wrote:

About 3 hours in, and finished the very first castle run. I now have to rescue Yukiko, and have spent one day studying at home. I've now attempted the castle - and made it to the 3rd level. Can I use the item (forget the name) to go back to the save point then easily get back to the third level and continue on?

Should I even be continuing this early in the game?

After you warp back you can go back to the level you warped from next time. Eventually you'll get the Hermit social link and be able to warp back, re-up on mana, and then go back to fight things.

As far as what you should be doing... just have fun and know the first optional boss is going to kick your ass the first time you try it. "Should" is for the second playthrough.

Yup, you can use the Goho-M to get back to the starting point to save up, fuse personae, etc. then go back to whichever floor you left off.

sometimesdee wrote:

Yup, you can use the Goho-M to get back to the starting point to save up, fuse personae, etc. then go back to whichever floor you left off.

Or the teleporter on floors with bosses/minibosses.

There's a teleporter? O.o

sometimesdee wrote:

There's a teleporter? O.o

psoplayer kindly informed me in IRC that I'm getting P3 and P4 mixed up

Is there a way to reverse or stop a character from heading down a romantic path? I got a message that Yukiko was starting to love the MC, but I don't want to date her. I'd rather not just start being randomly mean to her, but there is a way to steer this back on a platonic path? Thank you

At some point in the social link, the game will actually ask you if you want them to become your girlfriend. You can pick No at that point, and they'll never become a romance. You can still finish the social link.

Awesome, thanks

Yeah, it's a somewhat unfortunate gameplay conceit that getting the maximum points with the girls of Persona 4 inevitably leads to them wanting to be in a romantic relationship. The main girls you can let down gently but any of the side social link girls are sometimes rather harsh.

I kinda liked how Person 3 did it if you completed all social links, where Igor called you out on being a cypher and only saying what people wanted to hear. It's weirder in Persona 4 (and Persona 3 Portable to a lesser extent) because the main character seems to have more of a personality.

Puh-lease. My MC was pimpin'. He was dating Ayane, Yukiko, and Rise.

sometimesdee wrote:

Puh-lease. My MC was pimpin'. He was dating Ayane, Yukiko, and Rise.

bnpederson wrote:

I kinda liked how Person 3 did it if you completed all social links, where Igor called you out on being a cypher and only saying what people wanted to hear. It's weirder in Persona 4 (and Persona 3 Portable to a lesser extent) because the main character seems to have more of a personality.

Not just a cypher, but openly manipulative. P3's SLs were more difficult in part because you had to give bad advice, like telling the captain of the sports team to keep competing on a bum knee. You were at times a somewhat reprehensible human being in order to further your own goals, which were ironically using your unwitting friends in order to save them from an evil they never knew existed. It also reinforced much of the gameplay, both from a perspective of you being a "wild card" and able to control any demon and wield any weapon, plus growing relationships with your friends specifically so that they could help you in battle. It was a much stronger, more evocative feedback loop, and perhaps the main reason that I still hold P3 (excepting the portable version) to be a far better game than its successor. P4 went a little to far into the "friendship is magic" realm, and used some of the ideas that P3 set up as a crutch without fully tying them back in to its own theme.

But, y'know, people like P4 better because you have direct control of your party members. This is why we can't have nice things.

Spoiler:

I did, of course, love P4, but I still felt it was a couple steps back from the brilliance of P3.

I'm pretty sure marin karin would be why we can't have nice things

Minarchist wrote:
bnpederson wrote:

I kinda liked how Person 3 did it if you completed all social links, where Igor called you out on being a cypher and only saying what people wanted to hear. It's weirder in Persona 4 (and Persona 3 Portable to a lesser extent) because the main character seems to have more of a personality.

Not just a cypher, but openly manipulative. P3's SLs were more difficult in part because you had to give bad advice, like telling the captain of the sports team to keep competing on a bum knee. You were at times a somewhat reprehensible human being in order to further your own goals, which were ironically using your unwitting friends in order to save them from an evil they never knew existed. It also reinforced much of the gameplay, both from a perspective of you being a "wild card" and able to control any demon and wield any weapon, plus growing relationships with your friends specifically so that they could help you in battle. It was a much stronger, more evocative feedback loop, and perhaps the main reason that I still hold P3 (excepting the portable version) to be a far better game than its successor. P4 went a little to far into the "friendship is magic" realm, and used some of the ideas that P3 set up as a crutch without fully tying them back in to its own theme.

But, y'know, people like P4 better because you have direct control of your party members. This is why we can't have nice things.

Spoiler:

I did, of course, love P4, but I still felt it was a couple steps back from the brilliance of P3.

I liked the P3 story for those same reasons and did like P3P, probably because I could actually control my party members and despite being a floating dot. I've played through Persona 3 in various incarnations four times (and will probably do a fifth to see all the SL of the female protagonist) but only played through Persona 4 three times.

That said, the actual characters of P4 are a LOT more enjoyable than those of P3. I'm actively curious what happens to Chie in the future whereas I would not give a rat's ass to find out what happened to Yukari.

Is there any benefit to hanging out with characters after you've maxed their social links? I'm around January 11, and four of the party characters have asked to hang out with MC after school, and all are maxed.

Nope. Completed links will never reverse or degrade.

sometimesdee wrote:

Is there any benefit to hanging out with characters after you've maxed their social links? I'm around January 11, and four of the party characters have asked to hang out with MC after school, and all are maxed.

There are occasionally unique events that you wouldn't otherwise be able to see with them, but there isn't any gameplay benefit or detriment regardless of how you decide to spend your time.

It's probably one of the weirder things about the Persona games, yeah. I mean, you get to a maximum level of friendship with someone and then proceed to ignore them completely? Even in romantic relationships? Sure it made sense with Glass-Eyes McSouless in Persona 3 but in 4 it was just strange.

I just fused a persona so awesome I had to share:

IMAGE(http://www.matchstickeyes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Persona-4-Golden-4-Immunities.jpg)

Four immunities! And just a couple of hours before that, I fused Black Frost. Two immunities, -dyne level offensive magic, and mind charge = RUN, SHADOWS, RUN.

PeterS wrote:

I just fused a persona so awesome I had to share:

IMAGE(http://www.matchstickeyes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Persona-4-Golden-4-Immunities.jpg)

Four immunities! And just a couple of hours before that, I fused Black Frost. Two immunities, -dyne level offensive magic, and mind charge = RUN, SHADOWS, RUN.

Can anyone explain this screen to me? I've just played aroundw with the fusing and it's all a bit confusing!

Well, the resulting persona here has no resistance to physical attacks, is weak to fire and wind, and completely nulls ice and electric (zio). No resistance to light or dark (hama/mudo). It has 8 skills already and will gain three more when it hits the corresponding levels. Two of those skills cover its weaknesses: null fire and null wind will overwrite the weakness to fire and wind the persona has inherently. Its highest stats are strength and endurance (which is physical resistance), so it's mainly going to be used to bash people's brains in, but it has a couple helpful spells loaded -- an attack-all ice spell and a single-attack wind spell, as well as an all-party heal -- that will be useful in a pinch or to phys-resistant enemies. Since the player's "Moon" social link is at level 2, the fused demon gets roughly 1.3 levels' worth of experience as a bonus. If the SL was at level 10, the demon would get a full 5 levels of extra experience, and probably immediately learn all the skills it has yet to learn.

Additionally, it has the "Growth 1" skill which allows it to earn 1/4 exp from battles that it doesn't participate in, and (most importantly) "Invigorate 3" which will restore 7 SP each turn in battle while equipped. That's an incredibly awesome fusion PeterS!

MadGav: What Minarchist said. I'd add that the persona here has three "native" skills, the ones in light blue. The ones in pink/yellow are those that I added as part of the fusion.

psoplayer: Thanks, I'm pretty happy with it! The key was a Sarasvati who provided Null Wind, Null Fire, and Invigorate 3. Sarasvati has native Null Wind and Invigorate 2, which I got lucky and upgraded during a post-battle card draw, and somehow I managed to get Null Fire on her as well. I keep her around in the compendium and periodically dust her off for fusions.

Ugh. Mid game complaining:

Spoiler:

I just got to level 10 in Mitsuo's dungeon. Somehow I missed the mid level boss, so I can't actually get through the door on level 10. Now I need to fight my way back down so I can fight my way back up. I am way overleveled for this dungeon, but somehow, it is still a pain? Those steel machines that resist everything. Even the hand monsters can be a pain. One of them summoned some helpers that then proceeded to one shot the MC with an almighty spell. I like the look of the dungeon, and the music for it. So that is a plus. Rise's dungeon was kind of headache inducing from the color and music.

Spoiler:

if you have a GOHO-M to use then you can restart from the first floor. There is a magic spell (traesto) that will get you out of the dungeon too.

Edit to add:

Spoiler:

are those machines also strong against Light and Dark instant kill magic?

and hands:

Spoiler:

I built Chie around dealing massive physical damage to hands. Physical and holy can help take them down.

Apologies for the weird formatting. I am not good with the quote function

MrAndrewJ wrote:
Spoiler:

if you have a GOHO-M to use then you can restart from the first floor. There is a magic spell (traesto) that will get you out of the dungeon too.

Spoiler:

For some reason I was thinking it would end up being 15 floors if I exited and re-entered and 10 if I ran down and then ran back up. Being tired and dungeon crawling do not mix. Yeah I'll use the goho and redo the easier floors rather than doing 5-10 x2

Edit to add:

Spoiler:

are those machines also strong against Light and Dark instant kill magic?

Spoiler:

Actually they are not. They resist everything but hama and mudo, which they are neutral to. I use paper curses against them since I don't tend to use a lot of the hama / mudo line of spells and lack the boosters

and hands:

Spoiler:

I built Chie around dealing massive physical damage to hands. Physical and holy can help take them down.

Spoiler:

Sorry, I misspoke (relatively speaking) last night. It wasn't an almighty spell. The hand used god hand on my MC. Which is just surprising to encounter in a levels 30-40 dungeon.

I actually lucked out for hand hunting. Really early in the game I had a magician shuffle time card upgrade my MC's rampage into aeon rain (1-3 medium physical damage). I tend to fuse that on the persona that will act as my physical fighter. So right now it is on an Ose with power charge and auto tarukaja / sukukaja.

So many holes in my compendium. Money was insanely more easy to acquire in P3P

Are you selling everything you can at the blacksmith in Inaba? After school jobs also start to help with finances and skills alike.

MrAndrewJ wrote:

Are you selling everything you can at the blacksmith in Inaba? After school jobs also start to help with finances and skills alike.

You can do all that and still have only a fraction of the cash that you could earn in P3P. They're just entirely different economies. I was coming out of P3P accustomed to buying every weapon and armor upgrade and still having a maxed-out purse of 9,999,999¥ well before the end of the game. It was a bit of a shock to arrive in P4G and find out that it requires careful management of resources to do much better than breaking even.

It's still very possible to break the economy of P4G; it just happens in a different way than it did in P3P.

Spoiler:

Mostly through the recovery functions of Rise's SL abilities and the upgrade cards upgrading any version of Invigorate eventually to lvl 3. After about 2/3 of the way through the game most battles can leave you SP positive compared to how you started, and if you game the system properly you can use a single battle to refill the MC from 0 to full SP in just a few minutes. This makes it trivial to farm the TV world for as long as you want on any given day without any risk or loss of resources.

I remember having some money woes as well. Some of the advice I posted was given to when i said something similar.

I also spent a good deal of time mindlessly grinding while on an exercise bike. It gave me something to do that wasn't too involved but made the time pass. Plus, there was a fitness benefit. I finished the game with every character between levels 96 - 99 if memory serves.

That wasn't entirely an in-game solution. It was effective toward two different goals.

Spoiler:

I also made great use of Invigorate and S.O.S. to keep magic points up. It's good advice.

MrAndrewJ wrote:

I remember having some money woes as well. Some of the advice I posted was given to when i said something similar.

I also spent a good deal of time mindlessly grinding while on an exercise bike. It gave me something to do that wasn't too involved but made the time pass. Plus, there was a fitness benefit. I finished the game with every character between levels 96 - 99 if memory serves.

That wasn't entirely an in-game solution. It was effective toward two different goals.

Spoiler:

I also made great use of Invigorate and S.O.S. to keep magic points up. It's good advice.

I just got back into this game tonight. Boy I've missed it!

I also play my Vita on a recumbent exercise bike! Sadly it is in my apartment complex's gym that doesn't have wifi....which makes S.O.S. not an option :/ There is a computer lab attached to it....I should hook in a wireless router