Shin Megami Tensei and Persona Thread 2 : Eternal Punishment

[Ogremindes]

Past Thread: Shin Megami Tensei and Persona (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?387752-Shin-Megami-Tensei-and-Persona)

For those wondering about the title: Shin Megami Tensei is a series of post apocalyptic JPRGs heavy in occult and religious imagery created by Atlus and notable for being "evil pokemon" (you collect and summon "demons", which in this case includes all manner of mythological creatures, such as angels), and for having the player make choices on the Law/Chaos axis, rather than good and evil. The series has many spin-offs, most notably Persona.
The Persona games are JRPGs set in High School, modern times (well, P1 is set in '99), and instead of demons the characters summon their "persona", which is a symbolic manifestation of their "true self", which happens to take the form of a SMT demon. The more recent games of the Persona series including dating sim elements, which works much better than it sounds on paper. Persona has it's own spin-offs, P4 Arena, and now Persona Q. The SMT games as a whole are pretty consistently high-quality, high difficulty and unforgiving, with the newer Persona games being some of the more accessible games in the greater Megami Tensei series.


Preamble out of the way, I've brought this thread back as I've gotten back into Persona 3 (FES), having let my last run fizzle out from distraction. I've started over, and am 3 days out from the May full moon, having just finished up my last training before the big night. I even did some solo grinding to get up to Plv 8. I'm not sure it was worth it, and it didn't feel good doing it. but at least I have my quad-element Lilim going into the boss.

I'm trying to play the game well, balancing time to get as much done as possible, though I'm not about to follow a max S-Link guide, so I'll probably miss finishing a couple of S-Links. The game's a pretty different beast playing like that, at least early on. Never sweated over whether my team will be fit for another night of training before (hell, for that last run MC went in tired).

On another note: is Soul Hackers any good? I think I have the 3DS cart for it around, but haven't really looked into it.

[Vauron]

I'm curious, if you are playing Minato's game, why is the name of Maya's game in the title?

As to Soul Hackers, I dunno. I haven't gotten around to playing it.

Edit: Whoops. I misread the title and didn't notice it was a general thread.

[Ogremindes]

As to Soul Hackers, I dunno. I haven't gotten around to playing it.

I'm yet to play a SMT game I haven't liked, so I'm sure to get around to it at some point, but it is one of several I haven't played yet. Still have Devil Survivor 2, SMT4 and Innocent Sin untouched in my collection along with Soul Hackers, and a few more I haven't played through. And I want to replay P3 and P4 before P5 comes out, whenever that is, I've just been checking if a preorder is available every now and then.

In my FES playthrough, I'm just past Priestess. Grinding up to Plv 8 was almost certainly a waste of time, given that the first full moon is really just a check as to if you've learned how to play pretty much, but it was handy to have a decent all-element blaster. Was kinda annoying to see the almost the full amount of xp I spend half-an-hour grinding show up in a single fight.

On the social side, my Courage is 2 pips from max (of the S-Links that need max stats, the Courage one becomes available first), and I feel like I've only wasted a single day, and then only by ranking up Hierophant on a day that should've gone to a school S-Link (School contacts are more restricted than other contacts, so take priority. But I hadn't unlocked enough of them that day). My undoing is going to be the Sunday meetups, as I'm playing that completely by ear and I'm not so good at keeping track of which links need an extra shove before they'll rank up.

[Vauron]

The quad-element Lilum will be a good investment. She'll be a very mp efficient knockdown persona. While I didn't do so myself, some stick with her for much of the game for that reason.

When I played I generally just went up Tartarus, and then redid the last X floors between the locked floor and the choosable floor before it.

[Ogremindes]

When I played I generally just went up Tartarus, and then redid the last X floors between the locked floor and the choosable floor before it.

I was tired and alone, so I wasn't inclined to take on the toughest enemies in the block. I Probably would've been fine, but it was a bit too risky.

The best place to level grind is between the last two checkpoints you have, rather than the last checkpoint and the barrier. Going to the barrier you get the same but fewer enemies as the levels before, and going between checkpoints you can loop as long as your SP holds up even as characters get tired.

I've reached the first checkpoint of block 2. The boss, Crying Tables is a bit much ATM, probably need a couple more levels under my belt or Akihiko to join before I can get through. Not getting wrecked, just can't quite keep up. It would be a lot easier if I had knockdown tactics, sadly I don't get that 'til the next full moon.

[Ogremindes]

5/29, my Courage is now maxed. I've reached the last accessible checkpoint in Tartarus and should have no problems with the boss when I head back in.

I'm focusing on the Emperor and Justice S-Links ATM, Emperor is always a useful arcana for personas, and the Divine clan have some of my favorite demon designs in SMT, and they are, of course, mostly in the Justice arcana. Sadly I misremembered the sequence for activating the Justice S-Link, so I missed a couple of days on it, one of which went into Hierophant again. Hierophant is up to rank 9 now.

[Mewtarthio]

For those wondering about the title: Shin Megami Tensei is a series of post apocalyptic JPRGs heavy in occult and religious imagery created by Atlus and notable for being "evil pokemon" (you collect and summon "demons", which in this case includes all manner of mythological creatures, such as angels), and for having the player make choices on the Law/Chaos axis, rather than good and evil.

Slight nitpick: The first Megami Tensei game came out in 1987. So, Pokemon is actually "kid-friendly MegaTen."
Yes, that's right: All those Concerned Parents ranting about Pokemon being Satanic were actually right. :smalltongue:

[tonberrian]

Playing through Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker. Boy, is Yamoto a pain. Benetnasch is quite easy in comparison.

[Ogremindes]

Playing through Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker. Boy, is Yamoto a pain. Benetnasch is quite easy in comparison.

Oh, Record Breaker's out? Probably has been for a while. I was meaning to keep track of that. Not that I've finished any iteration of DS1 yet, though.

[Ogremindes]

Well, Emperor and Empress just got completely wrecked. I correctly figured their starting weaknesses, and Empress didn't even last a round. Emperor lasted a couple more rounds, mainly 'cause I played it safe with healing.

[Ogremindes]

6/15: First mastered S-Link: Emperor, Charm is now at level 4: Smooth. I've gotten as far as the Intrepid Knight, and was doing fine up till he squished me with Kill Rush. I'm almost Plv20, and should be able to handle him by then now my armour is up-to-date.

Hmm, does anyone have a favorite weapon for P3MC to use? I've been using two-handed swords 'cause kendo. I might try to use hammers later.

[Zevox]

Hmm, does anyone have a favorite weapon for P3MC to use? I've been using two-handed swords 'cause kendo. I might try to use hammers later.
If memory serves, I've had him with two-handed swords and spears. In general I preferred to give him longer-reach weapons, to make striking shadows out-of-combat easier.

[Vauron]

Hammers and spears, myself.

[Ogremindes]

Just got through Intrepid Knight. That fight sucked. It was going well, then Narcissus' Charm Boost Marin Karin started missing. Over and Over. And Over. And Over. I eventually pulled through, with Ghoul's Garu and null wind getting me past Makarakarn. It didn't help that I had assumed that I had saved after picking my team for my previous attempt (BTW, Makarakarn reflects status spells too), and ended up going in with Junpei.



...and over and over and over...

[Ogremindes]

Well, that was a productive evening. Got Charm to max, Justice ready to advance to 10, and a quad-element Pale Rider (3-la and Mabufu. Turns out I don't have anything with Bufula yet). Also got a Jack Frost record 38xp from its Heart Item, for what little that's worth.


If memory serves, I've had him with two-handed swords and spears. In general I preferred to give him longer-reach weapons, to make striking shadows out-of-combat easier.

Y'know, I'm finding fist to be the easiest to hit out-of-combat with. Range doesn't matter if I get the drop on 'em, and if they alert unexpectedly it's the speed that saves me.

[Ogremindes]

I've gotten past the 7/7 operation. Hierophant kicked my ass first time around. Second time I remembered I have an inventory. Nevertheless, it seems to be time to start keeping a recovery persona in stock, I had nothing except Amrita Water to cure that AoE fear. The Magician S-Link is now one click from max, but it's now exam prep week. Ah well, time to max Hierophant.

And now I've reached the first checkpoint in block 3 and beaten the Furious Gigas in 2 tries. That's a fight where knowing what the weaknesses are is the difference between a quick win or a rapid defeat.

[Ogremindes]

The best place to level grind is between the last two checkpoints you have, rather than the last checkpoint and the barrier. Going to the barrier you get the same but fewer enemies as the levels before, and going between checkpoints you can loop as long as your SP holds up even as characters get tired.

I think I have to re-evaluate this. The loot in the final stretch to the barrier does seem to be a cut above the levels immediately below. And looping between checkpoints is soon going to be moot as I'm approaching the point where the characters have more stamina for dungeon crawling than I do.

I got through all the way to the first barrier of block 3 in the first run. Requests and all, and still had some grindling left before people got tired. And the Sati I fused mutated an inherited physical skill to Bufula :).

[Ogremindes]

Urgh...

Wishlist for Persona 5
-Indirect Control
-Lack of Operation Babe Hunt.

I suspect I will be disappointed on at least one of these.

[Ogremindes]

Things I've learned tonight:
-You can in fact return to the Dorm after leaving it at night without advancing the clock.
-An AoE attack that hits all of a mixed group of enemies, killing the ones that aren't weak to it and knocking down the ones that are triggers an All Out Attack.

[Ogremindes]

My memory of P3 back when I first played it has it being graphically poor, so coming back to it now I keep being surprised by just how nice the visuals are, and how much detail is there. I just noticed Ken's animation for when he's trying to drink coffee. 'Trying' being the key word :smallsmile:.

I've gotten to the end of Block 2 now, no real problems apart from Natural Dancer. Not much you can do when the RNG goes against you in the face of AoE charm. Aparently Dis-charm isn't one of the items your teammates stock.

I've gotten the Hermit S-Link up to 9 now, should be able to max it momentarily. Magician's still hanging around at one-tick from max, too. I think once the summer vacation ends I'll focus firstly on Lovers, and on wrapping up Chariot.

I've gone and ordered a copy of DS2 Record Breaker. Not that I'm likely to play it any time soon, since I haven't played DS1 all the way through yet. I have a hard time finishing SMT games even though I adore them. I get distracted by something else and stop playing for a while, and by the time I come back I can't remember what I was doing and want to restart. I've been making a nightly ritual of playing P3F after dinner to avoid getting caught up in another game and missing P3 for a couple of weeks (that snowballs into months) again.

[Jermell]

Playing through Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker. Boy, is Yamoto a pain. Benetnasch is quite easy in comparison.

Loved that game, finished both campaigns and now I'm doing an apocalyptic difficulty NG+ playthrough. And yes at least in Daichi's route Yamato was actually more difficult than the final boss (well about the same but I was higher level when I fought the final boss), he can actually back up all that big talk. Which route are you playing through?

[tonberrian]

Loved that game, finished both campaigns and now I'm doing an apocalyptic difficulty NG+ playthrough. And yes at least in Daichi's route Yamato was actually more difficult than the final boss (well about the same but I was higher level when I fought the final boss), he can actually back up all that big talk. Which route are you playing through?

Golden Daichi, that time. Since then I've done Record Breaker Triangulum and Anguished One.

[Ogremindes]

I'm into the latter half of P3F now, 9/14 to be exact. The game picks up again both in story and gameplay shortly after the halfway point, with Shinji, Chidori, special weapon fusions and the first wave of ultimate personas coming in.

I'm now Plvl 49, and have wrapped up all the requests for the first half of block 4. My best persona is my quad-element Succubus with Agidyne, Garula, Zionga, Bufula, Mudoon, Ailment Boost, Sexy Dance and Null Light. I've Maxed Charm and Courage, and Academics is a fair way towards that final pip.

My Maxed S-Links are Magician, Emperor, Hierophant, Justice, Hermit and Moon. Chariot is Rank 8, Devil is 6, Strength and Lovers are both 5, Temperance is 4. I've only just started Tower and Star. I haven't started Fortune, Hanged Man, Sun or Priestess. My focus is now on Lovers and wrapping up Chariot. I'm not sure whether I should focus on Star, as it's an odd case being a "school contact" that's available on Sundays.

It seems now to be more economical to outfit my team with fused weapons than buying weapons, even on mondays. It also seems that I need to stop trying to keep all my teams armour up-to-date and just buy one of each armour piece as they become available. All my teammates now have an element-boost accessory (except for the pure phys characters).

[Vauron]

I wouldn't worry so much about keeping your armor updated. I seem to recall not having any trouble even though I stuck with an all girl team, all of which were dressed as maids. Admittedly, that was in FES, but I don't recall that big a difference with P3P.

[Ogremindes]

Oh, I'm playing FES. I've been calling it P3F because that's how it's styled in the title screen.

I guess at about the midpoint the economics of buying gear change. Before that it was economical to keep everyone's armour up-to-date and buy in new weapons. But now it's a lot of money for a relatively small boost to armour (+4 defence when you have 12 is a much bigger deal than +4 when you have 60), and weapons now cost almost as much as summoning a level-appropriate persona from the compendium, and I have a full selection of nhil weapons on hand now, so using the superior fused weapons just makes sense.

[Ogremindes]

10/4 Understanding the characters much better than when I first played the game, that scene had much more impact than when I first played. The expanded interactions from Q certainly counted towards that.

[Ogremindes]

I think it's fair to say I'm overleveled. I just plowed through the second half of block 2 with almost no resistance from the bosses.

[Ogremindes]

12/30, day before The Choice. It's now readily apparent that a Max S-Link run is out of reach. I didn't actually think I'd get it, but it was a lot closer than I expected. I believe my mistakes were to only focus on a few links at a time, rather than juggle every link I could, and to spend school days on Star (what was I thinking?).

I've maxed all non-auto links except Priestess (rank 5), Empress (rank 2), Fortune (rank 4), Aion (yet to become available). 21 ranks in 18 remaining school days ain't happening. Unless Aion works differently than I remember. I'm pretty sure it's a school link, though.

Kinda sad that I'm about to have my first wasted day. I'm pretty sure all three links are ready to pop, and there's a week of winter break ahead :smallfrown:

[Zevox]

So, Persona 5! There was news from TGS.

The main thing: release delayed to mid-2016. Honestly, I'm not particularly surprised. It struck me as strange that we'd heard so little about it for so long if it was actually going to hit this holiday season, so I've been expecting a delay. No big deal.

In addition though, we got trailers. One is mostly gameplay (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs-BHcSK6EA), which is pretty much what you'd expect, but with a lot of people talking in Japanese during it, so maybe somebody who speaks that can get more out of it. And another is of presumably the title theme (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBofQ_WgKdw), including a look at the singer recording it - and there's a new character (likely party member), a blue-haired guy, who shows up in the sequences that play during it (which are otherwise as we saw in the previous trailer). Pretty good, I'd say.

[Ogremindes]

So, Persona 5! There was news from TGS.

The main thing: release delayed to mid-2016. Honestly, I'm not particularly surprised. It struck me as strange that we'd heard so little about it for so long if it was actually going to hit this holiday season, so I've been expecting a delay. No big deal.

In addition though, we got trailers. One is mostly gameplay (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs-BHcSK6EA), which is pretty much what you'd expect, but with a lot of people talking in Japanese during it, so maybe somebody who speaks that can get more out of it. And another is of presumably the title theme (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBofQ_WgKdw), including a look at the singer recording it - and there's a new character (likely party member), a blue-haired guy, who shows up in the sequences that play during it (which are otherwise as we saw in the previous trailer). Pretty good, I'd say.

Delay's disappointing, but yeah, not unexpected. I'm not too sad, as I'll need the time to play through P4G at this rate. I'll continue to avoid looking at info about the game; all I want to know now is when I can pre order.

In my P3F playthrough, I'm through all the Tarturus bosses. The last 2 gave me some trouble: Fierce Cyclopses spam high powered phys attacks, so I fused a special persona, one with full physical immunity and Magarudyne. I went into that fight solo, and left with 19 hp. Joton of Grief was just a hard fight, so I switched to using Yukari, Aegis and Akihiko, all on heal/support.

Now I'm going for the ultimate fusion weapons. I really only need 4, of course, but I want to outfit the whole team. Once my team is all past 70 I'll give The Reaper a shot legit. Never actually done that fight without Armageddon.

[Ogremindes]

Well, I got the Bloody Button using Thunder Reign and a perfect turn order, so now I've unlocked Monad. I've never actually ventured into the place before, it's quite a jump from Adamah.

[tyckspoon]

Well, I got the Bloody Button using Thunder Reign and a perfect turn order, so now I've unlocked Monad. I've never actually ventured into the place before, it's quite a jump from Adamah.

Pretty much everything in there is either weak or at least not resistant to one of Mudo or Hama, IIRC. A persona with Samsara or Die For Me! plus the appropriate Boost can rake in the XP and cash pretty quickly.. although until your MC gets really superpowered I would suggest saving obsessively or at least leading with a highly defensive Persona equipped. If you don't get the drop on them or your mass-kill spell doesn't kill everything those same encounters will end you quite quickly.

[Ogremindes]

Pretty much everything in there is either weak or at least not resistant to one of Mudo or Hama, IIRC. A persona with Samsara or Die For Me! plus the appropriate Boost can rake in the XP and cash pretty quickly.. although until your MC gets really superpowered I would suggest saving obsessively or at least leading with a highly defensive Persona equipped. If you don't get the drop on them or your mass-kill spell doesn't kill everything those same encounters will end you quite quickly.

I didn't have any real trouble: the weaknesses were all pretty well telegraphed, and nothing needed more than 2 AOAs to bring down. Now I have Helel with Victory Cry, so I can just Armageddon everything should the fancy take me. Nothing left to do in Tarturus except do the last Fusion Spell requests (I think I should be able to finish Priestess and Aeon) and farm Messiah heart items.

[Ogremindes]

Dang. Looks like while I can max Priestess and Aeon, if I do Aigis won't be done 'til the last Friday or Saturday, well past the time needed to make Metatronius. And that's still hinging on 2 thing I don't know for certain to be true: firstly that Aigis will rank up every time, and second that Fuuka will be ready to rank up from 9 to 10 after a Sunday meet up.

[Ogremindes]

Final s-link tally: Fortune 4, Empress 5, Aeon 9. All others maxed. Going into the promised day now.

[Ogremindes]

Such a good ending. And I don't just mean the last bit with Aigis, but the last 3 days altogether. The ending bit for The Hermit was particularly great :smallsmile: Going through and finding all the bits for maxed s-links drives home the impact of the final end quite a bit.

Seems odd to say it of what I already considered my favorite game, but Persona 3 FES is a better game than I remember it being. Part of it was Persona Q adding more meat to some of the relationships, part of it was me allowing myself to get swept up in the story more than I normally do. The Condition system makes a lot more sense when your trying to play well, and even the visuals are much better than existed in my memory (probably an overlap with P3P, there).

I'm surprised at how close I got to a max S-Link run. If I had understood they systems a little better (and didn't waste time on Star) I would've had it. Focusing on only a couple of links at a time isn't the way.

My time on clock at the end was 135 hours. I spent far more time in Tarturus than was sane. Well over 3 months of evenings. My first playthrough took about 3 weeks of playing like it was my job, iirc.

I suspect I aught give SMT a rest for a while, lest I get burned out. But now I'm in that rhythm of playing every night maybe I'll pull out that Playstation TV for P4G before too long. And I do have all those 3DS SMT games... and Innocent Sin...maybe while the ps2's hooked up I should play Raidou Kuzunoha again...