Back in Persona 3, I farmed Tartarus a bit more for exp and finally got a few of the ice immunity items. With them, and a bunch of healing items picked up at the antique store, I was finally ready to take on The Reaper.

It turned out to be rather anti-climactic, though. I used a strategy found on some forums where I used Thunder Reign to keep him vulnerable to criticals, put crit rate up weapons on everyone else, and told them to knock him down. That caused the Reaper to keep losing his turn getting back up again while we got in the occasional all-out attack. There was one turn where I missed with Thunder Reign, but Akihiko still managed to crit him that turn. I never even had to use a single item in the battle.

And then I realized that I hadn’t actually accepted the request to kill him, so he hadn’t dropped the item I needed. Whoops. I had to do the fight over again, but this time it didn’t go as smoothly since Yukari kept attacking when she should have been healing, as I’d set her to Heal/Support, and that screwed up the attempts to keep him knocked down. By the time she’d stopped doing that, the Reaper was second in the combat order and Thunder Reign wouldn’t help since it would wear off immediately.

After that the battle was just a matter of healing and reviving as necessary (a Megidola would often kill Yukari even at full health, or the occasional light/dark spell would hit), and attacking with high-damage spells (Ragnarok seemed best) when the opportunity arose. I used a handful of items this time (mainly Bead Chains and Balms of Life), but still had plenty left over. There was one annoying stretch near the end of the fight where he kept using AE attack after AE attack though, and I just had to keep wasting Bead Chain after Bead Chain since Yukari was dead at the time.

That opened up Monad, which is another set of floors much like Tartarus, but with tougher enemies. It’s worth it though, since they give out a lot more experience as well, so this is where I’ll be grinding from now on. I went from level 83 to 88 just going through the first few floors, and the rest of the group gained a bunch as well.

I’ll have plenty of time to grind too, since there’s still 18 days left until the final battle.

I didn’t even progress a single game day in Persona 3 tonight, as I spent it all working on personas instead. I combined up a whole bunch of ones I was still missing and now have 85% of the compendium filled. The remaining ones are mostly ones that are difficult to get because they either require a maxed social link, they’re beyond my level, or their combinations are a bit weird and you have to start at the top-level ones in their arcana and work downwards.

After that, I put together a handful of personas specifically for farming heart items from them. This is how I’ll get the immunity items I need to take on the Reaper comfortably, using Surt for the fire immunity, Gabriel for the frost immunity, Jatayu for wind, and Thor for electricity. All you have to do is fuse them however many times you need until you get a notification that they have a heart item, level them up until just before the point you get the item, and register them in the compendium. Then you can cycle through leveling them up to get the item, ditching that one, and buying the old one from the compendium to level it up and get the item again. Having Growth 3 on them helps a lot since then you don’t have to use them specifically in combat.

I now have everyone’s elemental weaknesses covered with immunities except Akihiko; Gabriel is taking longer to level up since I failed to get a Growth skill on it and the associated social link is fairly low. It’s only a couple levels away now though, so it won’t be too long.

I got back to Persona 3 tonight, but it was mostly just grinding in Tartarus, since there’s not much else to do while the winter vacation is still going and you can’t work on schoolmate social links. I also fused a bunch of the special combo personas, though I still have about 25% of the compendium missing. I’m almost at the money cap though, so I’ll be able to afford to spend some time storing, fusing, and repurchasing personas sometime soon.

And I finally gained a high enough level to make a rather…different persona that I alluded to earlier…:

Yes, it is. But it’s an equal opportunity game.

It’s the final stretch in Persona 3, and as soon as the last month started I headed straight to the final block of Tartarus. I made it all the way up to floor 244 on the first night before getting tired, fighting four bosses along the way: the floor 220 boss used a lot of elemental attacks, but wasn’t too bad; the one on floor 228 was annoying since they kept draining my SP, but wasn’t too tough otherwise; the floor 236 boss liked to throw around instakill attacks near the end but I was well-protected thanks to a persona null to both light and dark; and the floor 244 bosses used a ton of heavily-damaging physical attacks and I just kept everyone else healed up. I had to wait until the third night to head up and beat the last boss on floor 252, and he was a piece of cake as long as you’re null to rage effects so you don’t lose control.

Along the way I also automatically gained ranks in the Nyx Annihilation Squad social link and can now create the ‘Messiah’ persona. Well, I’ll be able to when I hit level 90, anyway…

So, with all of Tartarus cleared out now only three days into the month, the next major event won’t happen until the end of the month, so I have plenty of time to work on social links, grind for levels, items, and cash, and to work on fusing personas and doing Elizabeth’s quests.

Speaking of which, one of them is to kill The Reaper, and I took a quick try at it but got wiped out with him down to about 80% health. I’ll probably try again when my level’s into the 80s instead (currently 74), but it doesn’t look like it’ll be *too* difficult, just a really loooong battle of attrition. I’ll have to make sure I get items to cover the party’s elemental weaknesses, too, since the Reaper is pretty good at exploiting them. Killing him will get me into the ‘Monad’ dungeon, where I can gain levels much faster.

Then again, Monad is more of an optional bit, and this game is taking long enough as it is… (97 hours on the clock so far.)

After a bit more grinding in Tartarus for Elizabeth’s missions, I worked on more fusions for a bit, and now have about 3/4 of the compendium filled out. I also worked on social links, maxing it out with the dying youth, but there are more days now with nothing to work on. Most of the remaining links are fellow students, and you can’t work on those during the exam and winter breaks.

At the end of the month came the time for a big decision, which decides whether I get the good ending or the bad ending. I chose the good one for now of course, but have a save here so I can come back and try the bad ending as well at some point. This maxed out the SEES social link and started a new one for the “Nyx Annihilation Squad”. I’m now on to the final month of the game, where we have to reach the top of the tower and confront this Nyx thingie, and it shouldn’t take more than a few days.

I popped back into Persona 3 for a bit and although there wasn’t another full moon boss shadow fight, the plot still advanced steadily. Evil Jesus came back again, big surprise, and took Chidori back out of the hospital. We had to fight her, after which she realized we were right and converted to our side…for about 30 seconds before she sacrificed herself, anyway.

After that I finished off the rest of the floors in the 5th block, where the bosses were fairly easy. And shortly after that there was a bunch of cutscenes with a revelation about a new kid that we had recently met, his relationship to me and Aigis and what happened ten years ago, and the end of the world. The usual.

And of course there was more work on social links, finally starting one with Mitsuru and maxing them out with the old couple and Tanaka. There’s about a month and a half of game time to go now, and it’s looking like I’ll have to forgo maxing out one of the schoolmates’ social links. It’ll probably be Chihiro, since her ultimate persona is a lower-level one not needed for any of the special combos.