So instead I caught up on Rock Band tonight, as I’d bought a few songs over the previous weeks but hadn’t yet had a chance to actually try them out. The metal songs (from Dream Theater and Killswitch Engage) were as challenging as expected, but the Devo and Duran Duran songs were a bit easy on guitar, in comparison. The Duran Duran songs actually work out pretty well on bass, though.
Not too much longer until Rock Band 2 now…
My Persona 3 session tonight was cut off earlier than expected. I figured I’d get in some exploration of the newly opened block before the vacation started, and made my way up to the first boss floor. The enemies in this block are definitely a lot tougher; it took a while to learn all of their weaknesses and appropriate tactics to use on them, and there are still a few that put up rough fights.
But, on one of the trips up, I got careless and used an AE wind attack. Yup, against enemies that I had forgotten can reflect wind. All three hits were reflected back on me and I died instantly at the very start of the fight. I probably didn’t really lose that much time, since I’d been saving between trips up and this was probably the third or fourth trip, but I lost some really good equipment I’d found on a special floor on that trip, and I was too pissed off to continue any further tonight.
I took a shot at the floor 59 boss in Persona 3, but got wiped out pretty quickly since I didn’t have enough revives or health to withstand the AE attacks, so I did a bit more grinding in Tartarus. Soon after, I saw a cutscene of a mysterious group of assassins that operate during the dark hour, and then headed back to Tartarus and finally beat the boss.
There was still plenty of time to kill before the next full moon event, so I built up social links, maxing out the swim team and student council, and gained enough Academics skill to guarantee acing the exams coming up. I’m also now considered to be officially dating Yuko, which prevents me from building social links with any other girlfriends until I max her out, but none of the others are available yet anyway.
The full moon event arrived, taking place in a ‘love hotel’, and it was annoying because I lost the first boss fight, requiring reloading and redoing a whole bunch of cutscenes. The fight was actually going very well, but an unlucky few rounds of AE fear effects and attacks put me into one of those downward spirals of always trying to recover. It went fine on the second attempt, including a second boss fight after that.
Afterwards there was an explanation of the explosion incident ten years ago that seems to have created the shadows and Tartarus, though it doesn’t really change anything about what to do about it. And now, having aced the exams, we’re off on vacation for a week. Though it’s to a location that will undoubtedly touch upon that initial incident…
And of course I couldn’t leave well enough alone and couldn’t resist a bit more Persona 3 tonight…
I tackled the newly opened Tartarus areas and made it up to floor 59 boss without too much trouble; the new enemies aren’t all that much tougher than the previous ones. I also completed a few more requests for Elizabeth, including another ‘date’ to one of the stations, joined the photo club and got a new social link for it, and raised a few others.
I also ran across a dog name Koromaru that I already know is going to wind up joining us at one point. Yes, as a party member.
I felt like I was already prepared enough for the next full moon event in Persona 3, but it was still 16 days away, so I popped back into Tartarus a few times just to grind some more cash and xp, complete a bunch of Elizabeth’s requests, and fuse some more personas. With newer equipment, my teammates look a bit ridiculous now, with Yukari in a bikini top and holding a toy bow, and Junpei with a bat with a bunch of nails in it.
Otherwise, I worked on some more social links, raising them with Yoku, Kenji, the swim team, and the little girl at the shrine (not creepy at all!), and gaining a new one with an annoying fat kid named Nozomi. I raised his a bunch of times while I had a matching persona, and he has a weird story involving some kind of cult, a dead brother, this adult he pissed off, and of course a love of food. Turns out I shouldn’t have bothered with him for now since he counts as a non-school link I could have worked on in the summer instead, focusing on school ones for now, but oh well.
The full moon event arrived, where we discovered that the students who had gone missing recently had been trapped in the school, and we rescued them during the dark hour. The boss fight was pretty trivial, which was good because there were an awful lot of cutscenes that would have had to be repeated if I’d failed… After beating the event, one of the missing girls (Fuuka) joined us, I got the Knock Down tactic, and can now fuse personas into weapons.
I couldn’t enter Tartarus again for a while, so I just worked on social links and stats in the meantime, gaining two new social links with a monk in the nightclub and the mysterious boy (Pharos) who’s been showing up at the Dark Hour sometimes. I might actually max out a few of them like the student council and swim team sometime soon.
I also browsed through the PSN store looking at the recent stuff, and although Ratchet & Clank: Quest For Booty looks tempting, I should probably finish off the R&C Future game I already started first… Instead I grabbed the Head Coach 09 demo; normally I’m not much of a football guy, but I was curious what it would be like from the management side rather than as a player.
As expected, it’s rather stat-heavy, with people representing not just the players but all of the support roles on your team as well like position-specific coaches, coordinators, and trainers, with skill levels, purchasable skill trees, cross-league effectiveness rankings, different ways you can ask to change their behaviours, ‘needs’ that each of them wants fulfilled, approval ratings, etc…
It’s all rather overwhelming and there didn’t seem to be much to do anyway since the demo starts you off with an already well-developed team, so I skipped ahead to the first game. Since it’s a management sim, you don’t control the players directly but instead do things like pick what plays to run, make adjustments to the defensive line, and respond to other events that come up like injuries and requests for substitutions. Or you can just let your coaches make the decisions and see what happens, which I pretty much had to do thanks to my complete ignorance of football.
Interesting, but it’s really for people who are true football fanatics, not me.
It was time to take a bit of a break from Persona 3, so tonight I did another rFactor simulation of the upcoming F1 race in Valencia. It took two attempts; the first one was a disaster because I was using an older version of the track with a terrible AIW file, but after upgrading to the latest one it was much better, with a final podium of Hamilton, Raikkonen, and, uh, Fisichella? Okay, whatever…
The AI is still overly aggressive though, trying crazy moves in corners, rubbing other cars too much, and the mechanical failure rate is nuts; it’s impossible to complete a full-length race with even one car making it to the finish without falling apart, so I have to do half-races instead. I’m still not sure if it’s the mod or rFactor’s fault, though.
Today’s Persona 3 session was mostly grinding in Tartarus, first with just me and Junpei since Yukari was unavailable for some reason. I also gave up on trying to squeeze in a ton of Academics raises, and just focused on a couple social links instead.
The exams came and went, Akihiko finally rejoined the rest of the group, and I went back to Tartarus again. I tried the floor 36 boss and got creamed by it, but after grinding on the lower floors for a while and gaining a few levels, we beat him without too much trouble the second time. The real secret was getting a persona that was resistant to wind attacks.
And speaking of personas, I fused a whole bunch of them and now primarily use a Lilim that has all four elemental attacks available, with a backup persona (currently a Unicorn) for buffs, heals, and other support stuff.
I also improved the social links with the old couple, student council, and swim team leader, and met a guy called Bebe along the way, who will apparently be another social link later on.
With exams almost here in Persona 3, I tried a bit of an experiment and focused on raising my Academics stat exclusively as much as I could before the exams started, by keeping in Great shape and using the shrine. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to gain another rank and I didn’t get the top marks, so I reverted to an earlier save so I could broaden my focus again.
With the barrier gone, I returned to Tartarus, first stopping off at the Velvet Room to fuse a new persona. Partly to start filling out the list of them now that I have the Compendium available, and partly to free up space for new ones I find.
The enemies in this new block are tougher, of course, requiring me to spend more SP on persona attacks and healing. Still, I managed to get up to floor 25 and beat the boss there, largely with the same technique I used before of keeping two of them knocked down while we whittled away at the remaining one. After that I managed to sneak all the way up to floor 36 where the next boss is, but I’m not sure I’m ready for it. It’s the last floor of the block though, so I’m well prepared for the end of this moon cycle and can just focus on grinding xp and getting ready for it now.
Along the way I also picked up another rank in both Charm and Courage, the latter thanks to karaoke again. I’ve also got an idea about how I can gain even more Academics skill, by exploiting the reload of saves and using the bathroom to get Great status so I can use both the shrine and late-night studying, so maybe I’ll ace those exams after all. It’s worked for one day’s cycle; it’s just rather tedious to do all that reloading…
And although there’s a one year time limit, I’m about one and a half months in and it’s taken 10 hours of play, so at this rate it’s still going to be a pretty lengthy game.
Back in Persona 3, I easily made it the rest of the way up to floor 16 of Tartarus and got the document needed for Elizabeth’s timed quest. There was another boss fight along the way on floor 14, but this one was much easier than the earlier one and I beat it the first time. There was a barrier on floor 16 which prevented me from proceeding any further until the next full moon (six days away), apparently.
In the meantime I gained a rank in Courage through a few nights of karaoke, gained social links with the swim team leader and a little girl at the shrine, and went back to Tartarus to grind a bit for some more xp and items.
The full moon arrived and this time another shadow appeared outside the tower and we chased it to a monorail, where a series of fights broke out as we made our way down the train and culminated in a timed section in getting to the boss. The boss fight was a bit annoying because she kept summoning new monsters into the fight, but otherwise wasn’t too hard, and there was plenty of xp rewarded for this segment. The barrier is gone now, so I can start exploring more floors of the tower again.
And it’s almost exam time, so I’m hoping I can gain one more rank in Academics before then. Donating money at the shrine while in Great condition is best for that, but it’s often hard to organize with other students and events distracting you…
And about that monorail boss, I think Junpei speaks for us all:
