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:

I developed a few new social links in Persona 3 today, including the swim club at the school, the student council, and an MMORPG player. I also managed to finally advance my Academics stat one rank, which will come in important since you need a decent academics skill for the exams coming up.

I started getting requests from Elizabeth in the Velvet Room, usually to find a certain type of item or use a certain skill, but one of them involved taking her on a ‘date’ to the mall. Some of her requests are timed, and one wants an item from the 16th floor of Tartarus. I was only up to floor 4 by this point, so I blitzed up a whole bunch of floors in a fairly short time, and fortunately the enemies don’t get too tough too quickly.

The only real trouble was on floor 10, where a boss fight was blocking the way. They were an extremely annoying fight because even after figuring out their weakness, I failed the fight four times in a row. After a perfect opening round and all-out-attack, they then proceed to either focus on me and kill me off in a single round, or hit everyone with their elemental weaknesses and I never got another chance at control (I didn’t have a suitable counter-persona that still let me hit their weakness yet), or my first attack missed and I was dead before I got another turn, or they knock out a party member and send me into a constantly-recovering death spiral, or…

It wasn’t until I finally changed tactics and decided to try and keep two of them knocked down instead of going for an all-out attack that I finally succeeded, and even then it took three more tries before it worked, due to misses leading to the above scenarios again. Oh well, I got them in the end and I’m on floor 11 now with three or four more days before the deadline, so I should be in good shape.

And it turns out Japan has their own sleazy shopping network hosts:

Having finished a fairly short game, of course it’s now time for an extremely long one, and oh hey, there’s my Persona 3 FES case…

It starts out in a school setting, where you’re a new student and you meet a bunch of the other students, all of which have fairly well-fleshed-out personalities (for an RPG, anyway), like Yukuri the nervous worrywart and Junpei the boisterous, overly-friendly goofball. Time proceeds day-by-day in different phases of the day, including going to classes (where you have to pay attention and potentially answer questions), after-school activities, and hanging out in the dorms in the evening. There’s a one year time limit on the game, but there’s a lot to do each day, so it’s going to take a while.

It’s not just a school simulation game though; it’s not long before the other students are spying on me in my sleep and I learn about the Dark Hour, a period between days when regular people turn into coffins and creatures called Shadows prey on some, while others like us are unaffected. I also encounter the Velvet Room, an otherworldly place that becomes important later on. Suddenly, the students are attacked by Shadows, we’re cornered while escaping, and I summon a ‘persona’ and defeat them. That all takes place in cutscenes, but there is a brief and easy sample battle to mop up afterwards.

Back in the Velvet Room I got a tutorial on personas, learned how they’re tied to the strength of ‘social links’ with other people and that I have to develop those. Back in the real world, the students revealed that they’re part of a secret group fighting the Shadows and I agreed to join them. So, really, it’s kind of like a Japanese version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer…

After that we went to check out Tartarus, a tower that appears only during the Dark Hour, and explored the first level of it, getting basic combat tutorials along the way. Afterwards, I was finally able to choose my own after-school activities; up to this point, specific activities in the daily phases had been forced on me, but now I’m able to choose whether I want to study, join a club, spend time in the town, build relationships for the social links, etc.

To round out the night I went to Tartarus once again, and went up a couple more floors, gained a couple levels, found two new personas, and learned a bit more about how personas can be fused together to create new ones. Apparently I’m unique in my ability to have multiple personas, whereas everyone else is stuck with one specific one.

Unfortunately they don’t all look like this…