Memento Mori. Let's Play Persona 3!
Part 54 is out! FES is a remarkably mundane affair, with the sole notable event being Keisuke's maxout, though Yukari is next in line. On the Portable front, we get an absolute explosion of maxouts, as Koromaru, Ken, and Hidetoshi are all done and dusted as of this video, with Ryoji rapidly shooting up the ranks as well. Reload sees us unlocking a new option that will make completing all remaining social links a breeze, and also sees more development for the mysterious Ryoji. It's kind of funny how little Ryoji does in he PS2 versions of the game. You can talk to him after school, but otherwise he just kind of bums around. We're due for the school vacation by the end of this video, but the eve of the trip is the perfect time for some Tartarus exploration. Guess what we're doing next video!
Extra Notes
In FES and Portable
-I've already made some movement on Tartarus in FES, and the spoils of war are sweet! For starters, we're able to pick up Odin now, who has one of the most broken spells in the game in Thunder Reign. To reiterate, Thunder Reign is the strongest Elec spell in the game that has a 100% chance to shock anything not immune to the Shock status. Which as far as I know, only the final boss is immune to that status. Thunder Reign allows you to set up for guaranteed crits, which can easily lead to follow-up All-Out Attacks dumpstering the enemy. It does have the limitation that non-story battles have random turn orders, which can wall out the best of it, but it's still a fantastic spell and is the preferred to cheese the Reaper prior to Portable just letting you trade for Armageddon. We'll definitely be maxing out Odin's MA in FES and Portable.
-We also pick up Siegfried. Siegfried is good for a different reason in this version of the game: Vorpal Blade. Vorpal Blade is an AoE physical skill with nearly the highest attack power of any physical skill in the game and a very unique property. When the character using Vorpal Blade is in the Great status, the damage of the skill is doubled. This is an incredible boost, and at 99 ST, Siegfried can post numbers comparable to Surt when you're in Great condition. Which will nearly be always in FES due to the Late Night timeslot giving us an opportunity to always rest, and I can easily fit in time for it in Portable. Siegfried also picks up Arms Master to halve the HP cost of physical skills, so pairing that with Cool Breeze can make an enemy clearer nearly as effective as Surt, albeit with a time limit in FES since the Great status will eventually turn to Tired. Siegfried also picks up 2-Handed Sword Mastery in FES/Weapon Mastery in Portable, giving him an additional physical boosting option. It's an interesting spread of skills since direct damage boosts to Physical attacks don't otherwise exist in the non-Reload version skills of the game.
-Since we're never going to see it in action, there is another skill that gets a condition boost in the game: Weary Thrust. Weary Thrust is a single target Strike move that gets a 50% damage boost... when you're Tired. Since you get a 25% damage reduction when you're tired anyway, and Weary Thrust's base power is about 80% of Vorpal Blade to begin with, combining all that essentially gets you a Non-Boosted Single Target Vorpal Blade. Weary Thrust is complete ass, don't bother with it.
-Over in Portable, we're almost completely kitted out with the new and improved Maid set, but unfortunately Aigis is going to have to wait a bit as her outfit was moved to the Oden Juice request. We're going to be completing that after we do the main Tartarus trip for this cycle.
-Ryoji's version of the Fortune link has a unique rub: You MUST advance it every time you're given an opportunity to do so or it will stall out and end. This includes accepting his Sunday date, which is actually a bona fide link event rather than an opportunity to increase his link points. There is also a moment within the dialogue of a future event where you can choose to terminate the link and stop it at it's current rank via dialogue choice. Pretty strange!
-For some reason, despite it being a normal event day for the student council, I couldn't finish the link on 11/11. They let me do it the following Monday though. Not sure what was going on there, but it means I can get Odin during the Tartarus expedition for Portable like I did in FES. Just as I had planned!
In Reload
-We unlock a fantastically helpful new way of gaining social link points in Reload: The dating site url. This essentially functions as a relationship fortune we can use at night. Since we now literally have nothing but Arcade games and the scant few boosting softwares we have left as far as nightly activities go, we no longer need to ever worry about going out of our way to get link points for social links. Stock up on about 10-12 of these and you should be set for every remaining link in the game.
-Completing Fuuka's social link nets us Scathach, a weird generalist who picks up Myriad Arrows, Mabufudyne and Magarudyne, plus some passives I don't care much about. She is one of the options for getting Auto-Mataru, though you need a Lovers card to get it on fusion. Since Atavaka is level 72 and she's level 75, the former is probably the avenue I'll take towards getting that skill online.
-We also gain access to Yurlungur, a Persona remarkable in how unremarkable he is. He picks up Maziodyne and Makougaon, plus a bunch of Evade skills that I really can't be bothered to care about.
-I'll demonstrate this eventually, but it hasn't really come up at this point what you should do if you deleted a party member's skill and maybe you're regretting. Be Blue V is now a service that can restore lost skills to your party member, if you're so inclined to respec them in minor ways. It's not super helpful since only a handful of characters really force tough choices like that, but it is there if you did some ill-advised, like deleted Marakunda off of Mitsuru or something.
Social Progress
In FES
Temperance Social Link: Rank 9
Fortune Social Link: Max Rank
Lovers Social Link: Rank 9
Star Social Link: Rank 6
We've got Fortune maxed out, giving us access to Norn. Norn is notable in being probably the last Persona I have any serious interest in stat maxing in FES and Portable, as she's the last elemental specialist we'll be seeing for awhile that is both close to my current level and can feasibly have her main attack stat maxed out before the game finishes without serious gem farming.
In Portable
Strength Social Link: Max Rank
Justice Social Link: Max Rank
Emperor Social Link: Max Rank
Fortune Social Link: Max Rank
We're hitting an interesting point in Portable. We've maxed out all the night links in the game, and for that matter we've also maxed out all the out-of-school links save for Akinari, and all but one of the FemC exclusive links. There is going to come a point very soon where there will be literally nothing for me to talk about in Portable save for Tartarus trips. This results in an amusing situation where the FemC's version of the story exacerbates a pretty infamous problem with Persona 3's late game.
In Reload
High Priestess Social Link: Max Rank
Temperance Social Link: Max Rank
Fortune Social Link: Rank 6
Sun Social Link: Rank 8
Ken's Linked Episode: Episode 3 Complete
Ryoji's Linked Episode: Episode 2 Complete
The max outs are coming fast and heavy in Reload as well! That said, we will be picking up a new link very soon that's going to take some of our focus. With the new dating site url, we're never going to have a moment where we aren't advancing something.