Let's Play Persona 4: Everyday's Great at your Junes!

I vote for stuff. unknowable stuff inside a tv

Yes... stuff.

And then let's hit the books. Battles give money anyway, right?

I dunno if they give money directly, but you almost always get materials you can sell to the smith.

You can't hit the books or do anything on a day after going in to the TV.

Yup, at most, if you're lucky, you'll find something in the fridge, or you may dream about an S.Link and get some extra points towards it.

I just finished playing today's day, so I'm going to write it up tomorrow and skip today's update. Sorry guys =/ It took longer than I expected.

On the other hand, Contrarian King is such a bastard! On the other other hand, I defeated him! Hahaha! After FIVE tries, at level 17, without controlling the rest of the party. Take that, stupidly hard boss!

All smooth sailing from here, huh?

No worries, you're doing great!

Today is Sunday, and so although it's nice and sunny, there's no one around to hang out with. Chie calls to tell Pockets to go into the TV, but she won't hang out with him otherwise.



Chie: Now that Yukiko's with us, I think it might be good for her to get some experience being in that place. Just give us a call if you want to go. See ya!

So we go to Junes and do that. The party members don't have much to do, it looks like, because they're always available whenever Pockets calls them!



On non-rainy days, the group sits at one of the round tables, under the sun.

Looks like Teddie has been waiting for us.



Teddie: I'm so boooooored!... I forgot to tell you! For some reason, I feel a powerful shadow in the castle. Maybe this world is getting unstable from people going in and out... I don't think this Shadow is related to the culprit, but I don't like it being here. I'd be happy if you could defeat it for me.

Hmm, something else to defeat! The game hints that this Shadow doesn't have anything to do with the main plot, and it's true. These Shadow are called the optional bosses for precisely this reason (and SabreKing calls them optional bonus bosses, which led to the confusion we had earlier about the number of "bonus bosses".) Defeating one, however, will give us a unique item that's often really good for the level.

But first let's look at today's Fusion Forecast:



We'll probably will fuse Jack Frost sometimes later today, so this is good!
But before we even do that, or go chase the mysterious shadow down, let's talk to Yousuke to go to the shadow shopping district.



The Twisted Shopping District is considered the "first dungeon" by some. As you can see, it's an awfully short dungeon. Everything is exactly the same as when we first visited. Konishi Liquor Store is the only place here.



Searching around, we find something...



It never occurred to me to go back here at all during my first playthrough, so I discovered this really, really late. It's a same, too, because this Skill Spanner is quite good.



The +40SP is the main attraction. Yousuke becomes a lot less accurate with this (and it's very noticeable during combat), but the higher damage output more than makes up for it. Later in the game, ideally we should always equip Yousuke with this before going into the TV world, and then switch it out for a more effective weapon once his SP has gone down by more than 40. In theory, anyway. In practice, I never remembered to switch the weapons, so eventually I just gave up and sold the Skill Spanner.

This is the only thing we need to do here! We're ready to head back to Yukiko's Castle. But before that, let's look at the latest addition to the Investigation Team, Yukiko and Konohana Sakuya.



Yukiko is a valuable party member. Unlike Yousuke or Chie, both her skill progression and her stat growth are excellent throughout the entire game. During my previous playthroughs, I switched a few people in and out, but Yukiko has always been in the party.

Yukiko's Magic stat is higher than all her other stats, and is also higher than everyone else in the party by far. She's a powerful magic caster --- her fire skills deal a lot of damage for the level. She will learn all skills in the fire chain at approximately the same rate as Yousuke learns Garu, but deals almost double the damage with each hit. In addition to that, she's also a powerful healer. Yukiko goes through the healing skill tree faster than everyone else with healing capabilities and she's the only party member to eventually learn Salvation, which will heal all party members up to full and remove all status effect at the same time.

True to her role as the party white mage, Yukiko's SP pool is huge. By the time Pockets, Yousuke and Chie can no longer cast anything non-physical, Yukiko will still have half of her SP bar intact. This is partially due to her large SP pool and partially due to the fact that Yukiko's Agility is low, so she's often the last party member to go in a round. Often, this means Yukiko doesn't get a turn during random shadow encounters because the other party members have already killed them (with their SP). With all party members on direct control, I sometimes just have the rest of the party guard until it's Yukiko's turn to even out the SP depletion rate.

She's not without a weakness, however. Her Strength is pathetically low so her physical attacks are laughable. And by "physical attacks", I mean the vanilla "attack" option on the battle menu, because Yukiko doesn't learn any physical skill. This is for the best, because her HP is the lowest of any party member we'll ever get, though not problematically so. Thankfully, her endurance is decent, so while it takes fewer hit to kill Yukiko, each hit isn't any more devastating to her than it does to other members.

All in all, Yukiko is a great party member. There are only two roles she can fill: fire casting and healing, but these roles are essential for the party and she does them better than everyone else.

That's all about Yukiko! Now, let's proceed to the castle.



After clearing the dungeon once, we can't go back to the top floor anymore, but have to start over from the first floor and walk our way up. There's no mini boss to fight, just the optional boss on the top.

At our level, the shadows in the first few floors are jokes, so I almost always have rush on to not waste any resource.

We get a Disinfectant. It reduces the chance of Poison.



A new mechanics, Arcana Chance, is introduced.



Occasionally, after Shuffle Time, we'll get an Arcana Chance. A card of a Major Arcana appears, and we have to choose whether we want to take this chance. If we do, the card will rotate and will end up being upright (good effect) or reversed (bad effect). Each card has a particular pair of good and bad effects associated with it.

Let's try our luck with this card.





Yay! The good and bad effects tend to mirror each other, so you can probably guess what the bad effect for Temperance would be.

Only one Arcana Chance card can be active at a time. So if we choose to take another one, the effect of this one would disappear. It also disappears after a certain amount of time.



By the way, Yukiko probably has the best-looking Persona in the game. Here's Kohohana Sakuya in action.

After a few floors and some shuffle times, our Persona roster is full so we go back to the Velvet Room.



This is a triangle fusion with Jack Frost as the result.



With the social link bonus and today's forecast, Jack Frost levels up to 18 and also learns Resist Fire. Resist Fire is a passive skill --- it doesn't appear in the "Skills" menu during combat, but instead its effect is permanent. Resist Fire does the same thing as Red Wall, except better because you don't need to cast it and its duration never runs out. The only downside is that unlike Red Wall, we can't cast Resist Fire on others. Since Jack Frost is weak to fire, this basically means he has no weakness. In addition, he nulls Ice, learns Ice Skills, and has decent Magic stat. All in all a good Persona to have around.

At some point Kohohana Sakuya learns Media.



We also pick up Cool Beads in a rare chest. This is appropriate for the next boss fight, but I never actually used it.



Oh, and this is the new AOA screen.



Once we've reached the top floor, we save the game and go back to the velvet room.



The next boss fight is a hard one, and as part of our preparation, we summon Obariyon from the Compendium. Obariyon is strong with physical attacks. But more importantly, he resists physical, which is essential for the next fight.



... and back on the 8th floor.



And this is our first optional boss, Contrarian King!

Contrarian King is really nasty, and I kind of underestimated him this time. In my previous playthroughs, I actually never fought him before I finish the second dungeon (or the third dungeon, if you count the Twisted Shopping District). By that time he wouldn't be a threat anymore, but at level 17 he's almost impossible (as I found out). He only uses Physical attacks, and he blocks, drains, or nulls almost everything except for Physical and Ice. Oh, and he's strong to Physical.

He always starts with Red Wall.



A little bit more about his vulnerabilities. Ice does a lot more damage to him than physical. However, while Physical doesn't do as much damage, it has a ridiculously high chance of scoring a critical on him, knocking him down. Once that happen, he has a high chance of becoming Dizzy. So really there are two ways to approach this fight: deal a lot of damage, or make him dizzy a lot. Or a combination of the two; that works too.

On the King's turn, he uses Hysterial Slap or Kill Rush, both Physical attacks. This is where a resist physical Persona like Obariyon comes in handy.

On the party's first round, Yousuke will use Sonic Punch, Chie Skewer or Bufu, and Yukiko Agi (after which she learn that the King drains fire and will never use it again). Unfortunately, the AI doesn't remember this if we die and reload the game from the last save point, so with Yukiko on free acting she does this every single time, even when we put her on Heal/Support. A problem only with the party members acting freely.

With Pockets, I always use Rakunda on him first thing to decrease his defense, then Tarukaja on Chie. Pocket's role in this fight is a buffer and debuffer mostly. Sometimes he uses Sonic Punch with Obariyon, too.

I changed Yukiko's tactics to Heal/Support almost immediately. Without this, she tries to attack with her fan every turn, which is hardly effective.



Unfortunately, even on Heal/Support, she rarely uses Media and resorts to Dia many times. I don't know how to make her not do this. It's not like she needs to conserve SP!

Pockets uses Sukunda on the King at some point too, to lower his hit/evasion rate.



After a while, the King's analysis looks like this. Light and Dark skills are showing ?'s, but all bosses null them.



At some point, we lost Yukiko, and Yousuke got a critical hit with Sonic Punch.



AOAs are usually a good idea. However, in this case it's not. The team's AOA is not that damaging to the Contrarian King, and it's much better to cancel the AOA to try to get him dizzy and lose one turn.

Pockets tries to revive Yukiko, because the party members AI almost never uses items.



The King kills her again almost right away, though But eventually, we get Yukiko up and score more critical hits against the King with physical attacks.

Once the King's HP's down to above half, he starts to use Rampage, a multi-target physical skill. Notice how at the beginning, Pocket's HP bar is full.



... and how afterward, all the party is down, including Pockets....



Ughhhhh this will not do. If Pockets can't survive a Rampage from full health, there's no way we can win. We need something new in our strategy.



As part of that "something new", we go back and fuse Omoikane. He's level 7, so whatever, but the important thing is that he has Tarunda, a skill that decreases the opponent's attack for 3 turns. The other important thing is that he's not weak to Physical. That's good enough.

With this, we go back to challenge the King. Yukiko does that stupid thing when she uses Agi on her first turn, even when we put her on Heal/Support before that. Pockets uses Tarunda first thing on the King.

But it looks like Yukiko's enraged by the King's hysterical slap! The Cool Beads would have been handy here. Oh well.

No worries, we can just cure her with a Hiranya.

On Pockets's next turn, he uses Rakukaja on himself to increase his defense. With the King's attack down and Pockets's defense up, hopefully we'll survive one Rampage. If not, I guess it's time to go home!

When the King's time to Rampage comes, Pockets is at full health because Yukiko just used Media before that. Unfortunately, the turn that the King first uses Rampage was also the turn that his Tarunda runs out, so his attack power was back at full. And...



Note that Yukiko and Yousuke are still standing because they successfully evaded the attack. However, because Pockets is down, the game ends for us. Stupid game. There's no reason why Yousuke or Yukiko can't use Revival Beads!

So we go back to try again, this time with a more well-timed Tarunda and Pockets on guard whenever Tarunda is running out.

It's hard to predict when the Contrarian King would start his Rampage, but with a little bit of luck, we had it on the right turn, so his attack's down, Pockets's defense is up, and Pockets is also on guard. The other party members aren't so lucky.



We survived a Rampage for the first time! But we're not in a great situation, either. Who to revive first? The best thing that can happen is that we revive Yousuke, Yousuke revives Chie, Chie revives Yukiko, and Yukiko uses Media. This is what will happen on a Direct Command fight. However, I'll be damned if the AI ever thinks of opening the "Items" menu. So the next best thing is that we revive Yukiko, and Yukiko uses Media to heal both herself and Pockets. However, in all honestly I do not think that Yukiko with 1/2 her HP would survive the King's Hysterical Slap. In fact, she did not in our first try! So we settle for the next best (but viable thing): reviving Yousuke.



The King hysterically slaps Yousuke, and it almost brings him down. Good thing this isn't Yukiko!



Yousuke uses Dia on himself right after that.

Fearing a Rampage, I let Pockets guard for a few turns after that while the King and Yousuke keeps healing slowly with Dia every turn. The King did attack Pockets, but didn't use a Rampage again.

The King brought Yousuke down with another Hysterical Slap, and we... uhm... try the same thing again. At some point it will work, right?



The thing plays out almost exactly like the first time we revived Yousuke. At this point, we're just depleting our resources without doing any damage to the King, so this is not really viable. So we risk one turn and revive Yukiko.

The party does better with Yukiko's Media, but at some point the King kills Yousuke again.



... and we revive him again. There's a certain pattern here!

Eventually we revive Chie, too.



But then, with all the party up, the King uses Rampage again with Pocket's HP bar at half. So...



Ah well, that was a good try =/ With a little bit more luck, we could have defeated him...

We're running out of thing to try at this point, so there's one last thing to do. On the way from the first floor up to the 8th floor, I didn't clear everything. If we're lucky, there's still a rare chest somewhere in this dungeon that may contain an Evade Physical accessory. That will be great on Pockets. Maybe. In anyway, we may as well try. If anything, the party gets more experience and we get more money, and we'll just have to come back here another day. So we go down the lower floors to find rare chests.

The upright Hierophant has this effect:



At some point we find an Ice Pin.



Since Yukiko is weak to Ice, we give this to her.



In another rare chest, we find a Gentleman's Tux!



This is not the item we're looking for, but it SURE will help!

We don't find anything else, unfortunately. But we go back to the velvet room and fuse Sylph for her Sukukaja, which will increase an ally's hit/evasion rate for 3 turns.

And with that, we go back to challenge the King again.



Both Pockets and Yousuke survive the first Rampage by dodging out of the way.



I was really torn between whether I should revive Chie or Yukiko first. But since both Pockets and Yousuke are still in good shape right now and Yousuke can heal, I went with Chie.

Chie gets a critical hit on him with her Skewer. We cancel the AOA, make him dizzy, and revive Yukiko.



Sukunda/Sukukaja is great as a combo! It makes the King misses pretty often.

The buffs/debuffs are very draining, however. After a while, Pockets runs completely out of SP.



We're at a severe disadvantage without the ability to buff/debuff. Look how the King's hysterial slap brings Yukiko from 185HP to 4HP.



So we use a Snuff Soul we picked up earlier on Pockets.



But... oh no! The King inflicts Pockets with Rage. What this means is that: his defense is down, and he will automatically use the vanilla attack each turn on his turn. Since we're not in direct control of Pockets anymore, now it's like watching a battle played out between the AI's. If his party member has any intelligence, they would use the Hiranya we have on him. Honestly I don't see that happening!



... however! Yukiko has Me Patra, which is like Hiranya as a skill. Since it's not an item, Yukiko uses that on Pockets on her turn and cures him of his Rage.



Eventually we defeat the Contrarian King!



I wish there were something climatic I could say about the strategy this time, but a lot of it really was just luck. Sukukaja/Sukunda and Pockets's new armor made the King miss a lot; we got a decent amount of critical hits on him, and he didn't use his Rampage as much toward the end. And so we won.



Another perk of beating the optional bosses! Pockets also levels up.



We search the area a bit and find a new item.



Since this has a fan symbol in the front, it's Yukiko's weapon. We replace her previous one with this.



A whooping increase in attack power! This is strictly better than the one she was using before. This is also really the best thing for Yukiko because of the SP increase. Like Yousuke's Skill Spanner, I had every intention of getting her new weapons and switching them in and out, but I almost always forget to do this. Unlike Yousuke, however, Yukiko's physical attack is a joke, so no point in getting her new weapon. This will be her final weapon, so she better loves it! Not only is Yukiko a good party member, she's also cheap because we don't need to spend money on new fans.

Our job is done here. We go back home. It becomes the evening. Pockets is too exhausted to study...



When Pockets is sleeping, however...





And that's the end of today's adventure!

Tomorrow is a rainy school day. Our options during the day are:

- Eat at Aiya, or

- Study at the library

And the evening is not available. Vote away!

See if you can study at the library with one of your friends!

Library studies are always good.

I think you can only do that the week before exams, right? Your friends never study unless there's an exam coming up!

Congratulations on beating the King at such a low level and with all AI party members. That is basically an impossible task as you said.

I'm truly impressed to see that. Great job.

Yeah, well done. At first I was thinking that that fight wasn't so hard, but then I remembered that I used direct control for it.

Were there supposed to be pictures to go with these descriptions?

Thank you! I didn't think I'd make it actually and I was ready to go home. Now I'm kind of proud of it

Did you fight the King after clearing the steamy bathhouse? 'cause at that point, the party outlevels the King by a lot he's just a breeze. That's what I did in the last couple times I played: I clear the current dungeon up to the top floor, then go back through the previous dungeon and fight the optional boss, and then go back and fight the current boss. The benefit of winning against the King now is that it makes you more likely to finish the next dungeon in one afternoon because of Yukiko's new fan and the fact that we've already cleared the first dungeon the second time. And also bragging rights of course.

The first time I ever played this game I went into the TV because Chie told me too (just like this time), and left in defeat (I also didn't know the game as well then).

Direct control would have helped, but I don't know whether it would have been a significant advantage. The King's Rampage brought everyone it hit in the party from full HP to dead, and there's not much direct control could have done about that =/ The only other boss that I recall having this problem is the NG+ bonus boss when she uses Mind Charge.

Yeah, but I forgot to put them in and now the post is at the maximum picture limit >.<

I think I did it before going to the second dungeon, but I don't really remember. Maybe I did wipe repeatedly, or had to grind. I don't think that it was easy, I just don't remember it being near-impossible. Direct control would at least make getting the party back on their feet after a near-wipe a lot easier.

You *could* make them direct links, though that's a lame option.

Mr. Pringles' ability to use Rampage on a whim, at any point in the battle, pretty much makes it a luck-based challenge unless you have a Persona with Resist Phys or spend every turn casting Rakukaja and Tarunda, then maybe Sukukaja with Yosuke. Chie would be the only one actually dealing damage, because Yukiko would spend all her time Media'ing and chugging TaP Sodas.

Yeah, maybe I just got lucky.

Or, if you haven't done it already, you could combine multiple images with no text between them into single bigger images.

That King is pretty cute as an enemy.

Good job on that Wormrider. Your LP has inspired me to finally play through my copy of P3P.

So...earlier you asked people if they wanted you to do a max s-link run. I'm pretty sure everyone said yes, but it's my understanding that to do a max s-link run your schedule needs to be very strict, so...does letting the audience pick the day's activities mean that a max s-link run is impossible?

The vote landed no for some reason.

It was no max with 6-2 when I counted.

Yay! I'm glad to hear

Huh, when I was speed reading through it read like everyone was saying "max" to me. I mean, I'd swear it was some kind of cosmic trick on me, but whatever.

So...you gonna do a vote for romances? Original P4 doesn't really punish you for going the harem route. Just some additional comedy, really. Golden, on the other hand, makes you feel like an absolute asshole for it.

Ugh I thought I'd have time tonight but suddenly I got back and it's already midnight D: I guess I'll have to update tomorrow since I should get to sleep. Sorry guys!

And I didn't know that P4G punishes you for being a man slut! I kind of want to see this... Do you get reversed arcana cards like in P3?

Yup! (Naturally, spoilers in that link.) But it's more of an emotional punishment, since you only get Valentine's Day dates with your unbreakable Maxed Links, so there's no actual gameplay drawback to cheating on everyone with everyone else.

Yeah, they force you to reject each and every one of the other romances you don't pick for that day...in a fully voiced cutscene. Some of them break down in tears. And pretty much all of them guess the reason why. The ones that say they trust you are even worse. You pretty much feel like the biggest sack of shit for it.