Midnight's just around the corner. Let's Play Persona 3 FES!

So, I just bought a PS2 today, along with one game: Persona 3 FES. (Apparently, I should have bought it on April 07, so that I could've been even more weirded out by the date than I already was.)

I'm only six hours in, and already I agree that Kenji is messed up, the grandparents are cool, and that an all maxed S-Link run is hooey. I also agree that this is a fantastic game, and that playing through it while this LP is going on will be a hoot.

Does she change in FES or something? I haven't gotten that far in her S.Link yet, but she seems alright so far.

I'm right there with you. I actually picked up FES becuase my local gamestop had it in a bargain bin along side things like Game Party and HorseZ. Realizing the travesty, I purchased P3:FES to prevent the universe from tearing apart...

(my wife didn't believe that story either)

Okay, so the votes are in, and the results are as follows:

VIII - Justice: 11
II - Priestess: 8
IX - Hermit: 8
XX - Aeon: 7
III - Empress: 6
XI - Strength: 5
IV - Emperor: 4
V - Lovers: 4
I - Magician: 3
XIV - Temperance: 3
XV - Devil: 3
XVII - Star: 2
V - Hierophant: 1
VII - Chariot: 1
X - Fortune: 1
XII - Hanged Man: 1
XVI - Tower: 1
XVIII - Moon: 1
XIX - Sun: 1

How this is going to work is every day in-game I'll consult the list here and go with the highest available S.Link at the time, or its prerequisite if it doesn't become available until after a certain point. Once I complete an S. Link it'll get stricken from the list, and I'll work downward from there. Hopefully it'll work out for the best, with the most called for S. Links reaching their end and some of the others getting time to shine.

As for the name, it was a tough decision but you've all spoken and the chosen name shall henceforth be Maurits Cornelius Escher (MC or Emcee for short). Expect an update sometime soon, either this week or the next depending on when my video capture thingamajig comes in.

Since several S.Links aren't even available till after certain plot events, will you substitute them for the next Link until they are?

Pretty much. Whichever link available is highest on the list will be shown, so even though, say, Empress is higher on the list than Strength, I'd hang out with Yuko on those days anyway because she's still available (and Chariot would be bumped up temporarily to that spot in order to unlock her).

I'm a bit disappointed that I've seen most of the ones that are likely to progress seriously, but this should still be fun.

Just to let you know, I'll be playing Persona 3 perfectly legit for the course of this LP. No emulation or any of that shifty stuff - it's all me, baby.



The game starts off by listing off the additions and changes to the game since the vanilla version. In the game's words:

�Several popular Personas have been added, as well as a special Social Link.
�Interaction with other Persona users as well as the Social Links have been enriched.
�Combat has also been enhanced with an optional Hard difficulty mode for an extra challenge...
�As well as new "weapon fusion," enabling you to create new weapons by fusing Persona.
�There are also many new requests that can be undertaken at the Velvet Room.
�Beyond these, there are other enhancements for experienced players to enjoy.

Sounds pretty swanky, isn't it? Playing through FES is a different ballgame coming from the original version, as all the extra content adds onto and expands on the vanilla's foundation. And it's not small stuff, either - a lot of the additions and changes have noticeable effects on gameplay itself, so even someone who's already played the original to death can expect something different going in. It was nice of Atlus to go to all the trouble of bringing it over, and for so low a price, too.



In addition to that, the game also offers us the chance to import any Vanilla game data in order to give our new file a helpful boost, namely transfering over any compendium, fusion spell, personality levels and S. Link items that we've accrued over the course of a previous run. I'll be forgoing it for the LP just for the sake of it being a clean run, but between you and me? Starting out with almost everything maxed is kickass.



Aaaaand lastly I'll be playing on Normal as well, mostly because almost all of my runs in the game have been on the difficulty so far and as such I know it the best of the three. One small note on difficulty to consider is that Easy is pretty much identical to Normal in most ways, with the only noticeable change being the gift of ten auto-revival items the game gives you at the beginning. Outside of that, the prices are largely the same, the difficulty hasn't been altered much and you're still going to have some trouble through certain parts of the game.

Hard Mode, on the other hand, is significantly different from Normal, and mostly there to give people who've played P3 to death already a run for their money. The big differences are that the bosses are noticeably harder (yes, even you-know-who), and that the Compendium's prices have been quadrupled , meaning that you'll have to make every single fusion count. Personally, I think the changes are largely cheap and don't warrant the effort, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Ideally, you should just go with the difficulty you're most comfortable when playing, really. RPG vets who lean towards gameplay would probably prefer Normal or even Hard, while those more interested in the story or social aspect could do to save themselves the trouble and just play on Easy. Regardless of where you're coming from, just go with whichever works best for you.



Finally, we've got the standard disclaimer. I wonder what kind of publicity Atlus would get if the events in P3 did turn out to be true? "Extra, extra, read all about it! Established game company accurately predicts mysterious problems arising in Iwatodai!"



Ooh, pretty. I'm still waiting out for a reel of them, though.



Foreshadowing!



Movie 1 - Arrival

Our story begins with our protagonist wandering through the city, his MP3 player set to repeat the same track ("Burn My Dread -Last Battle-") indefinitely for the next few hours of his trip. Such diverse taste!

(NOTE: I would've recorded and uploaded the movies myself, but I, ah, don't really know much about video editing, and with the videos already up on Youtube, I think I'll be making use of them instead and sparing myself the trouble. Just so the guy doing this gets credit, special thanks to Takeshi1589 for uploading these and saving me time.)



Elsewhere, a different teenager is considering shooting herself in the head for reasons that will hopefully become apparent later. We're certainly off to a pleasant start so far.



Seems to be getting dark out, huh.



And, uh, coffin-y. Did we just step into the twilight zone just now, or is it just me? Our hero doesn't seem to mind, though - once you've seen a coffin, you've seen them all, I guess.



Though ghost boys asking you to sign a binding contract are a cause for alarm, it seems. Our hero quickly flips through the paper and reads the fine print - really, who signs a contract without reading it first? - and then scribbles his name down on the dotted line...



I asked, you voted, and this is what we're going with. I admit, I was impressed with the variety of choices for MC's name here, and better yet, none of them were even PANTS. However, in the end Escher won my heart, and so he'll be acting as our Master of Ceremonies as we make our way through the game.



Movie 2 - Yukari and Mitsuru

And here comes the welcome wagon. With, uh, a gun. Crap.



But the lights come on, and everything turns out okay.

I didn't think I'd be up this late working on this, either.



Once the dust settles, the redhead introduces herself and the other girl as Mitsuru and Yukari, and quickly goes about explaining the situation for us. It seems that our original dorm assignment got futzed up and we'll be spending time in this place instead.



Our very first dialogue choice. Every RPG has them, but P3 uses them with abandon, on account of Escher being a silent protagonist and all. Emcee was raised to be a good little boy, so he decides to let the gun thing drop and says hello.



Yukari approves!



WIth everyone introduced and Emcee's situation figured out, Mitsuru tells us to get to bed already, what with it being 1 in the morning and all. Using her seniority, she orders Yukari to go show us around the place, and she goes ahead and drags us up the stairs.



You know, I don't think I'll ever be able to get used to just how luxurious the place Emcee and the others get to live in for the course of the game. Nice carpeting, mood lighting, incredibly spacious hallways... I can't help but feel jealous.



Emcee can't help but feel that something's... off about the whole affair, though. I mean, what was the deal with the kid and the contract? Unfortunately, Yukari doesn't seem to know what's going on so the matter will have to wait for now. For now, it's off to bed!



As many on the site have mentioned before (and probably in much better words), Persona 3's biggest change from the RPG standard is that the course of the game moves through time instead of space. Instead of in, say, Final Fantasy where you'd initiate events by traveling to different locations while being given infinite time to do so, the events in P3 occurs over the course of the day at your discretion. It's a nice little change in pace, and makes it much easier to anticipate when the next boss fight will be, for example. Of course, your mileage will vary.



Yukari comes to wake us, and we're given another dialogue choice. This time, it's more about whether or not you feel like being a jerk, which is kinda funny. One of these days, I'll probably get around to doing a Jerkass run, but for now Emcee will put up with everything for now.



Movie 3 - Gekkoukon High

One of my goals in life is to, at one point, experience the Japanese rail system in all its glory. Everything I've heard about it from both ends of the spectrum, from both the hardcore weeaboos and their equal-opposites, lends to the idea that it's some of the most efficient and punctual bit of rail in the world, and being the kind of person who likes commuting, I really need to see it for myself sometime in the future. One of these days, man.



Music - Want to Be Close

Anyway, we're here! Welcome to where we'll be spending more than half of the game in - Gekkoukan High! Yukari gives us a brief tour (... of the entrance) and then directs us over to the Faculty Office to meet with our teacher. But who doesn't explore their school on their first day? Let's take a look around.

This is probably the first real difference someone coming in from the vanilla version would recognize, as the presence of our future classmates was cut out of that version for release (or added into the FES release, depending on how you look at things). This is largely superficial, but it's still a nice bit of fanservice to try and inject some freshness into a second (or third, or fourth...) playthrough.



Emcee's getting kinda hungry, so he drops by the little shop to see what's on the menu. Which isn't really much, honestly. The Strudel and Sandwich can be used as very minor curative items once we start getting into the RPG parts of the game, while the Book Cover will find some use as an event item once the social sim parts come into play. The three items aren't really of any use right now, so Emcee will hold onto his cash for now.



After getting a bite to eat, Emcee also takes his time to go to the washroom and freshen up a bit, shifting his condition over from "Good" to "Great". This doesn't really matter right now, but Emcee's condition affects how he'll be performing in battles later on in the game, with Great improving his offense and defense while, in the opposite direction, Poor would weaken them. I'll go into this with more detail later on, so just file it away for now.

Anyway, we had a teacher to go see, didn't we? Off to the office now, I guess.



Man, I can't believe it's been three years since I finished Grade 11 already. Time really flies, huh?

Anyway (again), the teacher takes a brief look through our portfolio and comes across some pretty pertinent information...



Didn't you know? Emcee's parents are DEEAAAAAAAD!!!



Anyway, this nice woman here is going to be Emcee's teacher and, sad to say, probably the sanest of the faculty at Gekkoukan High. She finishes sorting everything out for us and drags us off to the auditorium for the opening assembly.



The principal's speech is rambling, monotonous and condescending. As such, we and Emcee start ignoring him, effective immediately.



It looks like Emcee's doings with Yukari are starting to spread across the school, and slick here takes the time to press Emcee on the gunslinger girl's personal life. Escher, of course, has no idea what relationships Yukari has, and promptly tells the guy to stick it where the sun don't shine. Or rather, that he doesn't know.



The discussion doesn't go unnoticed, and one of the other teachers swoops in for the kill. Way to go, jerkass. You just got Emcee in trouble because of your damn libido.



School passes by pretty quickly for Escher - aside from the assembly, nothing else big really happened - and we're introduced to another new face...



Introducing Junpei. He's pretty dopey, but he's a nice enough guy. He transferred to the area back in Grade 8, so he sympathizes with Escher's unease.



And here comes Yukari to shut him down. Ouch.



Ah crap, the rumours are spreading like wildfire already. Yukari tries to stamp it out right away, denying any and all involvement and pressuring Escher into silence.



Which then leads to a humourous misunderstanding from a poor choice of words...

Junpei knows the score though.



Change #2 from the vanilla version is the introduction of skits like these in the first few weeks or so, when there isn't really much to do in the afternoons (yet). Originally, the game would just feed you a line of text and cut back to the dorm, which is pretty boring compared to the alternative.



At this point, we're given the opportunity to save our game at the sign in sheet, and Escher takes the time to do so. After 30 minutes of exposition, neither I nor Emcee would like to start over because of an intimely power outage (and yes, this is entirely possible - it even just happened a few minutes ago at the time of writing this paragraph).

Oh, and by the way, those of you who were wondering how long a Max S. Link run would take? Look on the time stamp for the first save file, ye mighty, and despair.



Emcee turns on the TV for the evening news to help keep himself informed. The cherry blossoms are the same as every year, but this Swine Flu stuff has really got him concerned. I mean, the sensasionalism at this point is getting a little ridiculous.



Mitsuru won't let us go wander around outside at night, unfortunately. Man, what a pain.



Oh well, Emcee grabs a can of sweet, lemony Cielo Mist before he goes to sleep to help take his mind off of it. He'll actually be needing about twenty of these later on in the game for something and when better to start stocking up than now?



Back downstairs, Mitsuru and another unnamed dormmate engage in some discussion about the recent outbreak of Apathy Syndrome, which I guess is just the latest fad illness?



Mr. Confidence figures he's going to be fine and wanders out anyway. Though how Emcee knows how this is all going down is a little suspect. Telekinesis, maybe?



But time marches on, and Escher calls it a night for the time being.



Again, with this Apathy Syndrome stuff. Though judging by the gossip's description, it sounds a little, ah, serious. Oh well, we can worry about that later. For now: school!



Emcee runs into a bit of trouble when Junpei dozes off through Composition and Ms. Toriumi calls him on it. Some quick help from Escher saves his bacon, and he even gets a slight boost in popularity from it as well.

I might as well take this opportunity to talk about the personality stats. For the social aspect of P3, there are three general aspects that Emcee Escher will have to practice: Courage, Charm, and Academics. Certain S. Links and events in-game require each stat to be raised to a certain level, out of a maximum of level 6, so the onus is on the player to try and balance out improving these stats with S. Links over the course of the game.



Anyway, the day ends with another close, and Emcee decides to take a stroll through the strip mall on his way back. Say, a used book shop seems to be opening up, and the ramen place doesn't look too bad...

Oh geez, it's this doofus.



I guess it's time for the chairman, Shuji Ikutsuki (try saying that three times fast) to make his appearance. He's a little... er, eccentric, to put it kindly, and thrives on puns . It doesn't help that he's got a weird voice, either.



We get the opportunity to ask a few questions, but...



...he's not exactly helpful.



Yeah, getting information from this guy is like trying to syphon water from a rock. To hell with it, Emcee's going to bed.



Uggh



A few hours later, and what the hell is going on here? What's with the spy gadgets? The assembly? The invasion of privacy?



Movie 4 - The Dark Hour

Cut elsewhere as a couple of dudes are chilling out in a slummier part of town. Buncha diliquents.



A few minutes later, his friends turn into a bunch of coffins and the sight makes his head explode.

No, seriously. That's what happens.



This is some serious Rosemary's Baby shit going down here. If I so much as see Roman Polanksi skulking around, Emcee is gone, you hear me?



At least Yukari has some sense of decency.



Movie 5 - The Velvet Room

However, Emcee Escher has more pressing issues on his mind at the moment...

Music - The Poem for Everyone's Souls

Welcome everyone, to the Velvet Room. A mainstay in the Persona series since the very beginning, it is here that we'll be spending a lot of our time in the RPG half of the game fusing the Personas that we'll use for battle. Igor doesn't really go into his role much quite yet so I'll hold off on explaining it for now. But if you've played through any of the other Persona games before, it should be glaringly obvious what we're going to accomplish here.

The Velvet Room in P3 isn't as interesting as the ones in the previous two games, sadly enough. I've only really seen glimpses of what it was like before from the other two Persona LPs on this site (which you should all read right now), but it really feels like the place lost a bit of its personality when they streamlined the place for P3. Could just be me, though.



Though you'd have to wonder what kind of stress Emcee has in his life that he'd be dreaming of hunchbacks and elevator attendents.



The next day, Junpei's waiting for us outside the school's gate, excited and chipper as always. At least things are going well for him... grumble grumble.



Mr. Ekoda is our teacher for today, teaching Classic Lit for today's class. Being a bit of a bore though, Emcee feels like he could take a snooze through the lecture instead. This, of course, is up to your personal discretion - staying awake means getting a small boost to Academics, but dozing off has a good chance of boosting Emcee to Great status. Either way works fine; as interesting as Classic Lit may be in the hands of a competent teacher, Ekoda here is anything but.



Seriously, how did this guy get hired like this?



The rest of the day passes by incident, but Emcee's clock ends up breaking before he goes to bed. Just great.



Yet more illegal surveillance. I swear, Emcee should look into hiring a good lawyer.



The other, older student, Akihiko, checks in at this point and reports on a giant thing chasing him back to the dorms.

Wait, what?



Well things certainly got more complicated. Looks like we'll be getting in on the action sooner than we thought...



Everything's a game to you, isn't it Akihiko?



Mitsuru handles the situation with much more seriousness (thank God) and starts delegating to the team.

Emcee's way ahead of us, getting himself dressed and ready to go. There's still the matter of weapons though, but Yukari's more than happy to pull a short sword out of thin air for him to use.



Famous last words, Yukari.



See? Rule #1 of horror: Never tempt fate. It'll just come back to bite you in the ass.

You know, you look kinda tense, Yukari. Maybe we should get you a nice, refreshing can of-



Oh, you're no fun.



A half-minute of terrified fleeing later, and Emcee and Yukari have made it to the roof. Everything looks like it's going to be okay.



Movie 6 - Persona

Not.



Wow, you sure are an ugly fella. Is that a sword in your hands or are you just happy to see me?



Sorry Yukari, but your suicidal depression isn't going to save you this time.



Emcee takes a few moments to contemplate Yukari's gun. It's custom-made, huh? Pretty sweet stuff.



Of course, it's not really a gun, and Emcee pulls the trigger and shows her just how summoning a Persona is really done.



It, uh, doesn't quite go as planned...

If you're worried about Yukari, don't sweat it. She's just chillin'.



Whatever the heck it was, it's over now. Now maybe Emcee could get some sleep n-



Damn it, Yukari.



All righty! The update so far has been really text-heavy, but now its time we got down actually did some fighting of our own.

As far as MegaTen games go, the battle system in Persona 3 is fairly simple compared to other titles. Essentially, the fight plays our in a turn-based manner, with each ally and enemy having a spot on a queue that cycles throughout the entire battle. There are seven main things that Emcee can do:

Attack: Pretty self-explanatory. Emcee takes his weapon and smacks it against an enemy persona to deal damage for no cost. The risk is that, if he misses, he'll fall to the ground and will have to miss a turn picking himself up.

Skill: Also self-explanatory, Emcee takes that gun he borrowed from Yukari earlier and uses it to summon his Persona, which in turn lets him use special skills far beyond his normal ability. This ranges from physical attacks to critical hit enemies to buffs and debuffs to help mitigate damage, and beyond.

Item: You know what this is. Emcee takes an item from his backpack and tosses it at himself, an ally or an enemy.

Tactics: This is greyed out for now, but once Emcee picks up a few allies to help him in combat, he'll be using this menu here to direct their actions with a few general orders. Emcee can't control his allies directly, so it boils down to communicating and formulating strategies with his allies in order to make it through the battle successfully.

Persona: This won't be coming into play for a while either, but once Emcee fuses himself a few more Personas for himself to use, he'll switch between them in this menu here. He can only switch once per turn though, so it's usually best to only do so when you need to.

Run: Take a guess.

Wait: If you don't think you can do anything effective during the current turn, you can have Emcee hold back for a little bit to test the waters.

Fairly straightforward stuff, right? The battle system in P3 is pretty easy to pick up, but there's still more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye. For now, we'll just have Emcee summon up his first Persona, Orpheus, and have him bash the two Lonely Mayas accosting him.



The battle goes by swimmingly - you'd have to try really hard to actually throw the fight - and Emcee and Orpheus gain a level for their efforts. From the level, Orpheus also picks up Agi, a low-powered Fire elemental attack to compliment his initial attack Bash, which itself is a basic Strike elemental attack. All in all, not bad.



The strain ends up being a teensy bit too much for Emcee though, and he ends up collapsing after the battle. Oops.



Aaaand Igor summons us back to the Velvet Room again.



At this point, Igor starts to go into more detail about what the heck's going on with Emcee. He explains what a persona is - essentially a mask that one wears psychologically to protect themselves from their environment, or something - and fills us in on how they work and how he'll help.



The big tip he gives is that our ability to fuse and wield Personas will be directly linked to the number of Social Links we form over the course of the game. As I went over in the start of the thread, Social Links are the skits between NPCs that our friend Emcee Escher can participate in to form bonds with said characters. In turn, these bonds he forms will give a boost to Personas of certain arcana, culminating in extra levels gained whenever he creates a Persona of that arcana.

This stuff is fairly complex and will take some time to understand of course, so I'll be covering this a bit as the game opens up over the course of the next few updates.



You better believe it.

Like he was hit by a truck carrying a ton of trucks. So he's fine, really.



That's... not something you say to someone who fell unconcious defending you, Yukari.



That's better, I guess?



At this point, Yukari starts to open up about herself to Emcee, talking about her motivation for coming to Gekkoukan and what was going on in the past week or so. The gist of it is that her father died in an explosion in the era ten years ago that had some connection to the Kirijo group, and she came here to try and find out just what the heck happened all that time ago. Of course, things didn't go quite as according to plan, and as a result a bunch of shadow things ended up attacking Escher, putting him in a hospital.



Having gotten all that off her chest, Yukari feels all the better for it and wishes Emcee good health before leaving. Time passes, and before we know it, it's the next day already.



Yukari's waiting for us outside the school the following day to greet us, and asks Emcee to head for the 4th floor in the dorm the next day. Seeing as we've got nothing better to do, we might as well drop by.



Anyway, it's back to school now, and today we've got History class with Mr. Ono. He, uh, really likes the Sengoku era - and I mean that, if you were to tell him to marry it, he would find a way. As a result, the other subjects he's covering ends up suffering as a result, as seen here with his distaste of the Stone Age.



Already tired of the topic at hand, Ono tosses out a question about the Jomon period without any sort of lead-in whatsoever and decides to end it at that for today. We get a small boost to our popularity by helping out Junpei again (the answer is "Mud Huts") but sadly Junpei doesn't get any credit from answering the question.



At this point, the game drops us off in the dorm again...



...but I think that'll be all for today.

Next time: The part of the game everybody loves to hate! Aren't you excited?

What are the requirements for the scene where Yukari touches the heart on her choker and morphs into Cutey Honey? I missed it on my playthroughs.

Wait, then what was all this? >_>

Anyway, you are indeed completely insane. Especially now that I'm reading this, I can't fathom doing what you're doing, since I can't stand to sit through this game anymore even holding triangle all the time.

Can I make a request? Before each random encounter lead in with a BABY BABY BABY BABY. Thanks.

I think this is insane too. It inspired me to go on a Persona 3 kick though, and replay the game myself, using NG+. I'm especially looking forward to seeing S-Links.

See if you can talk Kaz into crippling himself for life!

Philly's really let himself go.

According to a later FMV, That's track 135 on his "Audio Atlus" player. So either he wandered through the streets long enough for his player to cycle through at least 134 tracks again (it WAS midnight when he got off the train) or he has really crappy luck with the "Random" and "Shuffle" functions.

"I'm sick and tired of Junpei calling me Yuka-tan all the time! I've never even been to Merida!"

It's also not a good idea to antagonize the stressed-out (and psychotic-looking) redhead with the highly-illegal firearm. Especially not during midnight, baffling nonchalance to random bloody coffins or not.

Anyone have the kanji for the name of the school? I can only guess (I think) that it has something to do with the moon. Also, how appropriate that the moon itself is directly above the central building in both shots? (This one and Yukari's closeup right after.)

And is it me, or does Yukari's hair length change with every FMV?

I'd object to her dumping us right at the entrance and running off, but Emcee's not exactly a charming guy. Unpopular emo teens give her cooties!


I find it funny that the shop runs out of sandwiches the minute you buy them. Isn't it a typical Japanese school trope that the favorite items sell out almost immediately?

Nobody ever died because a rumor said they did, right?

I went over 154 and I didn't Max out even half of them! I think I spent about 40 hours in the Velvet Room alone.


Fat lot of good it'll do her in the FES version of this game...

Igor always makes me wonder...

Is he forced to drink through a straw? If his nose bleeds, does he grab a Kleenex, or a bedsheet? Can he do a facepalm?

I agree a little bit. After finding out the "The Poem For Everyone's Souls" is supposedly sung by one of the attendants in P1 and P2's Velvet Room, the location kinda lost some of its charm. I like to imagine that Igor and Elizabeth listen to it through an old transistor radio tucked away in the corner, though... and the elevator motif is neat.

(I wonder what's with the covered mirrors standing to the sides, though.)

Dammit, Akihiko! You don't bring the boss battle to the home base! That's it, you're on laundry and garbage duty for the entire dorm for the rest of the month!

She doesn't trust us with a gun It's not like we're gonna shoot ourselves in the foot with it!

We never DO find out what the two of them are fighting, come to think of it.

But I just SAID I spent over a fourth of my game in my elegantly-furnished subconscious, chatting with a stewardess and creepy guy who kept tugging at his handkerchief!

OOOOH YAH!

Dabadaba buh-dabadaba bay-buh-buh-baybee!

I thought they were using the control room to figure out where you went, at which point Mitsuru and Akihiko start heading out, but Ikutsuki calls them back when he sees MC pick up the Evoker.

Maybe Akihiko got injured by a stray Cowardly Maya. That's humiliating enough that he certainly wouldn't want to talk about it later.

I can believe that. At least, I wouldn't put it past "Need-To-Know-Basis" Mitsuru and "My-Whole-Life-Is-Training" Akihiko.

That does it. I (and by extension, every MC I play from now on) am going to believe that a Cowardly Maya bit Akihiko in the ass until he proves otherwise.

Incidentally, given their appearance (and their masks,) the first time I saw those Lonely Mayas I thought they were the remains of the Magician Shadow once Thanatos was through with it.

Surprisingly enough, I'm finding the dialogue isn't too bad so far. Granted, it's not as fun to write about as the Tartarus stuff is (or will be), but I'm only on my third full playthrough so far so I haven't really reached the point where I can't stand reading any more of it... yet. We'll have to see as this thread goes on.

Though just between you and me, you know what the real chore is turning out to be so far? Sifting through silent video and gathering the actual screenshots for these updates. Oy.

Will do!

You noticed that too, huh? It's changing all over the place in every shot.

To be fair, a large part of that playthrough came from exploring Tartarus legitly instead of spamming Armageddon, so you can pretty much file away about a third of the game to exploring, requests and finishing the Compendium. Still took a lot of time, though.

Yeah, the loss of some of the other personalities of the Velvet Room really took away a bit from the place. Someone mentioned Philomon in an earlier P3 thread (spineshark? Eirikr?) being one of the bigger losses, and I have to agree; he explains the nature of personas much better than Igor does, and the whole reflection of the MC motif helped justify his importance.

Or our head, for that matter! Wait, hold on a second..


Nah, doesn't really sound like Mitsuru's style to me. The Magician really dealt Akihiko a serious blow - enough to break a few ribs, even - and having two inexperienced Persona users go up against it as a part of their initiation seems like it would be a bit too risky for her to try. My guess is Mitsuru was planning on introducing them to Shadows slowly via Tartarus and things just wound up going out of control that night.

Anyway, I'm uploading the next update's images now - I'll try and aim for a faster schedule for now, at least until I've caught up to where we are in the real world. In the meantime, guess who we'll be spending a lot of time with this week! (Hint: It's Kenji.)

Music - Iwatodai Station

Welcome back, everyone, to Let's Play Persona 3 FES. Last we left off, our intrepid hero, Emcee Escher, had just finished his commute to the dorm where he'll be staying at for the course of the next year and was introduced to a mysterious boy beckoning him to sign an unknown contract. Once he signed the name on the dotted line, things around him started getting weird, with his fellow dormmates spying on him while he slept and eventually coming into contact with vicious shadows intent on rending him limb from limb. After fighting them off single-handedly, Emcee fell into a coma for the span of a week, most of the time spent with a hunchbacked man named Igor who briefly explained the nature of the power Escher can use. Now awake and back to school, Emcee finds himself back in the dorms, where he was asked by Yukari to head to the 4th floor where the others are waiting...

He experiences a brief earthquake while checking up on the evening news, but thankfully it was only a mild tremor. Lord only knows how much worse the day would've gotten if a real one had hit.



It has been a while since he's had something to drink, so our hero picks up another can of Cielo Mist along the way upstairs. Gotta love that Jamaican freshness.



Once he reaches the fourth floor, he finds Yukari waiting there for him outside the door and she quickly ushers us into the room, quick-like.



A few minutes into the conversation, Ikutsuki and the others start to feed Emcee a cock-and-bull story about there being a hidden 25th hour in the day, and how people turn into coffins and seep blood all over the ground and how shadows go around eating people's minds during this single hour of the night. Emcee denies it at first, as any sane man would, but then again, admits that he did see a couple of coffins as he made his way over to the dorm, and he has been waking up a little more well-rested than normal lately...



The point of all this is, Mitsuru and the others have put together a rag-tag high school club to fight this menace and need Emcee's help taking out the shadows crawling all over the place. This is, of course, a "But Thou Must" scenario, so Emcee has no choice but to accept for the greater good.



And then he starts hearing voices.



This is the first S. Link Emcee forges in the game, and the one he'll be chipping away with over the course of the game. (But you already knew that, didn't you?) There's not much else to say about it, other than that it'll level up automatically at specific intervals and we're guaranteed to see it to the end.



In the middle of the night, Mysterious Boy (hereafter referred to as MB for now) decides to pay Emcee another visit.



That's, uh... that's very kind of you?

MB goes on a little bit more about Emcee's Persona powers, but doesn't really mention anything else concrete about it. He leaves with a warning to Emcee, telling him to honor his commitment to the conract before vanishing into thin air. Guess Escher won't be getting any sleep tonight!



A day passes, and Emcee finds himself being woken up just as he's about to get some sleep. Sheesh, way to be considerate, Yukari.

Well, anyway. Seems like Akihiko's invited another person to stay at the dorm with Emcee and the crew, but who could it be?



If you didn't see this coming, slap yourself in the face.

However, it seems we've hit the magic number of Persona Users now, as Akihiko mentions having enough to explore Tartarus. You know, the mythical land of the dead in Greek Myth where souls judged by the Gods were sent to be punished. Sounds like a pretty nice place, huh?



Junpei, of course, has no idea what he's talking about. But who can blame him? This shit be complicated.



Akihiko mentions something about setting everything up with the chairman then runs off before he can offer any explaination. And with Yukari not giving up any answers and Junpei just as clueless as we are, it's off to bed for now.



Another day of school passes without incident, save for a few boring moments here and there. Judging by Yukari's comment, I'm guessing today must've been Classic Literature with Mr. Borekoda.



At that moment, Mitsuru saunters into the classroom in her usual stoic manner and instructs the three to head for the command room again once school's out. As student council president, it stands to reason that she's a wee bit too busy to elaborate on it more...



...but Yukari ends up taking offense anyway. Seems like there's a bit of pent-up hostility between the two, hmm...



Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, the meeting begins and the chairman announces that, with our sudden increase in numbers, we're well-manned enough to begin an assault on Tartarus.

But still, what the heck is this place, anyway?



That doesn't sound good.



One trip across the light rail and a small hike later, Mitsuru and Akihiko bring us in front of Gekkoukon High School, when something starts to happen. Something strange.



Movie 7 - Tartarus

Man, will you look at that. It looks like something out of Emcee's sketch book.



Heavy.

Turns out that, every night between 23:59 and 24:00 (i.e. the Dark Hour) the school transforms itself into Tartarus for the span of an hour, essentially warping from a two story school into a twisted, 200+ floor labyrinth of warped steel filled to the brim with shadows. Since no one cares to bring it up, Junpei ventures forward and asks the question nagging at everyone's mind at this point: how the hell does this happen, and why?



And it turns out no one really knows at this point. Figures.



Music - The Voice Someone Calls

(Note that the music plays anytime while you're in Tartarus's lobby and not just this scene.)

Since Akihiko's still on the bend, and Mitsuru will be maintaining a base of operations down in the foyer, it turns out that one of the three of us so far will be promoted temporarily to party leader.

Three guesses who it's gonna be, and the first two don't count.

You got it. Junpei's annoyed that he didn't get to be picked as leader, but he's just gonna have to suck it up.



Emcee doesn't have time for such triffling matters, and instead wanders off to investigate a door that just appeared out of thin air. It looks... familiar.



Oh, right.



Igor goes a little bit more in-depth into what makes Escher tick, explaining how his Persona abilities are different from Yuka-tan's and Junpei's and how we can switch between more than one at will, but even at this point remains infuriatingly vague about what he does - we'll have to drop by the Velvet Room one more time after this to finally get the full story. The point of this conversation is just to let us know that we'll have a great deal more versatility than the others with our Persona abilities, and that Igor will be helping us discover more and more of these Personas over the course of the game.



Oddly enough, Escher's visits to the Velvet Room come off as little more than staring off into space, and freak out the others as a result. Man, looks like things are gonna get a whole lot more awkward here on out, then.



Queue the info dumps!

At this point, the game opens up and finally gives us access to the status screen, where we'll be organizing and strategizing from here on out. Each of the different submenus aren't too hard to figure out - Skill shows us what abilities Emcee can use, Item lists his inventory, System lets us configure the game, etc. The two big ones to note are Persona, which lets us examine and dismiss any of the personas currently in Emcee's repertoire, and S. Link, which allows us to check the status of Emcee's social links up to this point. These two are key to forming a decent gameplan for both sides of the game, as often you'll be relying on information from either one.

(As an aside, one thing I'd like to mention before I move on is how much I like the graphic design in this game. You can tell there was a lot of thought and effort put into making this game's presentation as stylish as possible, and really makes the game a treat for the eyes. Definitely a plus over some of the other entries in the series, where it was much more utilitarian.)



First off, let's take a look at Emcee's personas. The status screen is a little confusing at first to figure out, but it's not too bad; the top row indicates Orpheus's resistances and weaknesses to elements, in order of Slash>Strike>Pierce (physical) Fire>Ice>Electric>Wind (elemental), and finally Light>Darkness (instant death). I'll go into this a bit more over the course of the update, but needless to say how well we'll be able to react to damage will be determined by each Persona's innate resists. The bars below indicate Emcee's current stats, which are directly influenced by how his Persona grows - as he only gains HP and SP when he levels up, our protagonist will be relying on the personas in his repertoire to determine his strengths. The stats are easy enough to figure out if you've played an RPG before, as each stat affects your abilities in exactly the way you'd think. Finally, at the bottom are, of course, Orpheus's abilities, which affect what attacks Emcee can use in full-on combat.

For a starter persona, Orpheus is pretty middling. He's got two weaknesses and no resistances, and one of which increases his vulnerability to death by a significant factor, something you don't want when it's game over when Emcee dies. In addition to that, his stats, though even, are also fairly low at an average of about 3/stat so far. His abilities, thankfully, aren't too bad though; he starts out with the Strike-elemental Bash and Fire-elemental Agi to attack with, and in a few levels will be picking up the debuff Tarunda, which will lower a single enemy's attack for 3 turns. In addition to that, when he's paired with another, easily-obtained persona, he can also use a special Fusion spell called Cadenza, an abilitiy heals 50% of everyone's HP and increases their evasion as well that'll be our bread-and-butter until we reach the second block or so. So he's got his flaws, but he'll have to do for now.



As for equipment, Emcee is pretty lightly armed, equipped with only the clothes on his back and a rapier in his hands. This will change over the course of the game as we pick up more stuff, of course.



Talking with Mitsuru also lets us examine the status of our compatriots as well, who are equally lightly equipped as Emcee himself is. One important thing to note is that Yukari and Junpei can't switch around weapons like our hero can, instead focusing on wielding a bow and a katana respectively.



We also get to examine their personas as well. Yukari's main persona, Io, is very much a healing-based persona, starting out with Dia, a single-target healing spell, as well as picking up Patra, a spell that cures some status effects, in a few levels. Over the course of the game, Yukari will be picking up a wide variety of healing spells as well as some wind-elemental attacks to use as her Persona levels up, making her one of the best support units in the game.



Junpei's persona, Hermes, on the other hand, is much different. Starting out with the Slash-elemental attack, Cleave, and soon after picking up Agi, Junpei will be taking on a much more offensive role as the game progesses with a variety of physical attacks to work with. By the time we reach the end, Junpei will have picked up a grand total of four different elemental attacks to hit weakneses with, making him an excellent pinch-hitter and a good all-around attacker to go on any team.



For now, it's time we move onto Tartarus!

I'll be honest, this is usually the point in the game that's make-or-break for most people. As a dungeon, Tartarus is very bare-bones; the floors are simple maze layouts with no doors, puzzles or anything else to deal with. As such, there's actually very little exploration going on aside from tracking down the next staircase up, so with nothing but shadows to entertain yourself with between checkpoints in a tower that spans over two hundred floors and with a lot of copy-pasted design, the actual ascent through Tartarus tend to get a little tedious, to put it lightly. In addition to that, the battles inside the tower itself can't be taken lightly, so a particularly large dungeon romp can end suddenly after one mistake and an hour or so can be lost as a result. Some gamers out there tend to roll with the punches and fight their way through it anyway, but usually this is where the majority of people tend to get bored and give up.

Oddly enough, a lot of the reasons that people hate this part of the game are what draw me to it in the first place. For the most part, the puzzle aspects of dungeon design never really interested me much (and at times can even aggravate me - a bad puzzle can grind a game to a halt in ways tough bosses never will), so just being able to fight my way through the place without any distractions is generally how I prefer dungeon crawls to go. As it is, so long as the more grevious sins I have against RPGs - namely random encounters and brainless fighting - are already addressed and so long as I don't push my luck too much and fuck up, I kind of like climbing through the place, possibly moreso than I do farming S. Links for fun and profit. I'm actually expecting this part of the game to turn out to be the most fun to write, believe it or not, and the text dumps serve to reinforce this point...



Music - Tartarus, Block 1 (Thebel)

Anyway! So. Here we are in the tower of demise where Mitsuru will be giving us a tutorial over the finer parts of combat and exploration. Sadly, this is forced on us no matter what, so we'll have to grit our teeth and bear it.

To start off, our first lesson in the tower revolves on initiating combat with Shadows. Making use of the weapon in our hands, we have to try and sneak up on the various shadows crawling around on this floor and attack them to start the actual fight. This has much of a bigger impact on the battle than you may first think; sneak attacks give Emcee and his crew a free turn to attack while normal ones start the battle neutrally, so getting the jump on an enemy is a great way to scope them out and beat them down. However, this also goes the other way as well, as if the Shadow attacks Emcee they'll get a free turn to wreak havoc instead, so be careful.

The weapon you use, by the way, has an effect on how well you can sneak up on an enemy, as different weapons will have different ranges and weights. Bows, for example, tend to be slow but offer a good range of attack, while swords tend to be faster but requre getting in much closer as well. Ideally, you should just go with the weapon that fits you best, and for me that tends to be swords.



Music - Mass Destruction

Baby-baby-baby-baby

Once we've made our sneak attack, Mitsuru begins to explain the One-More system to us in the ensuing battle. The concept itself is fairly simple - every time you hit a weakness and knock an enemy down with it, that character will get an extra opportunity to attack alongside it while the target will be unable to attack until either they're hit again or they reach their turn after next. This, too, goes the other way as well, which creates an element of risk to each random encounter. The idea is to try and fight more strategically in battle, as knowing which weaknesses to hit while minimizing your own becomes an increasingly important focal point as the game progresses.

One important to take into account is the difference between physical and magical attacks. While both element groups can be used to hit weaknesses, on occasion a physical hit can go critical as well, knocking down an enemy and dealing increased damage regardless of weakness. However, as a downside, physical hits consume HP instead of SP instead, making them more high-risk, high-reward than magical abilities. There are some support spells later on that we'll be picking up that'll help us mitigate the odds somewhat, and crit-management will make up a significant portion of our strategy later on in the game.

As for the system itself, it's actually a departure from the more complex variations in Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga, where turns were instead broken up into two phases and split up amongst your party as you see fight. I'll leave it up for whoever LPs those games to explain though, as my experience with the games is fairly limited.



"But what happens when you knock all the enemies down," you ask? Well once every single enemy present has been been rendered immobilized, you're given the opportunity to go for an All-Out Attack, which deals heavy, unblockable damage to all targets present. Taking out huge enemy groups like this becomes important to making it through the tower with few casualties, however it's important to note that sometimes leaving an enemy prone is the better decision. The rule of thumb for this is pretty simple: if you can end the battle then attack, but otherwise leave them alone so they'll miss their turn.



Just going on a bit of a tangent for a second here, now that we've got a few more party members on our squad, we can finally take advantage of the Tactics Command. Each individual tactic alters the AI of a character to act in a certain way, forcing them to choose specific abilities while having them ignore others. So far, we've only got three main ones: Heal/Support, which orders them to focus their efforts on mostly healing and then support skills above all else; Assign Target, which orders a character to focus all of their attacks on the enemy of your choosing; Stand By, which orders them to take no action at all that turn; and finally, for Mitsuru, there's Scan Target, which gives us information on the enemies we're fighting, with a small wait for the first scan. This admittedly isn't very much at first, but we'll be picking up a few more as the game unfolds so it won't be too much of a problem for now.

One thing to keep in mind while selecting commands for the others is that it's a matter of knowing what they'll do, not what you want them to do. A lot of the difficulty I hear people have with the system stems from not learning what the AI will do on certain settings, and get annoyed when things like Yukari casting high-cost support spells when she doesn't have to heal happen. Learning what a character will do under specific orders will cut down on problems significantly.



Anyway, speaking of scans, we make our first one of the game here on this Cowardly Maya. As an enemy, it's pretty much a joke; it has low HP, no resistances and a weakness both Emcee and Junpei can easily exploit, and though we can't tell right now, it has no abilities it can use against us, much less hit our weaknesses as well.

As a rule, Maya's are shadows that are easy to take out but appear in groups, so aside from specific bosses, All-Out Attacks are almost always the best means of taking them out. There is one very notable exception in the Answer, however...



Finally, once we've finished the last few bits of the tutorial up, it's time for Shuffle Time! At the end of every battle that Emcee deals the last attack, he'll be given the chance to select anywhere one card from a selection of between two to five after they're shuffled around a bit. From these, there are five main categories to choose from here:

Personas: The main way Emcee will be expanding his persona selection will be by picking and choosing this way, as every single non-event persona from the first thirteen arcana are available through this method. Unless you've already got copies of what's available or you're already full of personas that are better than what's available, this should be the first choice you should go for.

Wands: Wands give a boost to the EXP the party recieves after battle, from I think anywhere between 10% to 100% depending on the value of the card. This should be the very first choice you go for after personas without exception, as extra experience is at times too valuable to pass up when you're exploring a new floor. One important point to note is that, like with Suikoden, the experience you'll gain will begin to level after a while, with a sharp decrease happening at around the time you reach or exceed the level of the enemies on the floor you're on, so picking up a wand is sometimes the thing that'll help you eke out one last level the most.

Coins: Coins give Emcee a little extra pocket change after battle, starting at around 1,000 yen and going up from there. If you're desperate for money, farming coin cards is a good way to go to get some extra cash, but usually you'll find enough money and equipment exploring Tartarus that it becomes more of a luxury. After Personas and Wands, this should be your third choice.

Swords: Swords act as a means for Emcee to win more equipment for himself, adding a random weapon like a sword or glove to the drops for that battle. Sadly, for the most part, sword cards are useless; the weapons dropped from them are almost always at a level below what's currently available, so aside from a lucky draw here and there you'll just wind up wasting inventory space with extra junk. In The Answer there's a bit more of a selection thanks to the accessories added into the pool, but for now it's a good idea to avoid them.

Cups: Cups heal a percentage of HP to Emcee and the group at the end of battle, up to a free full heal with the highest available suit. However, because of how the battle system works, often you'll be finding yourself at near full-health at the end of a battle anyway so their use is severely limited as a result. Maybe if they restored SP as well, they'd find some use, but...

The progression, as mentioned, tends to go Persona>Wand>Coin>Sword>Cup, so keeping in mind what you need helps you take advantage of everything Shuffle Time has to offer. For now, I just pick Pixie and leave it at that.



Once the fighting dies down a bit, our two compatriots gain a level from the experience and feel like announcing it to the world to hear. Junpei is particularly happy, humming a little victory tune to himself.

Regardless, it turns out we've exhausted the population of shadows on the first floor and we'll have to call it a night. As one last bit of training, Mitsuru teaches Emcee the use of field commands, which is basically a general order for the group to split up and kill stuff. For the life of me, I can't actually remember the last time I needed to use it; enemies on later floors are dangerous enough in groups, and even them fighting them solo is the definition of suicide. As I see it, you'll be better off just travelling as a group.

Howevr, Mitsuru will be having none of that and forces Escher to use it anyway, prompting the group to spread out across the floor to find a way back out. A few minutes later, Yukari finds the access point...



...and we're warped back to the entrance. That was quick, huh?



I'd say that this was a fairly decent run, if I do say so myself.



But whoops, looks like we've stayed a bit too long. Depending on a character's stamina, after a certain period of time exploring Tartarus a character will get tired and start to fight with less effect. A characters condition will effect how well they fight, and in poor condition a character will receive more damage and be more prone to criticals while doling out less damage. It's generally a good idea to switch teams or leave when it gets to the point where you're fighting underpowered, as pushing your luck while exploring Tartarus is a very bad idea.



And I think that's a bit of Tartarus for now. The experience itself pushes the Fool S. Link over to level 2 in the meantime; we're off to a nice start!



But we're not done yet! Igor here has one last thing to explain to use, and that's the one thing that ties this big ol' series together: Persona Fusion!



Outside of picking up Personas from Shuffle Time, we can also make our own by fusing two pre-existing personas together instead. The big difference, however, is that you can occasionally transfer over an ability onto the new persona, so sometimes you'll get interesting combinations like multi-elemental spellcasters, or ones that can both attack and heal. There are limits to this, of course; personas inherit certain abilities more often than others. However, combining together old personas and creating newer, more powerful ones and making sure good abilities are carried over is the biggest means Emcee will have to improve his arsenal, and often a good fusion will carry us much farther than grinding ever will.

There are two basic kinds of fusions available at the moment: normal and triangle fusion. The big difference between them is that triangle fusion can result in personas beyond the first thirteen arcana, and that normal fusion can be figured out just by using that handy-dandy guide in the back of the game's manual. In spite of that, the fusion system is actually really complex, so I'll just direct you to this FAQ here instead, which covers it in much more detail than I could ever hope to in this LP.

And I think that about covers it for the tutorial. Time to head back to the real world and enjoy a bit of schooling.



First day back from Tartarus, and someone's already grilling us about Yukari. This Kenji Tomochika really aughta mind his own business, if he knows what's good for him.



Thank God, an assembly. Maybe Emcee can catch a little shut-eye while it's going on...



Junpei and Yukari discuss the legitamacy of Mitsuru's election, weighing her popularity amongst the student body against her relationship with the school's owners, the Kirijo group. The assembly goes on, with Mitsuru giving an excellent speech and the audience applauding...

And it's back to class again. On an unrelated note, Ms. Toriumi deserves some applause for bending the curriculam to teach beyond what's in the text books, going so far as to inject some personal favourites into the course.



Shame no one else appreciates her for it.

Well, might as well head home for the d-



OW FUCK MY EARS



Emcee would look if his brain wasn't leaking out of his ears. Ow.



Oh Junpei, you opportunistic bastard.



Too bad we'll be hanging out with Akihiko at the Police Station instead. I just hope it doesn't turn out we'll have to post bail for him...



Oh right, the Town Map. Once we head south and leave the boundaries of the school, we're given a simplified layoud of the city to

Like with a few other things P3 simplified, I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the map. On one hand, it boils down the locations to where you need to be, which is a necessity considering how many Social Links and events there are to coordinate, but on the other hand there was a bit of charm to the extensive layouts that Nocturne and P2 had.



What's the matter, Junpei? Don't wanna belt out a few songs before we head over?

Anyway, welcome to Paulownia Mall, the place where we'll be handling the majority of our shopping throughout the game. From weapons and equipment to accessories, items and costumes to even fusing weapons and personas together, a vast amount of our item management will take place in this area here. The only flaw is that we can only equip ourselves until we get to Tartarus, but that's nothing big to worry about.



Akihiko shows us around to the first shop at the Police Station, which, oddly enough, is where we'll be picking up our weapons for the game. The reasoning behind this is that Officer Kurosawa there has the connections we need to get ourselves armed in the first place, but...

Anyway, there's not much available right now, but the weapons he has are better than what we're equipped with at the moment. Emcee picks up a Gladius to replace his old Rapier, as well as a Short Bow that will help us later against our first boss.



Next door is Be Blue V, the accessory store of the game. Unlike the Police Station, we can pick up some pretty nifty stuff starting out, such as this FES-exclusive Spirit Ring which gives a small boost to Emcee's SP and its HP counterpart. The various bands available aren't as useful - they only increase a stat by one measly point - but they're there if you want some filler items.

The third shop available at the moment, Aohige Pharmacy (which I forgot to grab a screenshot for, darn it), is stocked with Medicine and various status heals that we'll be using to patch ourselves up with. Yep, nothing to see here.



Once we finish our shopping, Junpei heads off elsewhere in a bad mood - turns out the 5,000 yen Akihiko gave us wasn't enough for him to pick something up? - and Emcee heads back to the dorm. However, this turns out to be in error as there was a movie today Emcee could've went to see to raise his courage, so.. yeah. Whoops.