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

Kazushi... approves? Hmm... note to self: Kazushi responds well to negative reinforcement.



Special training. Y'know, the kind of stuff that's out of your league.



Yeah, yeah, you keep telling yourself that kid. You won't be able to catch up in a... million billion years.



Rank up!



What now?



Bah, you work on that. I'mma heading home now.



Hello hello, what do we have here?



"Hey, I'm new in town. Could you give me directions to your apartment?"



Shot down again. Man.



Oh hey, a phonecall. But who would have Emcee's number...?



Oh, it's just Elizabeth. Her call here is to let us know that her request service is now open for business, and that we should drop by later for an explanation and a proper introduction. Let's head over there right away.

Hmm? What's up, Mitsy?



Oh um... I-




Mitsuru gives us the tonguelashing of a lifetime for putting off our Tartarus exploration the past while. This is the only time she'll scold you about it, but she still gets pretty scary.



All right already! I'll head over there once I finish something up.



Oh God, don't hurt me. ;_;



Our goal for this month's Tartarus romp is to try to get to the first barricade in the tower. This shouldn't take too long, right? Right?



Well, let's get started then. To start, let's take a look at the shadows prowling around on the floors above.



To start with is the Muttering Tiara. They're not particularly special outside a preference to special attacks, however later varieties of Tiaras just love to use high-powered magic and death spells. To compensate, they tend to have low health and easily exploitable weaknesses, though this particular variety isn't weak to anything we can throw at him ourselves.



Next off are Merciless Mayas, which aren't particularly noteworthy. Though like the Tiaras they resist fire attacks as well, making them a pain in the butt to deal with with our current Persona roster. Like the other mayas, they tend to appear in groups to make up for their low stats.



Finally, there's the Magic Hand. These guys are pretty dangerous for this point in the game, having access to powerful Agis and appearing in large groups of five a lot of the time. If they all decide to aim their attacks at Emcee all at once, you can pretty much say goodbye to him and hello to the game over screen. They're weak to his main element though, so picking them off before they act isn't too hard and still well worth it if you have the advantage.

Anywho, once we enter Mitsuru warns us of a large shadow presence further up the tower, in reality hinting to us the location of the first (and later, next) mid-boss. Her warnings get more and more dire as we climb through the tower, making her a boss radar of sorts.



The climb this time pretty much goes by the book. The early battles pretty much go like pictured, with Emcee and SEES smashing them to pieces before they can act.



There are a few close calls though. Which reminds me: Game overs in this game tend to occur when Emcee gets knocked unconcious, as opposed to the traditional approach requiring the entire team knocked out. This is, as you'd expect, really damn annoying since an unlucky hit or death spell can pretty much end a run completely out of nowhere. Even though it makes from a narrative point of view, I honestly can't see why they thought this was a good idea, at least without the safeguards that were later added in Persona 4.

With this in mind, the first cardinal rule of Tartarus is to always keep a healer on hand. If you don't have a healing persona and/or someone else to heal you, you're just asking for trouble.



On another note, this is exactly why you should never choose Sword cards. The Practice Bow we got is the worst in the game, even worse than the weapon Yukari started with. They're not even worth that much, with Coins giving more money without the annoyance of having to sell them.



Level up, baby!

I won't be showing these off every time, but there are some key levels we'll need to hit later on that I'll try to mention.



Eventually the team starts to get fatigued from all the exploration, which is where exploration of Tartarus starts to get really dangerous. Enemies will land critical hits more often, our allies will stay down for more than one turn when knocked off balance and they'll overall take more damage. This is normally when you should call it a night and head back to the dorm, since you're pretty much tempting fate at this point.



However, if you're like me and want to reach the next check point anyway, you can take advantage of a little trick to clear a path upwards anyways. Since shadows disappear from the map no matter how the battle ends, you can just keep landing team advantages and run away with nearly 100% success to cheese your way to the top. So long as you keep your bearings, you can get in a lot more exploration time this way without putting yourself at any more risk.



Aw yeah. Along the way up, we come across a rare treasure chest. Golden chests like these often contain out-of-depth and incredibly useful equpiment, such as stronger weapons (like pictured) or accessories that prevent status effects. One thing to keep in mind is that the contents of a rare chest are determined by the floor they're on, so if you know where a piece of equipment you want spawns you can just keep scumming the floor until what you want shows up.

Sadly no one's actually compiled a list of these things yet in a FAQ (at least, to my knowledge) but it's still good to know.



Eventually we reach the first checkpoint, where Mitsuru fills us in as to what the presence actually is. Even though I've technically got everything I need to deal with them right now, fighting them while the entire team's fatiqued and low on SP is tantamount to suicide, especially later on when the difficulty starts to scale faster.



Thankfully, there's a two-way checkpoint nearby that we can take right back to the lobby to heal and save. And good thing too, since having to trek allll that way back up the tower to get back to that point would get infuriating quickly.

Junpei and Yukari are too tired to continue, so that's it for this time. Before we go though, let's go pay Elizabeth a visit and see what requests she wants us to do.



Sure, ok.



Most of Elizabeth's requests are either fetch quests requiring us to find something from Tartarus or from somewhere in Iwatodai, dropping by a place in town for a small event, or meeting certain requirements such as fusing a specific persona or learning a certain fusion spell. None of them are particularly difficult, and the rewards are hella nice, ranging from fancy costumes to money to powerful accessories.

Long story short, the rewards are more than worth the effort, and if you're climbing the tower anyway you might as well take the time to grab the items needed anyway. Some of them have deadlines though, so make sure to finish them before they expire!



Welp, that's it for tonights Tartarus run. Let's head back to school for more S. Link antics.



It should, being the middle of Summer and all.



"It" being that big shadow attack from earlier. And I doubt you'll see Emcee slacking off anymore, especially after the scolding Mitsuru gave him. >_>

Later that day...



Oh hey, Akihiko's getting better? Good to here, now we might have a full squad soon.



That's just mean, Yukari.



But why would he...? Nevermind, Emcee might as well join ya. Onwards to the hospital.



I, uh, think we've got the wrong room, Junpei. Maybe we should leave before that guy gets any angrier.

Oh, so we're in the right place? O-okay then.



Well isn't he a regular bundle of sunshine. What happened, a cat shit in your noodles or something?

He walks out, leaving us to hand off the class roster to Akihiko just like he asked. But hey, we might as well see how he's doing while we're here.



That's Akihiko for ya. To him, any time spent relaxing is better spent training.



Yeah, sometimes we don't either.



Why indeed?



So you just like to fight, eh? Sounds reasonable enough, albeit a bit worrisome. Junpei, of course, tries to relate again in his trademark way.



And cue laughtrack.



Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time Mitsy.



Now that we've got a bit more cash on-hand, we can afford more midnight shopping sprees at Powlonia Mall. The Karaoke bar is closed on weekends though, so Emcee takes the time to grab a nice cup of Pheromone Coffee instead to boost his charm a little.



We also attempt to study as well, but Emcee's currently too tired to take advantage of it yet. Note that if you opt to study instead of sleep, your condition won't improve and can actually worsen to sickness in turn making Tartarus expeditions a little tougher to make. There are some advantages to this, however...

Outside the school, a student informs us via gossip that Tanaka's Show is airing on Sundays to buy stuff from. Most of it is junk, but there's no trouble in taking a look on occasion.



Well, anyway. Once class finishes, Emcee heads down to the nurse's office to do something about that cold of his.



Uh...



That doesn't sound very healthy. At all. How did you get to be a nurse again?



Oh well, down the hatch. Let's just hope Emcee doesn't regret this.



Wait, what?



What. You are damned lucky nothing happened to Emcee, Edogawa, otherwise he would sue your ass into the ground.



The good news is that he gets a nice boost to his courage though. This coupled with the Karaoke nights and movie marathons are the three major ways to boost courage early on, so sometimes keeping yourself tired and sick and stomaching Edogawa's "remedies" is actually a good idea.

But enough of that, let's go bug Chihiro.



'sup?



Glad to hear it. Think you'd be up for a date later tonight then?



Don't worry, she'll budge eventually. They always do.

Since it's Saturday, there's no sense in not taking advantage of the pharmacy's spectacular sale. A significant cut off the price of medicine makes restocking hella easy.



Emcee also tries for a Jack Frost Doll at the nearby crane game, but keeps missing.



This goes on for a while...



Oh forget it. Emcee grabs some coffee instead and saves his money for something more important.



I'd be remiss if I didn't post this. Don't worry Junpei, I'm sure you'll meet that special someone someday.



Mitsuru, you killjoy.

Speaking of which, one of the requests Elizabeth's asked for was some Pine Resin, which are used with arrows. And you know what that means.



Yep. Note that this is the only night that you can pick up the resin from Yukari, so once you miss it, it's gone forever. Elizabeth makes sure to spell this out in her request thankfully, but keep an eye out anyway.



He needs it for something secret. Hush-hush, you know.



And I think I'll stop it there for tonight.

Next time: Elizabethan times!

I'mma gonna catch up like crazy over the next few weeks, so hang tight while I get everything set up.

Man, why you gotta restart an LP? Now everyone with an LP on hiatus has to start back up or look like slackers!

Uh, I mean, yay! It's back!

YOU ARE A HORRIBLE PERSON

AND A DELINQUENT

It's good to see this LP back though. Keep this up and you might just level up my Social Link.

...yeah, I don't know what that means either.

Anyway!

This guy totally knows where it's at.

Oh hay there it is! Emcee's TV set IS visible from this angle!

...huh. I guess this means I didn't spend enough time studying, after all.

Stop covering for him, Mitsuru. We all know a Cowardly Maya bit him in the ass.

True story: I named my MC Tatsuya Amano (and now, I can't even conceive of calling him any other way. Not even the manga-canon "Minato Arisato.") Innocent Sin Online got meta real quick.

Eh, just sleep on it. It'll be fine by morning.

I'm still looking for that ringtone MP3

...it's this kind of familiarity that got her on your case in the first place!

And I had never seen her like this. Mitsy's scary when she's on the warpath and you're on the receiving end ;_;

Emcee getting killed would've put that "We're going to Tartarus whether you like it or not!" in perspective, huh, Mitsy?

Even high-level weapons? If no Coin cards appeared, I usually chose Sword cards on the off chance that they'd give me an Elizabethan Request Item. And even if there were equivalent Coin cards, by the time I reached the last two blocks (and Monad) I'd choose Swords anyway for the money I'd get pawning them off to Officer Kurosawa.

Aaah! You bastard! That's the only request I never finished!

Juzumaruuuuuuu!

Yeah. Right. I was all friendly and gave her all the time she needed, and turns out I had to be forward so the S.Link could even begin. Wasted about a month of game-time letting her be before I realized this.

Looks like Pappy and Bungle will be spending an extra special amount of time together.

You know, that got me to thinking: there are some clips in there that would make neat ringtones.

So, after a bit of time dismantling the disc's file structure, I now have every sound clip in the game. There are 295 general-purpose, non-battle sound effects, including a handful of ringtones - I recognize MC's and Yukari's, and I guess another of them must be Mitsuru's? Also other fun things like the Gekkoukan bells that start the school day (which may become my new text message alert), two different versions of the beep-beep-beep-BEEEEEEEEP sound from calling the time hotline, and Akihiko punching things from the surveillance videos.

As for MC's ringtone itself, see the attachment.

EDIT: Zef got me thinking - did I accidentally upload Yukari's ringtone instead? I've added the other one (101), which I now think is the correct file.

Attached Files

	eve_012.zip (59.5 KB, 19 views)
	eve_101.zip (24.1 KB, 18 views)

Well everything rates over Cups, which are pretty much worthless, but given the low effectiveness of weapons in the game in general I'd usually put Swords under Coins, with Wands being the best minor arcana card if you're fighting in current areas (and worthless if you're not, obviously). New Personas are the best, if they're actually new and you have good space for them of course.

By the way, this may be a lot to ask, but is there any way you might be able to thumbnail the pictures or something? I appreciate the amount of work that's going into this already, but these pages take so long to load.

I'm not sure about thumbnails since they might break up the pacing of the updates a bit, but I could probably cut the size of the images in half if it's a problem.

EDIT: Just testing to see if they're still readable:



Good? Not good? It might take some time, but I could probably fix the images to help with the page loading

Maybe a bit bigger. They are a bit hard to read. The game's gray-on-gray dialog isn't doing you any favors there. And bigger means Mitsuru's easier to see, which is always nice.

I gotcha. How's this then?

Yeah, that's much easier on the eyes.

I found swords to be pretty useful in the Answer!

A few notes -- I did some research on max link runs, and I don't think they use the theater like that. My impression is that it's basically "do things at night."

I'm also surprised you don't use the arcade more often. I always thought that it tended to give the best boosts.

I've never seen the Mitsuru tongue lashing before. That's awesome!

Yeah, that'll be better for everyone.

Well, the Answer is different because it sucks really bad :P

But yeah, size medium is nice. There are reasons I stopped scaling up my shots in P2 after a few pages, and that I was lazy was but the smallest one.

It is, but I'm a little worried about the degradation in quality that comes when I shrink them down to a more manageable size. But I'll give it a shot anyway, since the page loading seems to be the bigger problem at the moment.

From what I remember, you need to max out your courage before June in order to start Fuuka's S. Link on time and catching both the movie marathons in April is key to getting in under the wire since they give you 10% of what you need right off the bat. Even then, a boost is still a boost and it's not like there's much to do on those days anyway.

Thanks, Mazian! That's cool.

How does one go about ripping sound effects off a ps2 disc anyway? Some sort of custom program out there on the interwebs?

Shameless thread cross-promotion time.

Also edited the post to include another tone.

Just finished editing the screenshots in the thread down to a more manageable size. I think that fixes everything vis-a-vis loading times, but if not I could try and compress them down a bit more.

I've got the next installment recorded and I'm getting the pics I need right now. If all goes well, expect something later tonight.

I really wish you could get an S.Link going with Mr. Ono, the Sengoku era nut. Think of the possibilities! You, him, Junpei and Kenji hanging out and playing Dynasty Warriors until the wee hours of the morning!

Glad to see the P3 LP coming back alive, PapillionReel!

This update's a little late, but hey at least it's coming. Anyway, welcome back. Last we left off, Mitsuru gave us the tonguelashing of a life time and sent us off to Tartarus, where we made our first major climb through the tower. Other than that, not much has happened, but that's going to change this time.



First off, we've got a few requests finished that need rewarding so let's drop by the Velvet Room for a bit.



Um, sure. I was thinking of something else, but soybean powder's fine I guess.



Uh-huh. You work on that.



Anyway, for completing the request Elizabeth hands us some Purifying Rice. The rice is the first in-battle item we've seen so far, and it's a good one: it casts Hamaon, a high-powered light elemental death spell with a 50% chance of working.



In addition to that, we'll just take the time to show off that sweet Juzumaru we lucked into getting.



Wait, the katana of evil's bane... is this the Master Sword!?



Long sword is long.



Elizabeth hands us a Cup of Knight for showing her the katana (which we get to keep as well). The face cards for the four minor suits (Page, Knight, Queen and King) are used mostly to raise a single stat of a persona, with Wand raising their Magic, Coin raising their Agility, Sword raising their Strength and Cup raising their Endurance. Knights and Kings of any suit also slightly raise their Luck as well, so they're preferable out of the four available.

In practice, the four face cards aren't really all that helpful; we'll be fusing our personas a lot over the course of the game and only half of the boosts transfer over when they're fused onto something else. The best use would be to save them until the end and use them on your final squad.



Once we're done, Emcee heads over to the Chagall Café for a quick cup before heading back to the dorm to sleep.



Well, for a little bit at least.

You know, I really need to know: how the heck to you keep getting in here anyway?



That... is not the answer I was looking for.



Yeah, yeah. Those big shadows appear on Full Moons, right? I can see the moon phase coming up in the corner so don't worry about letting us know every time.



No really, you d-

...And he's gone. Creepy.



Since Emcee took the time to rest last night, his cold goes away and he's no longer dead weight while exploring Tartarus. One thing to keep in mind is that sickness is contagious; if you explore when you have a sick ally in the party, it will spread to the others as well. Your best bet is to just call it a night and wait until you get better before giving it another shot.



It's the first day of Golden Week today, which means no school. What to do, what to do...

Oh right, a girl mentioned something about a TV show yesterday, didn't she? Let's turn on the TV and see what's up.



Catchy.



Hmm... I'm listening.



In reality, a lot of the stuff Tanaka's selling is junk, most of it being stuff we can either buy in the stores at Pawlownia or unique items that aren't much better than what you already have. Still, if you're a completionist there's a lot of stuff available that you can't get anywhere else so be sure to check on Tanaka every week when you can.

Today's options are abysmal, so Emcee passes on it all for today.



Oh hey, the messenger's flashing. With Golden Week under way, I guess it's time for an epic grindfest in Innocent Sin Online.



The Girl in Gray from last time pops on, welcoming us back to the MMO. Emcee of course, recognizes her right away.

You know, if I hadn't played (well, read about) P2 before, this entire seen would've baffled me to no end. One of the pitfalls of finding out about a series years late, I suppose.



Who cares? Sunshine's overrated anyway.



Emcee isn't, but I don't know about you Maya, what with you being the Hermit and all.



MMOs are social games, it's true. I sincerely doubt anyone plays WoW or FFXI just to grind out levels.



With that we reach rank 2 with the Hermit. Sunday then stretches onto Monday...



And Emcee's still logged onto IO. I think he's got a problem. >_>



Speaking of falling off the wagon, Maya's getting drunk off her rear on the other end.



Heh.



Maya's stuck at home working the daily grind. Seems life's getting a little out of hand with her over there.

Maybe you're just tired?



Yeah... I hear you. Still, those beers you're drinking are probably putting you to sleep. You, ah, might want to hold off on 'em if you want to get any work done.



On that note, Hermit reaches Rank 3 and Maya logs off for the day.



With day three of Golden Week underway, Emcee takes the time to get in some last minute grinding before heading back to school.



Uh...



Anyway, first class of the day seems to be either nutrition or science. Either way, Ms. Ounishi ain't in a very good mood.



Preach it, sister!



Referring, of course, to Hard and Soft Water.



Huh, I didn't know that. Good to know.