Persona 3 Reload

[Maf]

I’m looking at the time left and how many days it would take to max the rest of the social links and I think I’m going to miss the chance to max all of them, despite giving it my best effort. Technically there is enough days to max them all out, but there’s no way story things or some event thing doesn’t happen and rob me of the chance. 
 

I gave it my best, it’s always such a hard challenge 

[Maf]

I've got about 27 social link ranks to go and around 30 something days left. There's no way the game gives me the time right. 

 

There's absolutely nothing left for me to do but social link. When it gets to the evening I'm just making my character go to bed 

 

Also my guy is fucking 2 girls in the same dorm. I don't approve of he's behaviour but I don't judge 

[shinymcshine]

That's the Sept boss dealt with.

 

Spoiler

Honestly all the bosses have been a bit underwhelming - didn't have an issues taking out that big web of electric cables, first time, with Yukari, Mitsuru and Koromaru, all of us being Lv 40something.

 

[Maf]

A lot of the bosses in this game are just annoying more than hard. I still think too many of them are playing a different game. Using status effects and things. Where I’m either lowering defences and hitting as hard as I can or banking on critical hits. I think one weakness in this game is the combat system in the boss design. 
 

A lot of JRPG’s do this, I guess. But it’s more annoying here for some reason.

 

Unfortunately I’ve got right to the end of the game and kind of run out of steam with it. Probably because I played 40+ hours in a week lol. But the day time stuff has got boring because I have nothing to do but social link. The fact that I’m probably not going to get to max them all out has also deflated me. And this last grind to the top of Tartarus. Again I think because I’ve played 40 hours of it in a week.

 

I still think this game is a 9/10 game, but this very last part is getting hard to push through 

[Maf]

I was watching some Guilty Gear where they had the English dub and thought I was spinning out. But, no. Millia is voiced by Tara Platt who voices Mitsuru and Anji is voiced by the Aleks Le who voices the MC.

 

I have a pretty low opinion of American/western dubs because I think they use the same voice for everybody. But in this case it was actually the same actors.

 

Although is that better or prove my point western dub is lazy and generic? 🤔

[shinymcshine]

The Jotun of Authority (and it's henchmen) were a bit tougher on Tower Lv 136 - again I got past it without losing my MC but was a much longer fight than I'd been having most of the time - but even once I'd identified each weakness they were still a slow chip away to defeat (even Theurgy didn't do massive damage).

[Maf]

I made some of the top level Persona's in the game, but because I was just fusing things together to fill the compendium they are all kind of shit. 

 

Also Aigis's 2nd limit break ability is amazing. 

 

Spoiler

 

 

[shinymcshine]

The October full moon, or rather the events around it, was an unexpected twist !

Spoiler

Didn't expect Shinjiro to die, I felt I'd been making decent progress with him, and in some way would have preferred it if Ken had gone.

 

I've thought the twist it was building up to would be Junpei defecting over to Strega (and maybe that's still to come...)

 

No spoilers though please.

 

[Maf]

I put this on briefly last night and started to enjoy it again. Nice little break has helped me recover from the burnout. Going to try finish it this week 

[Maf]

Fused all the big devil cards (Not the Arcana, literal devils) and once done it unlocks a special limit break 

 

Spoiler

Do big damage to all enemies, but reduces MC's HP and SP to 1

 

Here's the attack

 

 

 

I ended up fighting an optional but quite gimmicky boss. He gets 300hp back per turn, inflicts status, does mad damage and can heal himself for 5000hp

 

I was like, man, fuck this shit. So I tried the new limit break

 

Spoiler

Did 9999 damage and one-shot him

 

I don't know what the actual strat would be. Maybe spirit drain so he can't heal himself? Don't really know. 

 

Reached the final barrier before the end. Going to take a break, but could have this completed today, I think 

[Maf]

I literally think I need 25 days to social link and have 23

 

Man, the old book couple were free the whole time others were locked out. I don’t know if I ever hung out with them over anybody else, but if I did it was a fuck up

 

I was so close to playing the perfect game 😓

[HandsomeDead]

3 hours ago, Maf said:

I ended up fighting an optional but quite gimmicky boss. He gets 300hp back per turn, inflicts status, does mad damage and can heal himself for 5000hp

 

I was like, man, fuck this shit. So I tried the new limit break

 

I never got that limit break, but I've seen it.  Total game breaker.  

 

For that boss I'm sure it can only use that heal spell once, or at least it did with me.  I think I had a physical build and it was just a case of debuffing and hitting with crits.  The universal strat.  It went down eventually.

[Maf]

Dude, the limit break is so good. I got the achievement for defeating the Reaper lol

 

Although - it isn't enough to beat the final optional boss. That seems so ridiculous. I looked up strats people use and I have some of the stuff, but the little I read all recommend doing it on NG+

 

I'm down to my last 2 days and at the very least I maxed out all social links except the transfer student and the track course guy. They sit at rank 7 and rank 3 respectively.

 

However, I mack 10'd all the bitches so that's good. 

 

Here are some spoilers for the late game stuff I have 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

I'm just working on getting some of the best armour and weapons for my characters I plan to take in to the final fight. I've copied a bunch of Growth 3 cards so I can slap them on Personas, grind for a bit to level them up so they drop their heart item, then fuse some of the best stuff

 

My guy is also level 90 so I don't think the end game is going to be too much of a problem

 

The end of this game is so fucking heavy. It's fun that it still cuts to moments of levity between the characters and stuff but whoa. 

 

This game is magic. I can't finish it tonight now. But I might finish off some more preparation stuff like weapons and fusions etc, then stream the final stretch of it tomorrow. 

 

For a game so small and stays small through the entire thing it's amazing how it manages to build to something so big and heavy. 

[shinymcshine]

90 hrs, MC Lv 60, and running up to the end of October, 7 days to next full moon, currently blocked at Tower Floor 172.

 

Did just max out Chihiro (Justice) social link.

 

I'll be glad when it's over, but will be sticking it out to the end (it just lacks variation overall, plus from those 90 hrs it feels that maybe a third has been reading text, pressing X to continue, watching animated scenes etc - so not particularly unusual for JRPG, but nothing too endearing for me).

[Maf]

I agree with the repetition criticism of the game because I’ve had that as well.

 

My thinking is it’s largely a knock-on effect of making the game easier. In the original it was really hard to clear entire blocks of the tower in one night. There were no limit breaks, no Fuuka healing the team, I think the party was AI controlled so they were more unreliable, if you died you got sent to the last save so it was a big risk in trying to push further.

 

This meant that more often I would quit out of the tower and complete it over the course of the month, which gave a more even split of dungeon crawling and social sim to mix up the gameplay. Which made for more interesting decision making on how to spend the time and better split in the gameplay loops

 

They could have fixed this by making there be more reasons to go back to the tower. Which they tried with rescuing the lost and grinding for weapon fusion material. But even those aspects are easily gamed and it’s not the hard choice of picking and choosing activities that it could be.

 

So what happens for the most part in Reload is clear 1 block in 1 night, then grind the social sim for 30 days (with odd exceptions) then story mission, then the next month. So it is repetitive 

 

Having said that, I still really enjoyed the social sim aspect a lot and like pretty much all the characters and stories that unfold through them. Even certain social links I felt were boring at the start became fairly poignant by their ends. I also just really enjoy these main group of characters, and the way they’ve fleshed out the connections between them in Reload is better than the original. 
 

The repetition and burnout really got to me in the last bit 1) because I played 40 hours of it in a week and 2) when most of the social links were completed, grinding through a month was harder because there’s no decision making. It’s fun when trying to decide who to spend time with, trying to level up stats, preparing for a test, or whatever else. But when most of it is completed and the choices dwindle so does the tension of the time limit and it drains the game.

 

But I will say, even though it’s a grind, finish the game if you can. This game goes somewhere and it’s worth experiencing. 

[shinymcshine]

"So what happens for the most part in Reload is clear 1 block in 1 night, then grind the social sim for 30 days (with odd exceptions) then story mission, then the next month. So it is repetitive."

 

Yep, that's exactly it - wouldn't be quite so bad if you didn't also have to sit through all the transition screens too (e.g. morning, day, afternoon , evening) in between undertaking the daily social actions.

 

Fortunately there's a good part of it I like, and that's what's keeping me going.

[Maf]

Don't read @shinymcshine because pure end story spoilers

 

Spoiler

But I was thinking today how absolutely layered the theme of death is through this game, and how - now - the ending that the MC dies is quite obvious. He had Death inside him, everyone of the team has had some traumatic thing happen revolving around death, characters die in the story, the bad guy is all about "salvation", the overall theme of the game (And all Persona games I've played) is life is short and death unavoidable. Even most of the social links in the game are about people dealing with death or at least loss in some way

 

In some instances, and perhaps overall the game is too on the nose with it, or at least is really just about this one idea. But it never hit me first time and I never saw the end coming that the MC would "die". But now it seems obvious and the only way it can go. 

 

Even the characters pointing guns to their end (Which still unfortunately less pronounced in the remake) is a suicidal action. 

 

I really think Persona 3 is one of the best games ever made not only for narrative consistency but also the way it completely fits the game design as well. 

 

[shinymcshine]

Well, that's the 03 Nov big fight (fights) on the bridge taken care of, and a suggestion everything will be fine, just got a party in the dorm to go to.....

[shinymcshine]

Probably a little surprised, unless it happened all those years ago on initial release, that there's no hardline western / Christian furore about some of the themes covered in the game - in particular the lessons on historical ritual magic and tarot.

 

Probably the first time outside of direct horror themed games that John Dee, Aleister Crowley et al come up, especially set in a timeline of historic learning rather than a direct plot device.

 

I like it !

[Maf]

I remember seeing a quote years ago that was like "The most controversial game that never caused any controversy" 

 

I'm ready for the finale. When I go in Tatarus there's no backing out

 

• I maxed all social links bar 2
• 96% compendium complete
• 99/101 tasks completed
• Managed to grind and get most of the high level weapons

 

Having a break for a bit, then on to the end. Excited to finish, disappointed I didn't get the perfect game, dreading the ending, ready to one-shot this final boss.

 

I remember completing this years ago and the final boss fight was about 4 hours long or something. See if this time it's a bit quicker