[PS2] SMT: Persona 3 (The RPG to keep talking about, since :awesome:) Now with more PEZ.

Got this game the day it came out (gutted copy but eh, it was in good shape), and I've been hooked ever since I started. I love the blend between being a shadow hunter at night and normal high school student by day. Even though there isn't much exploring to do, there is a nice level of immersion to the world. The music is one of the most interesting aspects I've noted thus far, as it doesn't seem quite what I was expecting, but at the same time has a nice beat to it.

By the way, did anyone else get the official strat guide? I did just because it was by Double Jump books instead of Prima or Brady Games, and because I wanted something that was official so I knew that the Persona fusion tables and such would all be accurate. But man, the actual strategies sometimes seem lacking in terms of the boss strats it advises. For example

Spoiler:

On the priestess boss in the monorail train, it made no mention how she summons two helpers on her first turn, where one heals and the other attacks. Not only that, but it suggested to use fire attacks against the helpers, and I know for a fact that those wouldn't work on the first left helper as I tried that the first time and got owned. I'm kinda disappointed by that part, even though I managed to beat the Priestess on my second try (this was before i had even bought the guide). But I hope their strats on some of the other bosses aren't as bare bones as I go on

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Chaotic

But what's the warm and soft bread that the girl wants? I can't seem to figure that out either...

This is just a guess, since I haven't gotten to that point or found that event yet, but has the lady in the school lobby had an item like that for sale? I remember her mentioning how the bread she has sells out fast or something from when I spoke to her earlier in the game.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Arg! I HATE this game's full moon nights at times! Lost to the stupid second full moon night battle (and it was going well too, the f'ers got a lucky string of hits in on my character!) and now I have to go through all the text and crap again. So freaking annoying that this game doesn't allow one to skip story scenes with the Start button or something. Sorry needed to vent, while I yep you guessed it, am going through all the events that I'VE ALREADY GONE THROUGH ONCE BEFORE!

How ya doing, buddy?

Holy crap, if that's in there, I'm gonna /forehead slap myself for not seeing it when I originally turned off the vibration option. Thanks for the tipoff!

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Elixir

...hold triangle.

Is that really it? I had looked in the config menu and only saw the auto advance for voiced text, which would have only been partially helpful. Since I managed to beat the boss battle the second time with them only getting two hits in on me, I guess I won't be able to try it out until the next time I manage to lose on a full moon night, but thank you!

I see no mention of that functionality in the manual, and don't remember the game mentioning it either, so it is supposed to be some kinda of hidden feature?

Also, I slipped up on the first full moon boss only because I didn't know what to expect. After I learned her pattern from my first loss, I completely stomped her down the second time. The second full moon battle only got me because that darn emperor decided to do his "I'll hit your party for almost more hp than your max!" attack right before I was about to take out the Empress (and he wasn't far behind her in terms of remaning hp), so he basically got lucky since the empress did her full party magic attack first to take off just enough hp from my main character for him to not be at full and thus his follow up attack got me.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Elixir

I don't think it's a hidden feature. You hold down triangle and it breezes through text.

I wouldn't use it unless you already know the conversation though. P3's dialogue is too valuable to skip through.

Ah, well I just figured it would've been mentioned in the manual on the controls explanation page at the very least since I would've never thought to do that. If that's something that's usually found in SMT games, I must've forgotten because it's been at least two years since I touched DDS.

But I agree about the text. The first time I went through the dialog screens prior to the second full moon battle, it was some great stuff.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Guest

Akihiko is starting to piss me off. For the last several floors, he's been using Zio instead of Mazio. My other characters always use their Ma- spells but he stopped for some reason. I encounter alot of enemies that are weak to electric and he's wasting precious time by use single target spells. Anyone know how to counter-prevent this? He's set to Act Freely (like everyone else), not Conserve SP. When he is set to Conserve SP he just kills himself by spamming Sonic Punch.

Have you tried setting him to Knock Down on the enemies that are weak against electric attacks? I haven't been able to experiment with it myself, so I don't know how that affects their skill use.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Ashton

Totally better than 'hey the main character has less than 30% hp let me use Garudyne instead of healing him' Yukari

That is so true! That idiot Yukari caused me to lose the full moon battle against the hierophant the first time because she thought it would be a good idea to keep attacking the boss instead of healing anyone, never mind the fact that she wasn't smart enough to think "Gee the entire party except me has a fear status, shouldn't I use one of those gems to remove it?"

I'm beginning think this game has something against me where it wants me to lose every single one of the full moon battles once...

EDIT: Just saw the mention of items and how other characters use them. I never knew that all each had their own stash, I thought it was all shared. Interesting, well I guess I can't hold my second complaint against Yukari on that one then.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Metal Sphere

If you want a character to prioritize healing/buffing over attack just set them to Heal/Support and they'll heal/buff until everyone's HP are full. Only then will they attack the enemy, or wait.

True, but the issue I had was twofold. First that boss used it's attack to instill fear on the entire party which worked on everyone but Yukari. Since I didn't have control of my character, I couldn't change her tactics.

Second, I have often gotten healed by Junpei using an item on me when my hp have been going low, and that's with him set to Act Freely. Since Yukari has healing spells, I had kinda hoped she would've done the same in that instance. As it stood, I basically got to watch myself get annihilated since the battle had been progressing well, thus I had no reason to let up on the damage everyone was doing since I decided to play support with the healing, as well as the boss had 1/3 or fewer HP remaining.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by horseman85

Quick question about Persona 3. How is the pacing of the story? I rented the game for a day and only got to the 15th floor. Nothing much really happened in terms of storyline. So, I really have no idea if the story is any good or not.

I personally love the story, but I was pretty much hooked from the start, and have been ever since. It moves along pretty nicely, and so far I've only hit one kinda dead spot where there wasn't much happening in the story, I had gone as far up in Tarturus as it would allow me too, and the shadows on those floors were a pushover. I even had a healthy amount of money after spending only a amount of short time in there, and thus I was kinda passing time trying to up my other stats as well as social links since the main story was at a standstill for that period of time. But that's the good part about it, even when the main story was a little stalled, I didn't feel like all that there was to do was grind out money and experience points.

I'd definitely recommend getting the game if you enjoyed what you played while you rented it.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

During a shuffle, when the cards leave the screen and return, is there any pattern to what order they return in? I've been trying to figure it out, and finally just gave up. It's been getting kinda irritating since there are times when I want the money card, or the experience card, and then they have to go fly off the screen, and return all scrambled up.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Thanks Doc and Gechmir! I can't believe I didn't notice that, but then that would be just like me not noticing something that obvious. I'll try to give your strat a try Gech!

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Regarding Floor 135's boss and my frustrations (spoiler tags just to be safe):

Spoiler:

I tried the boss a couple of times and after he killed me twice in the first few turns of the battle. After reading what others said in this thread about this boss, I just wasn't in the mood to grind the levels out for that thing. I already do enough grinding in WoW (esp lvl grinding), having to do it in another game is too much, so I used Code Breaker to give myself inf hp for that battle. Whoever thought up Floor 135's boss can suck it. Ironically for a boss of that difficulty none of my party members leveled up after beating it.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Chaotic

Yo, Kae.:

Ooh, Kaelin, can you give me the Inf HP Code for that? I'm REALLY getting pissed off with this battle also... I'll grind AFTER the battle, but I'm seriously not up for grinding.

Grats on beating that stupid boss! Just in case you still want them, I've put them in the spoiler below

Spoiler:

Hero MaxInf Current HP
1080C62C 000003E7

Yukari MaxInf Current HP
1080A41C 000003E7

Akihiko MaxInf Current HP
1080B510 000003E7

Ken MaxInf Current HP
1080B874 000003E7

Mitsuru MaxInf Current HP
1080AAE4 000003E7

Koromaru MaxInf Current HP
1080BF3C 000003E7

Aigis MaxInf Current HP
1080A780 000003E7

Shinjiro MaxInf Current HP
1080BBD8 000003E7

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Well you're limited by the number of months you have in the game. I haven't completed it yet, but from my understanding you start the game in April and it ends in December or early January.

Time during the day doesn't pass in real time so you don't have to worry about rushing around to get everything done, it just takes some planning ahead since certain actions will take you from morning to afternoon, and from afternoon to evening.

Everyday except Sunday is a school day (unless it's summer vacation or a holiday) and thus your morning to afternoon time will always be taken up by classes. When Afternoon/After School hits, you're free to go stock up on items, and then choose whether you want to hang out with a friend to improve their social link, take part in an activity which will improve your intelligence, courage, or charisma, or just forward the game to evening by heading straight to the dorm.

From evening you can either sleep, study, partake in some activities that are available only in the evening and sometimes only on certain days to improve your courage or charisma, or go to Tartarus. After you're done with any of the following activities the next day will begin.

FELIPE NO

I guess this makes the original release only worth it if one wanted the artbook and soundtrack that came with it, since I don't see any mention of those two things being released with this version that's coming in April. Or maybe Atlus just hasn't announced that yet, and is waiting till it gets closer to the release date to kick all us early adopters in the groin again

Seriously though, I'm glad more folks will be able to play this game. Even though I haven't completed it, it's still a very fun and addicting game to get into. I'm also glad to see something that seemed unlikely to come over here make it. More reasons why I like Atlus.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?