Part 6: 04/25/09: Thebel The Garden of Worldliness (Part One)
We're nearly done with April already, but we won't be making much progress on that front today.
Want To Be Close / Time
Gossiping: Huh? A bookstore?
Listening: Yeah, leave Iwatodai Station, go straight for a while, and it's after you cross the crosswalk. We've been at this school for a while... You should explore more often!
> The first bell has rung.
In terms of the actual day, a lot of them are going to go like this for a while. Fixed start of day chatter, maybe a small scene for class stuff, day over have fun.
When The Moon's Reaching Out Stars / Way of Life
I will gladly take it up on its offer to do whatever. 'Cept today is a Saturday, so we can't hang out with Kenji or Kaz. I know, it's such a shame. Suppose we've got no choice but to check out the new bookstore or something.
Oh, but Kenji's here, huh...?
I was just about to head home, but I don't really feel like walking.
...Hey, that doesn't mean I'm looking for an unlocked bicycle, alright?Oh don't worry Kenji, I totally believe you.
More importantly, we have the bookstore just over in the strip mall. Nice that this one opens up pretty quickly, at least... one day, Antiques Store. One day...
Joy
> An old man and woman are behind the counter.
What would you like today? We have fresh mackerel...!
Hey, you're a student, aren't you? You must be from Gekkoukan High, right? That means you've probably seen the persimmon tree there...
Huh?
It was planted right beside a walkway in a courtyard at the school.
> But, it's not clear how the tree and this old couple are connected...
I'm sorry. He's rambling on like an old man. Just ignore him.> After saying goodbye to the old couple, you decided to leave the bookstore.
Want To Be Close / TimeWell, that was a scene alright. It didn't give us anything and it didn't even advance time...
But we've seen a tree at the school before, briefly. It was just by the gym, so it's right through here.
> It must be the persimmon tree that the old couple at the bookstore were talking about.
> You found a leaf on the ground.
Despite having the regular item icon, the leaf is actually a key item. Hmm, I wonder... is this really the right tree?
Joy
How many guests? Smoking or non-smoking? Hm? Excuse me, but may I see that leaf in your hand...
It must have grown quite a bit to produce such splendid leaves... ...Wait, so you didn't come here to buy books? Did you come here just to show us this? Um, no... Nah-uh, I don't believe you.
> The old man is showering you with praise.
I've been meaning to go see that tree for a while now, but I'm not sure if these stumpy old legs will make it that far... ...That wasn't meant to be a pun. You know, "stumpy," "tree stump." Catch my drift?
Very clever, dear.
If you don't mind, would you tell us your name?
Then, we'll call you Makoto-chan from now on!
> You got to know the old couple a little better.
The Power of The Heart
> A mysterious voice rings in your head...
Joy
Come visit us if you get bored.> After saying goodbye to Bunkichi and Mitsuko, you decided to go back to the dorm.
Iwatodai Dorm
If anything happens, it'll be you guys who have to deal with it.Hm, I don't see anyone around except Akihiko. I suppose that makes sense...
But, if you stumble across an enemy, you might have to fight it by yourself. That can be pretty dangerous... But if you're strong enough, the enemy will be afraid of you, so you won't have to worry.I still don't really see anyone else around here.
It's a popular vacation choice this year, it seems. Airports are filled with air travelers...
Well, that makes sense. Hawai'i is apparently pretty great. I've heard especially great things about Waikiki.
Anyway, there's clearly no one else around and we have no money (a whopping 10 yen!) so I guess we'll just go study and slee-
Oh, well, Yukari and Junpei are up on the second floor at least.
When you're tired, you don't hit as hard, so it takes longer to beat an enemy. Plus, you get hit more easily.
"You youngin's don't know what's good fer ya... Back in my day, we knew when ta rest!"
I understand your point, but what's with the corny impersonation...?
Oh, that's the room up on the fourth floor. We've been there twice before, technically.
Oh, but if you wanna go to Tartarus, she said it was alright.
It's the only way we'll achieve our objective in Tartarus.Okay, so folks ARE around but we do have no money at all left. This presents a problem.
Fortunately, Tartarus exists and so we can hopefully fix a bunch of problems at once.
The Voice Someone Calls
So, this place at the base is the ideal spot to change equipment and check stats for everyone that isn't the main character. Since, y'know, they're static and aren't getting in the way.
We'll also briefly check out our allies' Personae. Unlike Makoto, they both are stuck with one each. Yukari only has Io, who is really not that great early on. Low Agility, overall worse Strength on average, and no offense until level 5 presents a problem for the moment. Her resistance to Wind is semi-useful and weakness to Elec doesn't matter at the moment. Yukari also happens to have the lowest HP out of everyone period which is going to be especially nasty in the long-term.
Junpei, meanwhile, has Hermes and he's very much the opposite. Generally tankier and much more of a Strength based offense. He has nothing BUT offense for a while, and Cleave doesn't vary his elements at all unfortunately. He can only uses 2h Swords and Cleave also deals Slash damage, but at least if/when it misses he won't eat shit. His resistance to Fire will boost his already fairly good survivability even further but that weakness to Wind might prove to be a big liability in this first trip.
A few floots up, there's a barricade preventing you from going any higher. The tower seems to have a number of these interspersed amongst its floors. I know I told you that the layout changes each day, but these barriers seem to be in fixed locations.
While this is VERY EASY to do in the first trip on Maniac difficulty on Portable (honest Maniac is absurdly easy...), it might as well be actively impossible to do so here. We'll do as much as we can, before we functionally have to leave.
tartarus_0d01
So, the first time we step foot in a new floor (second time for 2F because of the tutorial), Mitsuru chimes in with something. Sometimes it's to give you an idea of where the next boss fight it (like here), sometimes it's even less useful.
Anyway, welcome to Tartarus! For real this time! It sucks and I dislike it. A lot.
Fortunately for you, this place being a randomised piece of shit means while I get to slog through it all, you get selected highlights instead.
So, despite being in Tartarus, the location listed is Thebel. As you might recall from before, this is the first block of Tartarus which is a worrying concept. Thebel is a minor mistranslation (albeit not from Japanese) and is intended to be Thevel, which is a Hebrew word that means "the world."
This seems like a stretch, even with the Japanese B/V mess-up in the same line as L/R stuff, I appreciate. HOWEVER! It also has a subtitle: The Garden of Worldliness.
Since almost every floor is randomised, sometimes you get the stairs immediately. Sometimes you have to slog through a large area. Sometimes you don't even get an access point and can't leave easily.
Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out
So, let's talk about the Shadows in this area. It's very, VERY important to Analyse them as soon as possible.
Not necessarily for your benefit, although that too, but because it makes your party members better because they're AI only. And the AI is... very inconsistent but secretly really unfairly good when setup correctly. See, from this they know not just the elemetal affinities but things like "does ailment work" despite that not being listed anywhere.
Annoyingly, Analyzing Shadows doesn't list enemy skills or the like. Makes it a bit inconvenient to try and determine what Persona to have Makoto use, though you can generally intuit the broadstrokes from their Arcana and the elemental resistances. Also Analyzing isn't an immediate thing either, so you generally have a round or so of waiting for it to kick in. It's kinda dumb.
Like how the Cowardly Maya is weak to all primary elements except Ice and is a Magician so of course it uses Bufu.
A nasty thing that'll become apparent here is that half the Shadows (right now) are Resistant to Fire. That means Orpheus can only be useful via Bash, which is also our only means of Strike elemental damage right now for if/when that matters.
That they also end up being weak to other elements doesn't necessarily matter. We have no easy way of doing Elec damage until level, uh, 7 at the earliest for example. We CAN get Ice damage from an Apsaras but that requires getting rid of both Pixie AND Orpheus and it's not worth it this early.
Though there IS a thing that isn't the Cowardly Maya that is weak to Fire. It's kinda weird that the two Magician arcana Shadows are weak to Fire, since Fire magic is what the arcana specialises in.
Oh and with this being on Hard mode, right now we take - from Neutral damage no less - around about half our max HP if we're lucky from any given skill. This happens a lot right now, so I just reload whenever it happens for convenience.
tartarus_0d01
So, there's nothing else exciting or interesting on 2F so we'll head on up to 3. Maybe something useful will spawn or whatever.
Like this, this is nice. Sadly, this is pseudo-rogue-lite so while the general idea of the contents is determined fairly early, the specifics are determined when you open it. It's weird and confusing, yes. This case, for example, would always contain Yen in this instance but it would be a semi-randomised amount; it could be anywhere from a little under 200 to around 3000.
...As REALLY NICE as seeing a Gold Shadow immediately is, it's also a mean trap. Not only is it already aware of us and thus will get away, if we did catch it it'd escape then instead. Very tanky, lots of HP (100 flat for the one here), runs, gives no exp etc. etc. A Metal Slime in many regards.
So, let's talk about one of my least favourite things about Hard mode. This Shadow spotted us at the exact moment as my sword hit it.
Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out
That means we get Ambushed. If you don't get the Advantage, but you hit the enemy on Normal or Easy then no one gets the advantage. This CAN happen on Hard mode but it's rarer. If the enemy is aware of you, even if you get the first hit on the map, you will still get ambushed. It's really dumb and kind of annoying but we'll get around it eventually.
Although, Junpei is not filling me with confidence. Especially with the way knockdowns work in Vanilla and FES...
tartarus_0d01
Skipping on up to 4F now and Mitsuru lets us know, albeit vaguely, that the first boss is on the next floor. There is a non-zero chance that we won't even get to it this trip...
After The Battle
Not much on this floor right now either, so we'll look over the Shuffle Time!! rewards. We can get new Persona this way, and for a little while is the only way to get ones we've fused away. But we can also get Minor Arcana cards which no longer have Persona attached to them (which they did in 2 and only 2 for some reason).
Honestly, the Suit of Cups is a nice thing to get just for general survivability and preserving SP. It's not a GREAT HP heal right now, but it's not nothing and can help make a difference.
Suit of Wands is pretty important because holy fuck do we get no EXP from fights here.
It's a very, VERY small gain right now but it pushed that particular fight up to 5. From a whopping 4!
4 is the average from any and every fight right now, but we get 2 an offputtingly common amount of times too. This isn't a Hard mode thing; this is just the early game kind of has broken EXP scaling. It gets better later on, thankfully.
Of course, this leaves the Suit of Pentacles, or Coins, which just straight up gives you money. Not great amounts right now, but money is money.
We already know about the Persona gains, and while it's most commonly Pixie it can be other stuff too. Apsaras is a nice pull since she makes useful fusion fodder (though Pixie has better skills if you can get her up a level) and...
tartarus_0d01
She has Bufu! And better Magic than either Pixie or Orpheus! Her resistance to Ice is a nice boon too, though that weakness to Slash means if anything (except the Hand) hits Makoto, that procs a One More.
Through pure luck, we managed to get some nice footwear from a briefcase too. These are way better than our default gear, so I'm slapping them on Makoto right away. Increased Evasion is always a good thing.
...But that's still a common pull. That, right there, is a gold chest. That means rare loot! These only have a real chance to spawn on specific floors but they can contain very nice things. This one is on 4F so it has something we'll want 2 of maybe.
Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out
But it IS guarded by a random Shadow, through pure chance. Since we have Apsaras as our active Persona and Orpheus in our stock, they can let us use a special Fusion Skill.
If you're wondering what Apsaras and Orpheus have to do with each other, the answer is nothing really. Sure, Apsaras is a non-specific Hindu woman because it's a plural. Apsara is just the name for a nymph of cloud and water. Orpheus, of course, is a Greek guy who got tricked hardcore by Hades. The connection is musical, as an Apsara is usually married to a heavenly musician. Hence why the skill is called Cadenza, yes.
It's half a Sukukaja with proportional healing that doesn't help right now. The evasion boost is nice but I wouldn't bother outside of weird niche situations. Honestly, if it wasn't for the game having a way in which it tells you outright how to make every Fusion skill, you'd be forgiven for not realising most of them exist because they're really dumb.
Portable mercifully adjusted the way Fusion Skills work and I greatly prefer its system, which we'll get to later on don't worry.
After The Battle
...And because I haven't had good enough luck yet, the Shuffle Time drop included a weapon card. Which netted a Practice Bow instead of a Rapier again. Sure, this is Yukari's default weapon but that's not why I want it.
tartarus_0d01
The rare chest on 4F means it contains a Juzumaru. This is a useful 2h Sword that I'm giving to Junpei right away.
It's stronger than the Imitation Katana AND increases his accuracy ever-so-slightly. That's nice and all, but that +20HP is the real benefit here. Making the closest thing we have to a tank even tankier seems like a weird decision, but this could prove useful later.
Makoto, meanwhile, gets the Practice Bow. An odd choice but having someone with access to Pierce damage who isn't Yukari (and thus will mess it up) is going to be useful later.
Floor 5 is a very special floor. It's layout is predetermined, and it has no random Shadows crawling around. It has fixed locations for the stairs, entrance, chests... everything.
It doesn't have an Access Point though. Not really. It has this thing, instead.
There is actively zero reason to ignore this since it helps with a couple things.
It's a checkpoint within Tartarus and gives us a place to warp back to later on if we so choose, and it lets us warp to any other Terminal Points we've activated too.
The one on the first floor is always active, since it's where access points kick us out after all. Oh and it's not immediately obvious but returning here is an automatic full restore of all HP and SP. You can bet that was removed in Portable!
Gonna throw down a fresh save, get annoyed by the fact that I'm not level 5 in FES yet and then just roll with it anyway and take on the boss.
Empress Venus Eagle x3 (Portable) Master of Tartarus / Danger Zone 
Yeah, so this is absolutely true but Mitsuru is neglecting something important.
We have two people with bows. This makes the fight way easier, because they're eagles. And that means in grand SMT/RPG tradition, they're weak to being shot. Which means Pierce damage!
Although bows are bad and miss a lot. It's kind of annoying but we'll deal.
Really, the most annoying thing about the AI is that our control over it right now is limited. As a result they mainly focus fire on one target when attacking. Since one of the Eagles was Down, Junpei opted to Cleave her. Downed targets take slightly more damage than normal, you see, but in return they're no longer prone.
These particular Eagles have this nasty trick up their sleeve. Garu in itself isn't particularly strong, but...
This is what it does to someone who's Neutral. Yikes.
This is what it does to someone who's weak. Not much of a difference, huh? That's because Junpei's tankier and thus has a higher Endurance.
But this? This is what it does on a resistance. If we could actually rely on Yukari, she could probably solo this fight without really having to try. Sadly that's not an option. And not just because her AI is rock stupid right now.
See, as a weird thing vanilla and FES have... interesting ways they deal with the way Down works as a mechanic. As a result of that, they are the only (modern-ish) Persona game(s) where you sometimes want to not do All-Out Attacks. It's weird and feels backwards and wrong...
But when something gets up, that uses its entire turn. This was changed immediately for Persona 4 and thus was backported into Portable as well. This is insanely exploitable and you bet I will be using this to makes things go much easier and quicker.
The Eagles being, well, eagles slash dudes with their claws when attacking normally. So definitely don't bring Apsaras as your main Persona for this fight, not anything with a Wind weakness (which while 100% possible here is unrealistic to get). They can also cast Magaru just to fuck with you further, but that's rarer and didn't happen on either the FES nor Portable fight so whatever.
Junpei gets "actually" tired now, which is annoying and a severe limitation to our Tartarus treks right now but because this is tied to our level will quickly stop being relevant later on. Around the second block or so, you can be forgiven for forgetting that this mechanic even exists.
After The Battle
Oh, uh, and the Eagles have 150HP ad 100SP each, and along with being weak to Pierce are immune to Wind, Bless/Expel and Curse (they use Wind and are a boss so you can't instant kill them)... and drain Fire just because. That's a nasty trick on the first boss/miniboss but that's not even close to the nastiest trick in the first block alone.
Those Empress Masks will also come in handy sometime down the line. Don't worry about it until then.
End tartarus_0d01
Since treasure on this floor is fixed, we'll always get a Bead Chain which is insanely nice. Full HP restore to everyone can certainly come in handy. Kinda weird that we got it so early, but I'm not complaining about that.
Going up to the 6th floor is a thoroughly bad idea without dipping back to the ground floor for our guaranteed full heal... but if we do that, Junpei will leave now that he's tired.
So bad ideas it is! We won't be here long, because Mitsuru is accurate here. There's a couple new Shadows around from this floor onwards.
Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out
Like this guy, who I swore was from a higher floor... Well, we can't hurt him easily, so we'll decrease his defense for 3 turns at least.
He's basically Reverse-Yukari in a lot of ways. Sadly, we can't even take advantage of that Wind weakness right now. If we gave up Apsaras and Orpheus, then Makoto could have Garu but Yukari gets it at level 5 and the Eagles finally let her reach level 4, so...
It's still not a difficult enemy normally, though it's gotten more dangerous now. Since Junpei got tired, that's going to snowball just as a matter of course. It's sort of inevitable since our levels were identical when we entered and all.
After The Battle
Oh and the Grave Beetle gives 7EXP base, so I wanted to Wand it up to 8. The game had other ideas and decided to proc Wand's secondary effect and give Apsaras a stat boost.
Later on, I decided to grab this now just to get it over with. Sometimes cards have this skull on 'em. They don't do much different to normal...
But, they're cursed to shit. This doesn't do anything immediately, though.
tartarus_0d01
It does make Mitsuru spout this line earlier than normal, but it still doesn't do anything. She says this twice or so, by the way.
And then she says this... and then in the audio, you hear constant chains rattling. And if you pay attention to the minimap, there'll be a Shadow dot moving around. Specifically beelining right for you.
That would be this kind-looking fellow right here. Rather than a generic blob, his actual model is out and about on the map. Complete with his dual-wielded revolvers. Alright, let's see what we're dealing with then.
Death The Reaper Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out
Because he's always VERY aware of our presence, it is actively impossible for us to get the Advantage. But because Hard mode hates you, he'll almost always get it. Not like he needs it, since he has 99 Agility in every version of P3. In fact, it's his only stat that is a consistent 99.
I'm sure we can take him, though. I mean he's only using a Heavy Elec spell. How bad could it be?
Oh, just basically quadruple our hypothetical HP cap no big deal. Sure, Yukari won't realistically ever get 999HP but still.
Yeah, so, uh, The Reaper is (in theory) a very end-game Optional Boss who appears on almost every floor (ones like the 5th floor are excluded). Usually, that's because you lingered for too long, so he's like a soft-time limit to minimise grinding, for some reason, but things like Cursed Cards and special other things can make him spawn sooner.
In vanilla, he has 4444HP (because 4 is Death) and 9999SP. To cap it off, he has 66 in all stats except Agility which is 99. FES and Portable change that a bit to give him 5000HP flat (because 4444 is boring) and 12000SP. Oh and he has 99 in Magic now too.
The Path Was Closed 
Needless to say, yes, we will be fighting him for real later on.
But until then, just gonna be avoiding the fuck outta this guy. Occasionally he'll still pop up and then I'll get to kite him around like an annoying MMO trash mob or whatever.
The Voice Someone Calls
Back in the real world (where the only difference is that Death didn't just casually waltz in and shoot magic bullets), everyone is shattered and leaves immediately. This is also a thing that was removed in Portable, I guess to make up for having to pay for healing now.
Now, we COULD leave as well with our progress to 6F secure and ready for next time. But this presents a problem for Makoto. See, he needs to be level 6 before Tuesday or so. Plus we need at least 9600 Yen to finance the week ahead. So far, we have neither of these things...
Solo and Tired. Well, at least he'll gain EXP quicker but what could POSSIBLY go wrong with this?