Part 114: Vision Quest
Between Doors
Now that we've beaten up the High Priestess, Margaret has opened up all 12 of the other doors. Well, let's get crackin'!
Might as well do 'em in order, and we'll get all of the refight stuff outta the way first. Empress and Emperor had a fixed party lineup so we get no choice in who to bring this time around.
Master of Shadow
Overall, these fights all haven't changed too much beyond bigger numbers. The Empress and Emperor still start with their absurdly large array of weaknesses for good measure.
Though because of their stat increases (6500HP each and are level 65), they probably will get a turn or 2. Depending on what they do, it could be even more but 2 is about average.
Oh and yeah, most of the refights give the enemy Megidolaon because obviously.
Skill-wise, they're not too different from before really. Emperor has God's Hand and Vorpal Blade to ruin most days.
Empress likes her some nasty ailments. Charm's bad news in general, of course.
Really, the biggest problem is that Paradigm Shift is still every second action and what it does is changed slightly.
It's meaner this time around; rather than switch to a few random weaknesses, it's just one. Everything else is nulled. Great.
At least we can skip the gimmick here with Almighty spells. Yes, that works; they don't resist it.
Oh, right, Almighty resistance is a thing in at least one of these refights. Yay.
Minor clarification from before. See, normally your first time beating a room you get an Absorb element skill card. These go in the exact same order as the stat screen from left to right.
You can get 10 of a Fusion Skill item from every fight still, though. You just have to beat them doing a specific thing. I'm gonna shorthand that to calling 'em Secret Missions, because it worked for Tales of Vesperia so I'm just gonna steal it.
Every refight has one... except maybe the High Priestess, or if she does then it's so arcane that no one knows what it is. Oh, yeah, EVERY refight not just the Hanged Man. That's just the only one that's clearly and properly documented in English. I can't claim to know all of them (and the Japanese wiki is straight up useless for some too) but I do know most of 'em.
The Empress/Emperor one is to either not let them use Paradigm Shift or let them use it once and then kill them in the same turn. It is impossible to kill 'em simultaneously because of their unique death animations (if they take enough damage for that, then only the Empress dies and Emperor sticks around at 1HP), so keep that in mind.
Hierophant's much easier to keep track of in general. Aki's on the bench here, like before.
For the most part, he's just a boring stat increase without much else going for him.
The Hierophant refight is a good showcase for why this is a neat idea but falls apart in practice.
He's more or the less the same as before, but he does have one change that matters. Prophecy of Ruin is still MT Fear but this time?
This time I gave Kotone the Tome of the Void so she could heal Fear instantly. This is important.
Because his only real change beyond now having 8000HP and being level 70 (are you seeing the pattern yet?) is that he also has Ghastly Wail.
The Secret Mission is to let someone get killed by this. Fuck that.
No, really, that's all that's different in the Hierophant fight. It's boring and sucks. Lovers isn't much better though!
Like before, they really like their Charm skills. Unlike before, Mitsuru is the only one not immune to Charm (Yukari and Junpei have Narcissus Flowers).
The Charm change is pretty much the only real reason Holy Arrow exists at this point. Its damage is complete garbage.
For obvious reasons, Mitsuru has the Blazing Flame instead of Charm immunity. It was a necessary evil, really. I could nix both, but that requires a 1% chance for an item to spawn after hitting level 90. Super unnecessary.
Marin Karin is only maybe an issue, but eh. We'll be fine.
...But the Lovers like using their Maragidyne. They don't resist Fire.
None of the refights get mad at you for using Mirrors or casting a Karn outright. This ends about as well for them as you might expect, really.
Lovers has 9000HP and is level 75. Their Secret Mission is, I believe, to get hit by Heartbreaker with someone Charmed. Never had that actually happen at this point so I'm just trusting the Japanese wiki to be right here (it probably isn't though; more on that later!).
Yukari, Junpei and Aigis were used in the first fight against Chariot and Justice so they get to come back here.
The, uh, the fight is really boring and is more or less identical to before. The United form is still immune to Knock Down and is not a big threat.
Chariot likes his ailments.
Justice likes shooting you with that tank cannon.
Or just casting Mahamaon and hoping you die (you should have a ton of Homunculi right now and in Portable they affect everyone).
Still gotta kill 'em if not simultaneously then in the same round. If one's alive and one's not, then the living one will still cast Samarecarm.
Secret Mission here is to let that happen. Fuck off, no. These guys have 7000HP each and are level 80. These fights are already really long at normal game levels. I'm not making it worse on myself.
Between Doors
Examining the Hermit door for the first time leads to Margaret chiming in for a moment...
...... Beyond that door, you'll find your memories of that day. You'll likely encounter your friend, who's not with you at present...
Yeah, so, the Hermit refight is the only one where you could theoretically use Shinji. We can't because he's currently dead or in a coma. And, no, he's not added to the selectable characters here despite what you've potentially read elsewhere online. Shinji would theoretically be usable in NG+ or via blatant cheating and neither of them seem particularly helpful since he'd be underlevelled to shit and the Hermit is a fuckin' rowdy boy who don't take shit from no one.
I did consider using a mod code to readd Shinji in lieu of, say, Ken (and no one would care) but he'd be base level and we couldn't change his equipment from the default loadout so I didn't.
I just checked the poll from back then, and Koromaru came a distant fourth so he gets to pretend to be Shinji.
Master of Shadow
So, as mentioned above, Hermit's an absurd jump up in difficulty compared to the first time we fought this guy. He's an absurd jump compared to every other refight we've done already, even!
See, Hermit's now clever. He only needs to use Charge once to use Giga Spark. This is bad.
This is through Rakukaja. I feel like Hermit decided that he was gonna be sensible and pack Elec Boost and/or Amp. Nothing documented online corroborates it, though...
If you don't have Null Elec on everyone? You're in for a bad time, really.
This is also through Rakukaja. Note that the damage here is straight up identical to what he'd do with a Megidolaon in this instance. Megidolaon is way stronger than Ziodyne, which in turn is stronger than Maziodyne. Yeah, that's why I'm fairly confident Hermit has the Boost or Amp.
...This is Maziodyne without Rakukaja. Yeah. Giga Spark without it would break 4 digits. Max HP is 999. A lot of this is level scaling at this point, but the Hermit is a very rude boy. He's level 85 (as expected) and has... 16,000 HP. What the fuck.
Oh, he can just try to kill you with Mamudoon if he wants. Whatever.
He has Spirit Drain too. But not any ol' Spirit Drain.
Nah, he's borrowing World Balance's cheat Spirit Drain that lets him nick more than 20SP. Great, thanks.
Fortunately, we know how to deal with this guy already. Elec Break and Magic Mirrors still do the job real well. Worth noting that this damage is also taking his own Mind Charge into account.
Because he can do that too. Great.
Good news at least: having the Hermit eat his own Giga Spark and take damage from it? That's the Secret Mission. Hurray!
Better news: the Japanese wiki I used for this decided that the Secret Mission was to have Akihiko - specifically Akihiko - use Elec Break. That's impossible. Akihiko does not know Elec Break. Akihiko never learns Elec Break. Ever. It might have been a translation issue or something, but if not then I don't even know.
Penultimate rematch is Fortune and Strength.
Ghastly Wail still works. Next.
...Okay, fine, let's pretend they don't die instantly. Strength likes to cast Eerie Sound because it inflicts Distress.
Since she has real endgame Physical skills to go with that Guaranteed Crit, this is as bad as you think it is.
1300 damage through Rakukaja. Fucking hell. Granted, remember, level difference is taken into account and Koromaru is below level 70 here but still.
Since everyone but Kotone has Endure just as, like, a thing that won't kill anyone the first time. But it does knock them down.
Vile Assault doesn't even need to crit to hit Koromaru for 1300 damage. Maybe I'm too low a level for these guys at this point!
The Wheel is identical to before. Completely. Every result is still the same as it was last time. That makes this variation worthless. Damage is still 50/100/200 and healing is still a flat 100. They are level 90 and have 7000HP each.
And while Fortune does still love to spam the wheel (and it cheats the same as before too), they'll sometimes cast Magarudyne instead. That's, like, that's it.
Secret Mission here is to get fuckin' dunked on by the Wheel. Get a negative result that impacts you specifically. Damage, ailment or stat down. Getting a stat up or heal for Strength or Fortune doesn't cut it. Wanna do this one for that sweet, sweet Infinity. Gotta love full party invincibility with no drawbacks!
And lastly we have the Hanged Man. This fight is the least changed of the lot, overall. Fortunately, there's no Strega refight attached to it.
The Statues are mostly the same as before but with much more health (1000 each).
They use Dynes instead of second tier crap. Whatever. This is not really a threat. They do have their relevant Amp but... it's still not enough to care.
Biggest change is that they, uh, they resist Almighty. Yes, really.
Hanged Man is completely identical to before skillwise. He makes up for it by being level 95 and having 18,000HP. Good Lord is this fight a slog. Unlike before, when he's on the ground, he'll go back into the air whenever he feels like it. Could be instant. Could be several turns later. It's a complete crapshoot. And this fight takes forever! It took about 45 minutes to do, and some of that is because I'm overall underlevelled for it sure but some of it is because The Hanged Man is a fuckin' jerk who won't let you hit him!
He never a got a chance to do this before, because plot fight Hanged Man sucks, so let's see his unique gimmick (though even here I had to sit around for a while and let him do this). If he has a Devious Maya out on the field (level 90, 1000HP) then he'll sometimes cast this.
It turns a Devious Maya into a bomb. Oh no!
If the Maya gets a turn afterwards (maybe), it uses Sacrifice which is the only thing it can do that isn't a basic attack.
It does middling Almighty damage. Whatever.
When he's on the ground, the Hanged Man CAN cast Armed & Ready on himself!
...He never uses it to blow himself up though, so I have no idea what that was supposed to do. Weird.
Anyway, yeah, as everyone reading this possibly already knows, letting a Devious Maya use Sacrifice is the Secret Mission here and that nets you 10 Armageddons. That seems generous, but it's a trick. You don't do this, then I hope you like grinding Malechite and Rubies. You need Armageddon to beat a later fight, this is just a mercy to skip the item farming.
And while we do have a bunch of gimmicky bullshit to do next, we're gonna want Lots Of Power and to be a high level sooner or later. Spent some time in Monad and came out with Messiah. His Heart Items are important.
Yes, Items, plural. Messiah is special in that he has multiple Heart Items and which one you get is random. The "best" one is the only one that's an accessory, but it has a 1% chance to happen and makes you immune to everything but Almighty. Not gonna waste my time getting that though, because it's a trap and everyone should already know that at this point. Just because most enemies have been kind enough to not get mad at us for throwing out Reflect and all others kindsa bullshit, that's gonna change very soon. Very, very soon...
But, yeah, first we have five more doors to deal with and to get our reward from Margaret. Then we can see what Theo's special request was all about. Messiah won't matter for those five doors, because they're gimmicky and have fixed loadouts. Great.
Well, let's get to it then. One for each stat and we'll take 'em in order left to right. First up is Strength...
Hall of Power Danger Zone
So, every single one of these is a puzzle fight of some kind. Some of them are complex and involved. Others... aren't. This is sorta in the middle.
Since we have a fixed loadout here, we'll just marvel at the fact that the game gives us Shinji here and makes everyone level 70. All of these fights are at a fixed level of 70, in fact. Shinji's gonna Power Charge and just Defend until his time to shine.
Oh, yeah, let's look at what Personae we have here for a second. In all 5 rooms, we have a Pixie as our initial active Persona. She's never useful. Surprise.
For the first three, we have Raphael. He's not particularly important for this one, but his time will come don't worry.
Abaddon's around for the first three as well and he's my preferred Persona to give to Kotone for this fight, though it sorta doesn't matter at all. It'd be nice if I could gauge the trick to this room with certainty, but alas it just makes me feel better.
Cybele also sticks around for the first three rooms and is just generally useful if you need pinch healing. That only comes up in this room, for reasons that'll make sense later.
Sandalphon's also hanging out for the first three rooms. He's completely useless for this room but he'll get his chance later.
So, at first all three Guardians here are neutral to Slash, Strike, Pierce and null everything else. Almighty's irrelevant since we have no way of using it.
After getting hit once, they use their turn to switch their resistances around. Note that this only applies to ones that have been hit. This is important. Remember this. Any Guardian that hasn't been hit yet will use its turn to do... nothing. It just waits. To get hit.
They reset their resistances to a fixed array everytime they get hit. There's three possibilities here. In all three they're immune to Fire/Ice/Wind/Elec, so don't bother about them. Using Wind/Ice Break is tempting but it's a waste of time, since its reset next turn.
They could be neutral to Slash still, but this one's now immune to Slash. Okay, sure.
If it's immune to Slash, it's neutral to Pierce.
Best case scenario is that it drains Slash.
This means it's now weak to Strike. That's good! Don't hit it with Strike though! Don't do it! Leave it be!
Sure that means that it'll now attack, but that's not a big deal. We can handle one or two of 'em; that's why we have Cybele and the girls.
Get all 3 to drain Slash then Shinji's time to do something finally comes up. He gets to drop a Power Charged Akasha Art!
Since they're now all weak to Strike, they get knocked flat on their...
Ahem. Since they're now all weak to Strike, they get knocked flat on their ass.
AOA happens, they all take 4k damage and the fight is over. Nice and simple once you figure out the pattern is resistance based.
End
First time beating a Stat door gives a skill card. They're almost all really useful, even. Charge is nice albeit superfluous at this point.
So, next up is Magic and it's the second easiest of the bunch. How nice!
Hall of Magic
The solution here is to switch to Raphael and cast Makarakarn.
Yukari, Junpei and Mitsuru are allegedly useful but they're just gonna defend.
The Guardians here cast Ma-dynes that they drain. Sorry, rephrase that: one Guardian casts a Ma-dyne that it drains. The others use their turns to cast Hamaon. They don't resist this. In fact it seems to be unable to miss them.
Raphael naturally repels Expel, so if they opt to target Kotone more often it makes things go even quicker.
I'm not sure if that's the "intended" solution or not, though. I think you're expected to fight this out using the ST Dynes to hit elements that don't get flung at you so you can deal middling damage.
Or, y'know, Makarakarn. That works better. Might be intended to use that and the Breaks, even. I dunno. Hamaon seems a little too effective to be an accident, but it really feels like it's not intentional.
End
For spending about a minute watching the puzzle solve itself, we get Concentrate for our troubles. Sure, I'm okay with that.
Spent another minute doing it again to show off the second reward for these. It's 10 of the +4 stat booster for the relevant stat. Well, except Luck, obviously. That's a rider in all the other stat cards after all.
Endurance is next and it's the longest and most involved of the bunch. Whew boy.
Hall of Vitality
So, the samurai Guardians here are annoying as sin and this'll take a while.
They go first here and White and Black use their turns to set up both Karns while Red uses Power Charge.
Tetrakarn is a non-issue; Makarakarn just stops Kotone doing anything on turn 1.
Next turn, they cast every Ma-kaja.
Turn after, they cast every Ma-kunda.
Now at this point you've probably figured out what Akihiko is doing here. Yukari and Mitsuru are here more for damage, but if you look at their skillsets in this fight...
Yukari has Dekaja, how nice. Gonna use that then!
And Mitsuru has Dekunda for good measure. Definitely gonna use that too.
WHOOPS, THAT'S A TRAP. If you cast Dekaja OR Dekunda to remove any (de)buffs you get Megidolaon'd.
...For 9999 damage. There are two other ways to trigger that response in this fight, see if you can guess what they are before I tell you.
So, anyway, you want to get rid of Makarakarn because the Red Guardian is weak to Wind. The other two have no weaknesses. You want him Down after they cast the Kundas at the latest. Ideally Dizzied before then (which I do because it's better).
For their 4th turn, all 3 Guardians do basic attacks but there's a catch here. A little trick to it.
White and Black have an accuracy of 0. They can never hit you. They miss, they slip, Red should be knocked down already (or immediately afterwards in the worst case) letting you get the AOA for ~4-5k damage. One isn't enough though...
Oh and Red has real stats so he will fucking end you with his basic attack if he gets to do it more than once. He shouldn't. He should be locked down from this point and dead very soon thereafter.
Next turns, they get weird and do a nonsense pattern that doesn't make sense. White casts Foul Breath on Kotone...
Then Black uses Poisma. The next turn they do this to Yukari, then Akihiko and then Mitsuru.
While this is happening, Red decided to get serious and just start cutting people down with his sword. Don't let Red get turns here.
Poison is a minor annoyance I guess. Fortunately, our fixed inventory has 5 Dis-Poisons and Cybele has Posumudi. How convenient. Guess this isn't that big a deal after all.
SYKE. IT'S A FUCKING TRAP.
Yeah, so, they get mad if you Dekaja, Dekunda or... cure poison. Fucking hell.
So, everyone's poisoned and Red is dead at this point (ideally). White uses Stagnant Air for some reason I can't comprehend.
Black uses Power Charge, but remember: accuracy of 0.
They can't hit you. Unless you Defend, I guess. Then attacks can' miss, but there's no reason to Defend.
On their 10th turn, they try the Slash dance again but this time the AOA does kill them.
It also kinda has to. If they get an 11th turn, they hit you with the 9999 Megidolaon. Oddly, though, on their 14th turn White and Black are supposed to do the auto-miss attack. Please ignore that getting to turn 14 is impossible.
End
Our reward for following a rigid and involved pattern is Indomitable Fighting. Sadly, this is the worst reward of the bunch, despite being a natural skill for Shiva and Messiah who are pretty good otherwise.
The Vitality challenge was a rigidly "do this or perish" challege, but it still had more variety in it than the Speed one. I've never tried it but apparently they're susceptible to Panic which I feel like can't be true, since that kinda breaks the puzzle. Worth a shot if you like, though.
Hall of Speed
Ugh, so, this fight. The only variety in this is determined by what skill the Guardian uses first.
There's a whole four patterns it could use and your only signal is what skill is used first. Life Drain, Spirit Drain, Power Charge and Mind Charge are the only things it uses first and each one has a rigid pattern of "do this or die" attached to it. Unlike the Vitality challenge there's NO wiggle room. It's dumb and sucks.
Anyway, this is a 1-v-1 fight and our personae are different now. Except Pixie. She's still here and still useless.
Jack Frost has Bufudyne and nothing else.
Pyro Jack has Agidyne and nothing else.
High Pixie, Ziodyne. Do you get it yet?
Sarasvati for Garudyne.
Narcissus shakes things up by having Brave Blade. And 3 resistances! That means if the Guardian uses either Drain you switch to Narcissus turn 1. Spirit Drain is followed by Ziodyne and he takes less damage than Pixie for some reason.
Saki Mitama has God's Hand and takes like 2 points more damage than Narcissus. 2HP isn't a big deal unless you really care a lot (I don't).
And Mothman has Primal Force. Exciting.
We also have 7 Beads here and 1 of each Magatama. The Magatama here do a fixed 300 damage on the Guardian and are in the code exclusively for this one fight. They outdamage the Dynes, so might as well use 'em for the knock down where applicable.
If you don't know the pattern and it gets to the end? You lose, try again.
Fortunately, dying in these "puzzle" rooms is not a game over.
Unfortunately, this room still sucks!
Here's the solutions:
If he uses Spirit Drain, switch to Narcissus or Saki Mitama. Don't waste HP or SP yet. He'll use Ziodyne, so that's your cue to switch to Sarasvati and use Garudyne. Then you go through the elements from right to left, so Elec, Ice, Fire, Pierce, Strike, Slash and then Slash again if he's still standing (shouldn't be).
If he uses Life Drain, switch to Narcissus. Imagine the order above but in reverse here. Slash, Strike, Pierce, Fire, Ice, Elec, Wind, Wind.
Power Charge is a bit less clear, but switch to Mothman since nothing resists Phys stuff anyway. This is a good idea since he starts off here weak to Pierce then it goes left from there through Strike, Slash, then wraps around for Wind, Elec, Ice, Fire, Fire.
Mind Charge is followed up by Bufudyne, so that's an easy one to go for Jack Frost to null. Then it starts at Fire and goes right through Ice, Elec, Wind, before wrapping around to Slash, Strike, Pierce, Pierce.
In all 4 cases, if the second instance of the last weakness isn't the end of the fight you get a 9999 Megidolaon for your trouble.
This room is shit and I am never doing it again. Moving on!
End
Magical Familiar is a nice reward for this room, but like... you can buy this at the Antiques store. That's technically less hassle and way less stressful.
Ahaha, this is fun...Thanks, Margaret. But, yeah, just the one room left and it's the quickest and easiest of the bunch.
Luck is technically both true and a lie at the same time!
Hall of Luck
Our Personae here are a Jack Frost with Hamaon...
...and a Pyro Jack with Mudoon.
That's it. The "puzzle" here is to pick one and use their death spell. The boss here is immune to everything except one of these, which it's Weak to.
It's a 50/50 shot and it's complete guesswork, so don't worry about being wrong. The boss here doesn't even attack on its turn. You could even Defend here if you want to save some time on the animation and this'll go the same way.
Instead, it tells you the solution. Its resistances here switch around to being immune to everything but Expel and Curse. It's still weak to one but now it repels the other.
If it says 1, it repels Hamaon and is weak to Mudoon.
If it says 2, it repels Mudoon and is weak to Hamaon.
That's it. Nice and easy. Shouldn't even take 30 seconds.
End
Our last reward is Martial Arts Family and we could also buy this one from the Antiques store, but for like 20 seconds of effort this is a solid reward.
Doing it a second time nets us 20 Homunculi. Third time onwards gives you a Chewing Soul which is okay I guess. Quicker than buying them at the Antiques place and way quicker than running Monad over and over again.
Between Doors
You are a human worthy of me. Now, come. Let's have some fun...
Well, hrm, that was kinda ominous. And Margaret's gone and been replaced by a new door.
So, before opening this door I'm gonna just gonna actively cheat for a second here and replace Kotone's accessory with an Omnipotent Orb. No real reason; I just get this feeling like I want to do that here.
I kicked everyone else out as well, but I'm sure we'll be fine. Margaret wants to have some fun, after all. What's the worst that could happen?
Pandora's Door Unavoidable Battle
...so, yeah, our reward for beating everything in that desert is that we get to fight Margaret.
Except, I brought an Omnipotent Orb. She doesn't like that. She REALLY doesn't like that.
Enduring Soul is important here because it means we survived that Megidolaon!
...Margaret gets 2 actions every turn. She uses her second here to Diarahan.
She has 30,000HP what the fuck.
Like, I remembered it being a lot but I thought it was "only" 27,000!
She does this every turn. 9999 Megidolaon, Diarahan. Rinse, repeat until game over. Margaret's an Ultimate Boss fight. Of course there are actual rules to follow this time. We've had free reign to do whatever in every fight to date. That had to change eventually!
End Blues of the Soul
So, what to do, what to do? Well, Margaret is the hardest fight in the game so I'm gonna prepare a little. By which I mean give everyone their best weapon and spend way too long in Monad and hemmorage Too Much Money on that armour.
...Messiah gives up one of his heart items at level 98. Which one it is, is determined when you get Messiah himself either from fusion the compendium. The Armor of Light is the best piece of armor. It has 160 Defence and grants a decent amount of damage resistance to Fire, Ice, Wind and Elec. It does grant elemental resistance, no. I got four of these, just in case.
Shoes of Light are, of course, the best footwear. They have 140 Evasion and have high evasion to Slash, Strike and Pierce attacks as their added effect. Not the evade skills, no. I got four of these as well.
Soul of Athena is Aigis' best piece of armor. It has 160 defense, of course, but has no added effect. It's worth noting that it makes up for that by being the only one worth actual money. Not enough, but hey. A level 97 Messiash costs me 2 million yen each. All of his Heart Items sell for 50 yen, except this one. The Soul of Athena sells for 500k. It's almost like a 25% discount whenever I get a duplicate one of these!
Swan Legs are Aigis' best piece of footwear. 100 Evasion and no added effect. Compared to everyone else, Aigis gets the worst deal for best gear here.
Finally, we have the Aura Dog Suit for Koromaru. It has 160 Defense and gives Koromaru an extra +2 to all stats. Neat!
No bonus shoes for Koromaru, because he's a dog. Doesn't need 'em though; his paws have 125 Evasion so he still beats Aigis.
...The Omnipotent Orb is Messiah's sixth heart item, by the way. 1% chance so I'm not actually gonna have that. That was just for Margaret's reaction.
So, with all that in hand, let's look at what we've got here. Yukari's pretty noteworthy for being the only person to cap their best stat with her ultimate gear. That's what the red bit of the bars is, if you can see 'em; extra gains from equipment. Mediarahan and Samarecarm are far more important than her Garudyne though. She doesn't get the Boost or Amp and the accessory slot is a bit too precious to use on Vayu Bracers here. Margaret's powerful, so of course we'll want someone who can heal. Kotone can handle that if absolutely necessary and technically better since she has Salvation and all.
Junpei has Vorpal Blade. I don't think I need to say anything else here, really. If I plan the fight to be on a day that he gets Great status (in January that's the 2nd, 9th, 20th and 28th for quick reference), then that's all he really needs. Maraku is a nice bonus if it comes to it, and Gigantic Fist'll be useful every now and then too. Fire Break/Agidyne are... they're there.
Akihiko is... a very good idea, yes. All three debuffs is nice to have and another source of Diarahan is always helpful. Fist Master is garbage and his Luck IS competing with Junpei's Magic for lowest stat and only just losing, but that's pretty minor compared to being a good source of debuffs and healing.
Mitsuru's downgraded her ultimate weapon here. Sorta. She doesn't get the Deus Xiphos or Lucifer's Blade now (they're exclusive to the Makoto in Portable) and instead her ultimate weapon is a Persona 1 reference. It's made from Skadi, who's level 80 and available in Monad Shuffle Time oddly enough. Alilat gives her a weapon with Ice Boost. which is something but... well, that's not +10 to every stat so it's questionable if that's better or not.
Doesn't change that she's still Mitsuru and still kinda terrifying. No Boost, but Amped Mind Charged Dynes on 95 magic is disgusting. Margaret's too strong to go with the Ice Bracers for the Boost though. Tentarafoo and Spirit Drain won't help at all, of course, and Spirit Drain is niche at best.
Aigis is exactly the same as Akihiko except for buffs instead (right down to her Luck being worse than Akihiko's!). She has worse offense though, despite God's Hand and Akasha Arts both being really good on someone capable of using them. Another Samarecarm would probably help too, if it really came to that.
Koromaru's still not great offensively, and three of his skills are deadweight. Mudo Boost, Mudoon and Mamudoon are not something you bring to endgame fights, never mind an Ultimate Boss fight. Masukukaja is definitely nice, though, and Amped Agidyne should still be... well, maybe be okay from Koromaru but I'm not expecting anything amazing.
Ken is still really, really bad but he's a good backup healer now. He dipped into the pool where everyone else found Diarahan and he found Aigis' spare Samarecarm but he remembered to also steal Mediarahan from Yukari. Primal Force and/or Vile Assault would be nice normally but... his Strengt is garbage. He has the worst stat distribution, including Akihiko, and he's just at best an alternative Yukari/Koromaru hybrid. At least he only wasted 2 skill slots on Hamaon and Spear Master?
You probably noticed before that Yukari and Mitsuru had 999 HP and 999 SP. Everyone gets that at level 99 (except Fuuka, but that really doesn't matter), so that's not an issue for once.
But, yeah, I'm probably gonna regret this and I'm reserving the right to ignore democracy if it's more expedient and/or fun, but...
Need 3 folks to bring to fight Margaret. Who's it gonna be?