Persona 3 FES Part #124

Part 124: Malebolge

Living With Determination -Iwatodai Dorm-

Sadly, as promised we're immediately back to boring ol' school uniforms. Hopefully we'll be able to obtain some fashion stuff later at least.

I'll be supervising the investigation and assigning each of you your roles.

For now, I'm going to concentrate on finding any documents similar to the ones we found in the basement.

No, you're not missing anything here. Everytime it's come up, the stuff from the basement has been incredibly vague for no reason.

So, we're splitting up?

...Well, I suppose you are the only one who knows where to find that stuff.

I'd also like a second team to handle another task...

Someone has to look around to see if the Abyss of Time is connected to any other places than the dorm.

Hey, wouldn't Koromaru's nose make him perfect for a job like that?

I mean, if there's food or anything out there, he'll sniff it out.

Arf!

That's right, boy! Me and Koromaru are gonna find an exit lickety-split!

Very well. I leave it to you two.

The main investigation will be up to the rest of you, with Aigis taking point.

Aigis, I'm counting on you.

Unfortunately, this does mean for the foreseeable future, we won't be able to use Junpei, Mitsuru or Koromaru at all. Definitely gonna be using Metis since she's new, which just leaves two of Yukari, Akihiko and Ken. For the time being I'll be going with Yukari and Akihiko since they're more useful at lower levels. I doubt anyone will mind much, though.

And, real quick before we head downstairs, the Velvet Room door's in the dorm now. It's off to the side a bit, but pretty easy to get to and find all things considered.

Obviously we're not gonna use it right now, because we have nothing to do there.

When we head back into the Desert, this strange humanoid black Shadow-y thing heads towards a door at the far side and just phases through it.

But we don't have much time to mull it over right now.

Between Doors

Living up to its name, the Desert of Doors is a pretty big desert area with 7 doors in it right now. There's 3 to the left, 3 to the right and that one glowy one straight ahead.

Six of 'em can't be opened right now, though...

Which just leaves this one.

It just went in the door... right?

Maybe it's...

...Oh, sorry about that.

This seems to be the first door.

I wonder what it's like inside...

If we don't go in there... We can't do anything.

This is our only choice.

I'll give everything I have to support you in there, so...

If you're ready... let's go!

Interstice of Time

Huh!? Is this...!? This feeling...

Be careful, everyone! It's the Shadows!

I'm sensing multiple Shadows within! Everyone, please take battle positions!

So, our first area in the Abyss of Time is Malebolge, the 8th circle of hell from Dante's Inferno. It's a much more straightforward naming scheme for this place, I guess. Rather noticable is that Malebolge's design is a mixture of Thebel (purely due to asset reuse) and the dorm.

Anyway, since Aigis only has her guns for weapons we're pretty locked in to this ranged attack that has decent range and tracking. It's still not perfect since by the time things are on the edge of it is when they can spot you.

...And yes, that IS a Gold Shadow for our first possible encounter.

Needless to say, a Wealth Coin is ours from that and we can immediately see the stairs to the next floor. Although, calling them stairs is a bit generous when it looks more like a hell pit. Oddly appropriate, really.

Mass Destruction -FES-

So, the first time we get a fight, Metis can tell us about her Orgia Mode which is actually useful. Since Aigis can't use hers anymore (and nothing of value is lost), it's not really fair to compare the two.

But I'm doing it anyway. Aigis' was hot garbage that was never worth using. Metis' is incredibly, unfairly good... for random encounters. It has an increased duration compared to before and all skills are free! Why would you not use it against most Shadows? It's still not super great for bosses, but that's more due to The Answer having terrible boss fight design.

Well, that's not really fair. See, The Answer decides to make all of its fights as annoying and tedious as possible. Doesn't matter if its a random trash mob or not. Spurious Books aren't the best example, since they're straight forward enough. Nothing fancy here.

Corrupt Towers are a better example, between resisting 3/5s of our possible attacks at this point, along with Akihiko's magic and draining Yukari's only real contribution. Being weak to Expel doesn't help as much as you'd think right now since only Ken has Hama and low level Ken is awful.

Insidious Maya makes a point to be as irritating as it can be. It has enough HP to not get insta-got by Metis, weak to Ice isn't easy at all to take advantage of (until like level 27 getting Ice at all is a pain), Pulinpa and Panic Boost is an annoying combo though it still never hits, Dia is obviously irritating and Re Patra is just blatantly useless... at everything except being obnoxious.

Still not the worst of it, though.

Justice Sword is confused, I think. Wind weakness makes it relatively easy to drop, though nulling Slash and having Dodge Slash is bizarre. That this random sword has a Dodge passive isn't a great sign though...

And our final normal Shadow is the Wild Beast who has a tendency to come in packs of 4, and a single AOA can't kill them at this level. Great, fantastic. Tarukaja and Kill Rush is dangerous, and because Ken is our only (grind-free) source of instant death that's not as viable as it sounds.

I said final "normal" Shadow for a reason: red Shadows are back! And more annoying than ever!

Stoic Snakes always come in packs of 4 here and are awful to try and fight. Tentarafoo stops anything fun with Orgia Mode Fatal Ends, Spirit Drain serves to just be a resource hog and Mabufula is really genuinely dangerous at this level.

Still gonna kill everything we come across on principle, but that's not the point.

While we're here, let's talk about the Shuffle Time differences too for good measure. There's no Rank 1 minor arcana cards in the Abyss of Time. Wands, Cups and Coins are the same as before but Swords are different now. In addition to weapons, they can give armor and even accessories.

...You've probably also noticed that Empusa is just casually available here too. Because The Answer is a straight dungeon-crawler, there's no real way to unlock stuff like that so she's just always there.

But hey, what's this? Orpheus is also in Shuffle Time which makes one thing very clear:

There is no Compendium.

Combine that with no fusion EXP, because no Social Links, and everything (except Orpheus) being straight up identical to how it was in the Journey and suddenly just playing the game becomes a fucking grindy nightmare chore.

Especially with Shuffle Time being the only way to get new Persona for fusion fodder and that being completely random. And also the level scale is wacked out; we started at level 25. Malebolge starts its Persona at level 11 and go up to... 30.

That means that money is pretty much useless, despite it still being super plentiful. No social stat costs, no Compendium (which means no exorbitant Hard mode prices) and no point in buying any items early on since they're available as very common drops AND regular items in the Abyss too.

Not like we could buy anything even if we wanted to, though.

Interstice of Time

And that black shadow a moment ago...

I have a bad feeling about this. Please use caution when proceeding.

Eh, aside from being annoying, most fights still aren't really dangerous or anything. We'll be fine; they're just there to sap resources more than anything else right now.

There's plenty of stuff to get in the Abyss if you're lucky enough, but I'm not gonna go out of my way for anything. At least not right now, maybe later.

Just gonna give this to Akihiko since, why not? The name and description imply it's only wearable by the boys but nope.

Oh and Orpheus hits level 26 at some point and becomes useful. That's genuinely all we need to be able to potentially handle the boss fight.

...No, really, you can just straight up use Orpheus and nothing else through all of Malebolge and be fine.

Fuuka has very little to say for most floors, and on some she says nothing at all. We do at least get to see that shadow from before running away on the 7th floor.

I sensed something unusual run by just up ahead...

I wonder what it was... It seems to have gone down to a lower floor.

The seventh floor is a fixed floor, of course. It just has the save point you could see before, along with an Access Point - no terminal point for once. There's also the pit down to the 8th floor...

That Which Comes From The Darkness

Look, that strange presence is there too!

Sure enough, they're still around here too and just run off down a side path. We don't get much chance to follow though...

...Oh!

The reaction vanished...

Incoming Shadows! Please be careful!

Strength Immortal Gigas; Strength Visceral Maya x3

Master of Shadow

So, right out the gate let me just reiterate: I greatly dislike the fight design in The Answer. There are some good ideas... buried underneath some absurdly bad ones. Let's take a look at the Visceral Maya here for a second.

They're not much of a threat offensively, despite there being 3 of them.

They can use all three Physical elements, but that really doesn't matter much here.

They have 600HP each, are weak to Fire, resist Ice, Drain Elec and repel Slash and Strike.

Except, whoops, that weakness is mitigated by Dodge Fire. This is going to be a trend and it's super irritating. You might be thinking "oh just use Pierce attacks for crits instead" or something. No dice, they have Sharp Student for good measure. It makes how quick fights go not a question of preparation and planning but pure RNG.

Most boss fights are against 3 things (4 in this case, making it unique out of all the modern Persona games) and there's usually a weakness. And a Dodge skill for the same element. And almost every boss has Sharp Student. It takes a good idea, making it a question of whether or not you use an AOA against the large group, and then shoves it in a locker and steals its lunch money.

The Gigas isn't any better. He is at least actually dangerous what with also having Fatal End and a good Strength stat (29).

He has 800HP, is weak to Wind, resists Slash and Pierce, nulls Elec and repels Fire.

Really, once you drop the Gigas the fight is functionally over. He's the only thing approaching threatening, but is shut down pretty easily by Metis and/or Yukari. Provided they can hit him, I mean.

The Steel Right Arm is vendor trash. Its only use is to be sold.

End

Interstice of Time

......

Oh! There's a door up ahead...

Aigis! Can you investigate?

Don't worry, I'm certain that it's not dangerous. It'll just transport you somewhere else.

Sure, we can do that in a second but first...

We have our requisite post-boss loot to grab. Nice to see that hasn't changed, at least.

And on the opposite side, where that Shadow disappeared, there's another pit leading further down.

Worry about that later, though; first we have a new door to check out.

There's no Terminal, but this is the equivalent anyway. A midway checkpoint that comes after a boss fight, rather than before. It's inconvenient and annoying but at least it's something.

While we're here, I'm gonna swap Yukari out for Ken. No massive reason, but if the red Shadow works like it did before this might be prudent.

The Shadows seem different, too. Be careful...

Especially since the second part of Malebolge has a new aesthetic, which makes it super obvious things're gonna be different. Even if Fuuka didn't say as much. This time it's a more blatant palette swap of part of Tartarus, being a darker blue version of Yabbashah. Kinda disappointingly boring in comparison, yeah.

Mass Destruction -FES-

First of, as expected, there's Stoic Snakes just hanging around like normal. But what's here that wasn't before?

Magic Hands are the most boringly simple and straight forward enemy to date, if I'm being honest. Agilao drops them easily enough and then an AOA finishes the job, no big deal. They often come in packs of 5 though, so its pretty SP intensive.

Vicious Ravens aren't as threatening or annoying as they seem. Mostly because by this point Orgia Mode Fatal End deals ~200+ damage without critting. If it DOES get a turn, Double Fangs gives it some real bite though.

In theory, the Sky Balance could be possibly dangerous... to Yukari... ~25% of the time. In practice, it never gets a turn because while Ice is still uncommon, Fire is all over the place.

And lastly, we have the Creation Relic who is genuinely annoying and dangerous and only weak to Curse. That's quite a tricky thing to deal with when our best shot at exploiting it right now is grinding. Yaaaaay.

Those resistances and Diarama make for a very time-consuming combination otherwise. And then on later floors they start coming in pairs.

Interstice of Time

During our trip down this half of Malebolge, we find some new armor for Metis. Its description tells you its make from ceramic, which makes it clear this is referring to porcelain that is finished and hasn't been glazed.

Not much else of note, really, because the dungeons are still random and kinda garbage. At least on the 12th floor, Fuuka lets us know we're nearly done but she doesn't know where it ends exactly.

In this half is when we can start to gems again. This time, they come as random drops still but you can also find them in briefcases throughout the Abyss:

It's not exactly common, but it's there. At least that's technically one less thing that requires grinding to get. Sort of.

The fifteenth floor's the end of Malebolge and it sure looks... different.

Their Own Past

It seems like we've reached the first "goal."

This place was bigger than I thought. How many more times we gotta do this?

I don't know for sure.

But judging by the Desert of Doors, I'm betting it's not going to be just once or twice.

Judging by the Desert of Doors, it's going to be six. Six more times.

Ugh... I was afraid you'd say that.

Then all we can do is keep on going forward until the end...

It's like Tartarus all over again.

The two structures are very similar, in some ways.

Not only that, we've got the friggin' Shadows wandering around...

Geez... I never thought I'd have to see another one of those.

Another question that needs an answer... Though it's not like we can leave until we find out.

*sigh*

Hm...? What's wrong?

Ohhh, nothing... It's just...

After the hell we went through, we finally had some peace...

I was determined to keep my eyes on the future, and not look back.

Yukari...

Time doesn't flow normally here...

It's no surprise you feel that way.

What's that supposed to mean...?

Rather than answer this (and no-one even attempt to query how Metis knows this) she just walks towards the door and opens it.

Silence

But weren't we just inside...?

What's going on? Did we make it out somehow?

I dunno... Something seems off...

Isn't it kinda hot in here?

Kurosawa-san...

What're you doing out here on a weekday? Shouldn't you be in school?

Oh, but it's spring break now...

What's with those two in costume back there? Is there some sort of event going on...?

Uh, no... It's, um...

...Well, I'll let it slide. I know you kids are a little different.

Geez...

Could the June he mentioned be... June of last year?

That's impossible... Are you saying this is the past?

Hey, Aigis' Sister!

Are the things here that interesting to you...?

N-No, not at all.

It's all everyday stuff, right? This is a "fountain," and that over there is a "store"...

It's true that I sometimes come here to gaze at the fountain...

R-Really? Then you feel the same--

Tell me, what is this place?

...We came here by passing through a door, remember?

Then... this really is last year!?

How else can you explain the different time and season?

But it seems you can't go just anywhere in the past... Only somewhere from your memories.

So, this implies to me that we're not actually going into the past. We're just going into a recreation based on our memories. I don't think that's just me.