Part 20: 06/03/09: Arqa The Third Land (Part Two)

You'll notice that I very rarely actually bother resting early at night. It has a few small niche uses, but they don't come up overly often. I'll probably do it more often now that we have maxed out Courage and all, since there's no reason or benefit to stay Tired any more.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation) / Time



Hey, are you looking into that ghost story?
A little...
I know you're lying, man. As for me, I've got better things to do... I say just leave it to Yuka-tan.
Besides, I have plenty of scary stories up my sleeve.
I bet you pissed your pants when you heard that story the other night. They say it's true, though.



Today seems like a light and relaxing day, and it mostly is. Mostly. We'll be spending some time at Student Council stuff I guess, almost entirely so I don't forget it exists until way later.

That you can't find Hidetoshi hanging out anywhere to talk to instead somehow does that. I'unno.

Joy





After that weirdly ominous message, the nonspecific teacher up and leaves just moments before we enter on-screen. Sure.

Hey, what did he mean by "for both our sakes"? What's he talking about?
He just wants to create a better school environment, so he offered to help us.
Just like how the President asked Makoto-kun to join Student Council.
What!? You can't decide something like that without the President's permission!

> He is staring at Hidetoshi.

What happened?



...and th-that teacher wants us to look for the one who did it...

> Chihiro spoke in a hushed tone...



...Look. you have two choices. Either help out and prove you're trustworthy, or refuse and raise suspicion.

I think that's quite the false dichotomy you just presented there, Hidetoshi.

We sure have to deal with a lot of B.S. around here, don't we Makoto-kun?

> It seems like Hidetoshi is counting on you.

> Your relationship is stronger now!





And just like that, Hidetoshi walks off to... probably do some detective work or something.



Needless to say, the unimportant unnamed guy here takes umbrage with that.

...Teacher's pet!

> He chases after Hidetoshi.

Not really our problem though, especially if he's really all that unimaginative.



I-I better go tell the President...!

> You decided to go home.

Yeah, you go have fun with that I guess, Chihiro.

Iwatodai Dorm



We're just gonna go chill at the dorm for the time being.

It's so true... These girls came up to me and started talking about those rumors and...
...I got such a headache. Ugh, I can't wait until those rumors go away.



They're all just wasting their time.

I think if you talk to random folks around the school, they do mention stuff related to this. It's not particularly interesting or worth our time and effort really though.



No, I didn't.
That's what I thought. You seem like you're too busy to be bothered with ghost stories.

Yes, busy. That's it.



However, there is still no explanation for it.
So I believe it's worth researching. Please let me know what you find out.



However, experts predict that there won't be as much rain, leading to water shortages in the summer. For our next story...

We'll take another look at the Apathy Syndrome. There are now over 70 cases, and...

Let's see, right now we're running very close to a full moon and the deadline for one request is uncomfortably closer...

The Voice Someone Calls



So, back to Tartarus we go!



Also got these neat new shoes that give a whole buncha evasion. Thanks, Tanaka! Definitely gonna give these to, uh, Junpei? Yeah, sure, Junpei.



And a new piece of armor for Yukari, and only Yukari. It's not quite as defensive as the High-Cut Armor, but it doesn't have awkward cosmetic changes and it's not much worse. Apron it is!

tartarus_0d02



So, let's see if we can finish off Arqa this time around, yeah? Or at least most of what remains. We could probably come back once more before we run out of time for the Old Document if we really need to at least.



Apparently there are different Shadows as of the 27th floor, according to Mitsuru. There is exactly one new Shadow from this point and some of the low level chaff is removed so we have 5 less Shadows now than before, overall.



Dekaja in item-form is theoretically nice. It removes debuffs from the enemy, sure, but they have a short finite duration in this game, the AI isn't super great about remembering to refresh them when it's necessary and besides there aren't many buffs we can't counter otherwise anyway. Dekaja and Dekunda aren't super-great for once, but have their moments.



Sadly, there's not overly much new between the Crying Tables and our next pit stop along the way up Tartarus this time around.



That's not to say there's nothing of course. We can find some nice new things in the briefcases around here.



Like this, it's a decent armour upgrade for most people and this one rolled a +1 to Strength as its added effect. I'm gonna give this one to Akihiko.



Attack Items are kind of... not super great? Their damage keys off your active persona, so this one could be useful between Auto-Tarukaja and Ice Boost but it still wouldn't be all that great or anything. Later on I'll probably just sell these.



On the 30th floor, Mitsuru finally can tell that we have a boss fight some ways ahead. Since no one is even close to Tired yet, we should be able to get there pretty easily.



And even if we literally just get there and nothing else, I'm not sure I'd call this one a waste of time.



Powerful new bow for Yukari AND a chance to inflict Panic? She doesn't use her basic attack often or anything but this is still very nice.



Mitsuru, no. Wrong. Bad. That is the worst idea! Remember, you get Tired by the number of fights you do. 10 fights on this floor of Arqa (31) is the same as 10 fights on floor 2. Except worse because it's less worthwhile.



Speaking of worthwhile, hello there Little Golden Friend. Let's say hi!

Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out



With rare shadows, it's generally a good idea to know the turn order in advance. They always go first so if they stick around past there, you really want to not let them get a second chance to flee.



They're unscannable but whatever. As a rare shadow, they're weak to a random element and should be immune to Expel/Curse.



Not like it really matters though. Rare shadows generally follow a simple stat pattern: 99 Agility and Luck but 1 in everything else. Including Endurance. So a basic attack from anyone can effortlessly tear through them if it hits.



Treasure Coins are 100% worth getting here. The Wealth Coin was kind of relatively "eh" at 3000 yen but this is a major step up. Since they sell for 10,000. And we'll be leaving Tartarus today with 3 of these things.



Oh and the one actual new shadow is a Raven. They can cast Garula but that's not really a big deal. What is a big deal is that in FES they can use this:



This one's a bad example since it's Panicked but, uh, if it wasn't?



Yeah, that just did over 80 damage to Akihiko. With a Light Pierce attack. They didn't have Double Fangs in the original release, instead opting to have Dodge Pierce instead. This change makes them actually kinda threatening instead of an annoying inconvenience. I approve!

tartarus_0d02



Floor 33 puts us almost to the boss fight, it seems. I was going to snarkily say that the "estimate" is accurate because it's wrong but uh, no, it's not. Mitsuru is actually right; the fixed floor is floor 36 and I misremembered slighly.



There's four possible rare treasures in Arqa, and they're all equipment this time around. Three of them are exclusive to the area from floor 17-24 so once you hit the Crying Tables this is the only rare treasure you can find from then on.



It gives you Counter even if your Persona doesn't have it, which is something I guess? It sells for 4000 yen though, so I might end up doing that instead if we get another.



On floor 36 we have one shadow instead of three, huh? That's a bit weird but also worrying. The Rampage Drive in Thebel was by far the most dangerous thing in the block and he came alone...



This thing looks kind of like a statue, but don't let that deceive you...



Not because it's secretly made of paper or anything, oh no.

Empress Change Relic (Portable) (Portable Special)

Master of Tartarus / Danger Zone



So, fun fact about this fight. The Wiki in its infinite badness recommends being level 17 for this fight. That's ridiculous and would take forever; we're currently level 13 and have been fighting just about everything along the way. Yeaaaaaah.



Anyway, the Change Relic is very powerful and almost unfair in her strong meanness. We're gonna want to debuff her immediately and try to keep at least one buff or debuff active basically the entire fight if possible.



See, this is another fight that kind of hates Junpei for some reason. I don't know what it is about this guy but Tartarus really does not like him existing.



No, she doesn't resist Slash. She's just THAT durable. She has 20 Endurance which at this point is kind of a lot!



Akihiko right now is stronger than Junpei and Sonic Punch has a higher base damage than Cleave anyway (70 vs 30).



...It doesn't deal that much more damage, though.



So, the Change Relic is KINDA mean. She's not the first Shadow with mid-tier spells (Dancing Hands and Vicious Ravens have access to Bufula and Garula respectively, for example) but she is way, way stronger than either of them could pretend to be.



This is vs Neutral resistance following a Tarunda. Yes, really. I told you this fight hates Junpei and this is half of it.

The other half is that she has 22 Magic. Fucking hell.



Despite that, Yukari could probably solo this fight if that was an option. Probably. It still wouldn't be easy, but she's still gonna be stuck on healing duty here because the Siren's Song alone would not make this fast in a damage race.



Because, naturally, the Change Relic is immune to Wind. She also has no weaknesses, and nulls Expel and Curse, of course. I'm fairly sure she's immune to pretty much every ailment we would think of using right now. I'm sure there's one or two that might work but they likely wouldn't help much anyway.



Like so with the Shock. Junpei having Rakukaja kind of helps but if he's using it, that's realy a wasted turn of his.



Now, Shock IS kinda useful since it boosts our Crit rate and she CAN be critted giving us an AOA which is 100% worth taking in almost all situations here. Although if its Makoto who knocks her down and her turn is immediately after his then you pass on it, of course.



Anyway, the rest of her moveset is kind of mean and nasty too. Magarula is kinda sorta terrifying to consider for the most part.



The smallest of mercies with it is that she cannot get One Mores out of it (in vanilla/FES), because it's multi-target. I completely spaced on this before but a MT spell needs to hit every target's weakness for that to be possible.



Poison Mist is a thing that she'll either really like to spam or mostly ignore for a while. Neither is particularly ideal but a turn spent on this is a turn spent not almost certainly murdering someone.



She only has 10 Luck anyway, and it has a base 25% success rate, so it an work out really well. It can also lock you down superhard if it hits everyone.



So, remeber what I said before about her being a statue potentialy being deceptive? Yeah, uh, turns out Relics are secretly iron maidens. She "only" has 14 Strength which is something we can at least outdo without absurd grinding at least.

Speaking of which...



No, I'm not gonna do that, that's dumb. Instead, I'm gonna try out the weaker alternative. See, the wiki recommends going to level 17 because that's when you get a strong Persona that resists Wind (...you also get one at 15, for what it's worth; I even use Gurr in the Portable videos!). If you're gonna do that though, should just go a little further to 18 and grab the first that nulls Wind instead. Don't, though, that's dumb. Real dumb.



If you're a sensible person and think that level of batshit stupidity is too much (hi), it reommends Alp instead. That's ridiculous and wrong and let's see why.



Many people also recommend benching Junpei. More understandable beause his weakness can get you killed dead, but I still disagree.



So, Alp. This is without Tarunda but is on a Resistance. Yes, it takes the damage down from ~130 to ~100. Yukari meanwhile is over there taking like 15 at most. Alp sucks, fuck Alp.



Just in case you get too debuff happy as well, the Change Relic CAN cast Dekunda in some rare niche cases. Usually if you stack all 3 or if one wears off and there's another still active, but she doesn't do it often though.



The real main man I brought for this rodeo is one of the Grand Dukes of Hell, Berith. 16 Strength is likely the best we're gonna get here, and he can buff and debuff quite liberally. Double Fangs can help a bunch if you Rakunda the Relic early since it'll take off ~100 of her 850HP which saves a ton of time. Rebellion is also pretty nice for if you wanna go Crit Fishing, which I legitimately considered trying at one point (but didn't) just to save time.

(She also has 500SP, so don't bother trying to wait that out.)



Now, even with Neutral resistance to Wind and 15 Endurance, Berith is still not gonna make this fight a cakewalk. He's mostly gonna be running support, honestly.



So, most of the damage is gonna come from Aki and Junpei using their strengths to wear her down. Yukari is gonna focus on patching people up where she can and Makoto's gonna be throwing out debuffs mainly.



It doesn't add MUCH damage on any given hit, but it adds up pretty fast.



It's about a 25% damage increase from just Rakuda alone, which is pretty dang nice honestly.



Completely wrong gem to try and use, but it's also a Mid-Tier spell and she's Neutral to Fire so let's see how well this works!



Oh, that's... kinda underwhelming, really. Shoulda just used Double Fangs instead.



You'll notice that I'm playing real fast and loose here. I don't really bother curing the Poison right now since it's not worth the hassle. It saps our health really quick, sure, and when combined with Physical skills makes Yukari's healing somewhat less reliable but it's fine, we got this.



...There's really no point in holding onto these things, honestly. We're low on health, a Magarula now would kill everything except Yukari and we'll get plenty more anyway so whatever.



Oh, I forgot to mention that the Change Relic can be an annoyance and cast Rakukaja sometimes. Usually only starts when she gets below half health and will occasionally try and make sure it sticks around so she CAN waste turns if you immediately Rakunda afterwards.



When she gets low on health, she might also cast Dia. Normal, base Dia mercifully. It heals less than Akihiko and Junpei can do per round, so it's really not a big deal. It just drags things out a little big longer.



I probably spent way too long talking about this fight, but for my money the Change Relic might just be one of the more dangerous Tartarus bosses overall? She's super mean for when she's placed, could easily oneshot anyone if she really wanted you, your supplies are sort of dependant on luck with item drops and while she can be made pretty easy it requires either being super overlevelled or coming way later when you can replace Junpei with someone else. Who is probably going to be overlevelled for this fight anyway.

...The Coin of Queen is a Persona stat boost. +3 Agility, +2 Luck. It's kinda nice but Agility is, in my opinion, the least wortwhile stat so it could be way better.

End

tartarus_0d02



Now that the fight's over, we'll cure the poison, heal up and carry on. Could totally have ignored it, warped down to the 1st floor and then come back as good as new but uh... I kinda forgot.



Treasure here is sort of nice. The Soma is fantastic and is absolutely part of why I felt no shame in using a Bead Chain since this is way better.

Traesto Gem is nice but fairly eh. It's got its uses, but the Access Point usually isn't hard to find if you really want to get out anyway.



So, heading on up we go! We're still only level 13 just to give you an idea of how ridiculous that grind to level 17 would be.



We only see Shuffle Time persona upto level 14 at this point (hi Pyro Jack, I'd recognise your silhouette anywhere!) so we're firmly around where we're expected to be right now. We will hit 14 before leaving at least.



It happens the same time as Makoto finally gets Tired, which is... inconvenient but really not a big deal.



Especially since we're at the end of the block already. Huh. This was definitely longer than Thebel, sure, but we only had two boss fights.



Definitely not complaining, mind you. I'd rather this be the end than needing to faff around again on the 5th or 6th just to finish off the last few dregs.



I am beginning to see a bit of a trend with how these things go, though. If the 3rd block...



...when we can get into it... follows the trend, then I'll feel much more confident in it. Gotta wait to test that out, though.

The Poem For Everyone's Soul



You may be wondering how these documents ended up in such an unusual place...
I believe that answer lies within the tower.

That is a great non-answer, Liz.

Please accept your reward.



A 100% heal on revive is nice and all, but it really doesn't work out as equivalent to getting to the Old Document.



Oh well, level 14 means we can make Zouchouten, who kinda owns. Wouldn't have brought him to the Change Relic despite that though, thanks to that Wind weakness. Still 18 Strength + Assault Dive (reminder: base power of 90!) is kinda terrifying when coupled with Rakunda and that we have Berith and Yomotsu Shikome for Auto-Tarukaja purposes. He's definitely gonna see a lot of general combat use, I reckon.



Not right now, though. We'll stick with Berith for the time being since it's marginally quicker. Gonna run through Thebel solo to try and find something.



...Huh, found the little bastard on the first cycle immediately on the 4th floor. Totally okay with that!



Since we're here, we might as well finish up at least one of the two outstanding requests we have left.



It's a relatively quick one and honestly if I did these sooner, it might've made the Change Relic easier but meh. It can be a tedious pain to track down rare shadows.



That Shadow is very rare, so I'm sure the item was difficult to obtain.
This time, I have a special reward for you.
It may look like a toy, but I'm sure you'll find it useful.



This really is VERY useful!



As an added bonus, since this is part of a quest chain, we can go onto the second one already. Definitely gonna do that now, we are still in Tartarus and all...



But mainly just because these rewards are insanely useful, holy shit. I'm gonna hold onto this for now, but I will give it to Yukari later. For the moment, it's best in our hands.



...Also found this guy on the first run through Arqa. Definitely okay with that!



Yes, that was a basic attack while Tired. I know he has 1 Endurance but fuck me sideways nearly 400 damage is ludicrous right now.



We just need 1 of these, so we're done already too. Hurray!



Also grab this while on the way out. I totally forget to see if it's better than what we have or not though, oops.



The Treasure Hand is more difficult to defeat than the Wealth Hand, is it not?
I never thought you'd be able to fulfill this request.



See the Toy Bow above? Yeah, it's that but a 2h Sword this time. Definitely gonna give this to Junpei when we get the chance!



We can even see the 3rd quest in the chain already. We'll deal with this when we get access to the 3rd block, of course.



For now, we'll leave Tartarus and come back when we have a Pyro Jack to get that request done I guess. Until then, a full moon approaches but we have a decent chunk of downtime still. We should probably relax for a bit now.