Part 9: 4/24/09

4/24/09

Phew, I’m pretty beat.



Loud Student: You’re talking about the Apathy Syndrome, right? My neighbor has that… He grosses me out.
Sometimes I think I might have it too, and it depresses me.
Gossiping Student: Maybe you just need some exercise.
Hey, the athletic teams are accepting new members. Maybe I should join!
> The first bell has rung.

I headed down to the athletic fields after school to check things out. They’re over in an annex, and there was a weird tree outside on the way.



Female Student: Does it commemorate something?



> You wonder what kind of tree it is.

I wasn’t sure what team I should join, so I asked around a bit and people suggested volleyball, which sounded fun so I went along with it.



> A note on the door reads “Girls’ volleyball is now seeking new members! Newbies welcome! Come on in!”
> Would you like to join?

They’ve got a nice gym here.



She’s Aelita Tolstoy from class 2-F. Everybody be nice to her, okay?
Nice to meet you all!
Club Members: Nice to meet you too!
> This club seems to have a rather friendly atmosphere.
> At the very least, it seems that you’re welcome here…
Um, who was the leader for the juniors?
That would be me.
Oh, good. I’ll leave the rest to you. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do here anyway. * giggle *
…All right.
> Ms. Kanou left…
Short-Haired Member: “I don’t really know anything! Tee-hee!”
Tanned Member: Haaa! That sounds exactly like her. She’s too old to try to act cute like that.

The girl who’s in charge seems pretty cool, her name is Rio.



You’re Aelita-san, right? I’m Rio Iwasaki, a junior like you.
I’m in charge of the juniors in the club, so don’t hesitate to ask me anything.
This club meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We don’t meet for a few days before exams, so keep that in mind.
I’ll do my best.
Well then, we’re gonna concentrate on doing basic exercises today, so come on and join in.
Just keep up as much as you can.
Short-Haired Member: The basics again…?
I keep telling you all that the fundamentals are important! Let’s start off with some running.
Club Members: Alright…
Aelita-san, you stand in this line.
If you start getting worn out, just keep your mind focused and you’ll be able to pull through.
I’ll be all right!
Ahaha, you sound promising.
> You joined the girls’ volleyball club and met Rio Iwasaki, a junior like you…
> Rio seems to be taking her role in the club seriously…

This whole voice every time I make a friend thing is kind of annoying, I’m going to have to learn how to tune that out.



Well, let’s go. Front row, start us off!
Club Members: One, two…
> After running laps, you went through a series of muscle exercises…
> Then you diligently went through basic drills in serving and receiving.
> You decided to go back to the dorm after practice ended.

When I got back, Yukari was waiting for me.



Oh, that reminds me. Have you joined any clubs yet?
Yep.
Oh, yeah? That’s cool.
…You seem pretty talented, so I’m not surprised.
Oh, by the way, maybe we should go to Tartarus tonight…
With all The Lost, I think we should do anything we can to help…
Plus, I didn’t have practice today, so I could use the exercise…
Just don’t take it lightly, okay? It’s dangerous there.
I’m aware of that.

I actually agreed with Yukari that we should return to Tartarus, but that still left us a bunch of time until midnight. Akihiko’s climbing the walls on the sidelines, I feel bad for him but he’s got to rest and heal.



By the way, have you joined any clubs?
Sure have.
Good, I hope you enjoy it.
It’s tough to attend all the time, but you’ll really get a lot out of it if you do.

Yukari pointed out something worth worrying about, that we’ve all got weaknesses.



Let me rephrase that… WE don’t have weaknesses, our Personas do.
My Persona seems to be weak against electricity, but strong against wind.
* sigh * She’ll probably never learn any electricity skills…

Junpei had heard something about our equipment, I’ll have to check it out.



Equipping one of them will affect your status, dude!
I think only Persona-users can use them, though.

I think the news is trying to cover up how bad this whole Lost problem is, they were talking about some weird animal.



Newscaster: Our next story is about a strange animal from overseas.
It’s called... the platypus.
The platypus, an animal native to Australia, is an egg-laying mammal.
And behind the male platypus’ feet are poisonous spurs! What a strange animal!

Anyway, we headed back for Tartarus. Before we started, I hit the Velvet Room to try this ‘fusion’ Igor was talking about out.



Feinne’s Fourth Wall Lectures: Fusion Basics
As with any SMT game, our path to power in this is to jam a bunch of demons together in a mixer and unleash the frothy cocktail of power their combination creates. At the Velvet Room we’re able to fuse our Personas together into exciting new ones.



Here we can see all the Personas I currently have, their Arcana, their levels, and which other Personas they can validly fuse with.



When we select a Persona, we can see the results of Fusion with the rest of our stock. It’s quite simple how the game determines the results, actually. For two Personas of different Arcana, the first step is to look up the Arcana that results from the two ingredient Arcana. Then, you average the base levels of the two Personas (that is, the levels they come at by default). Your result Persona will be the one from the result Arcanum that is closest in level to that result and higher (unless there are no more Personas higher, in which case you will get the highest level Persona in the Arcanum).



I’ve been putting off Fusion until I had some Social Links so I could get the bonus experience. The experience rewarded is actually enough to reward a set number of levels, so it’s pretty awesome. I create Nekomata and a Chariot Persona named Ara Mitama here.



We’ll want them soon, because it helps our Social Links progress faster to have a Persona in our stock that is of the same Arcanum. Nekomata is also pretty awesome in general. That’s it for now, I’ll talk about more when we can really play around with Fusion.

It seems that guardian Shadow we fought was just going to be the first of many.



……
…There it is again!
I detect a powerful foe above you!
It’s still relatively far away, but be careful as you work your way upward.

The first new guardians we had to face were on the tenth floor.



Once again, you’ll be facing a new type of enemy, so stay alert.

It was some big, creepy hands.

Video- “Dancing Hands”

Watch



Boss Battle: Dancing Hand x 3
Okay, these are a tricky little fight. They’re vulnerable to Bash attacks, which we can only do with Skills right now because we don’t have a Bash party member. They also throw out a lot of magic that can be really threatening to the party, especially on Hard. Your best bet is to fuse Nekomata before the fight for two reasons. First, it’s not vulnerable to anything and that ensures you won’t be getting Downed on your main character. Second, it’s got the skill Provoke. This applies the Rage status to an enemy, which makes them take much more damage and forces them to only use normal attacks but also lets them attack twice. Dancing Hands are specifically vulnerable to Rage and it’s a great way to set them up to die horrible deaths one by one. Make sure you come in with some Revival Beads, though, because chances are you’ll see party members get dropped.

After we defeated the hands, we kept going. Mitsuru suggested that we could split up if we were feeling confident.



If you think you’re strong enough, you could split the party up and have everyone fight individually.
It might be a little risky, but everyone will gain experience quicker.
However, if the enemies are too tough, then it’s better to stick together.
Think carefully before you decide.

Mitsuru detected another strong presence on the fourteenth floor, and sure enough there was another guardian.



It’s relatively strong, so be cautious.

This one was a huge machine.

Video- “Rampage Drive”

Watch



Boss Battle: Rampage Drive
A particularly annoying little fight, this guy likes to use Mazio and physical attacks are mostly worthless against him. Yukari should just guard through the whole fight while you and Junpei wear him down with magic, it’ll be long and painful but it’ll get done eventually. Compared to the Dancing Hands this is pretty easy.

After that, we were all feeling tired. We’ll return another day and see what’s past floor fourteen, I’m sure it’ll wait for us.