Part 241: Akihiko in P3P

Welcome to the Velvet Room: Kick, Punch, It's All In The Mind

Now let's talk about Akihiko, a major beneficiary of the changes in P3P.

Physical Offense: Good. Akihiko's got an above average Strength stat and his normal attacks are some of the most accurate in the game. He does, however, suffer from somewhat inferior damage output with his regular attacks until he gets his Fist Master skill.

Magical Offense: Good. Akihiko's also got an above average Magic stat, and paired with Elec. Boost/Elec. Amp he can dish out some pretty impressive damage with his Zio skills. He's still not able to match the true master of magical damage or the main character with a good Persona, but whenever Zio is the right call so is Akihiko.

Defense: Okay. He's got the same Endurance stat as most of the party, so he's neither particularly vulnerable nor resilient.

HP: Good. Akihiko gets a pretty good pool of HP for his level, never a bad thing.

SP: Average. Akihiko's SP pool is alright but not great, and running dry in the long haul can be a problem for him if he's got to use his skills frequently.

Skillset: One of the best in the game by far. He's got strong electrical attacks backed by boosting skills, solid single target strike, single target healing, and the all-important debuff skills. The only downside of his is that there is a level range where he has only his multi-target debuffs and a relatively low SP pool, which makes it inefficient to use them on things like boss fights.

Elemental Properties: He's resistant to Lightning and vulnerable to Ice. Lightning is a super common enemy elemental type while Ice is relatively rare, so this is net pretty good.

So, Direct Command is a pretty huge gain for Akihiko. The AI had a lot of problems intelligently using his mix of offense and support, but the player can carefully choose when to attack, when to debuff, and when to heal. As OFS noted, one major downside of his skillset is that he only does two things (though this isn't rare among our party members in P3 so it's not something to really hold against him). I'll also note that given the frequency of Zio as a weakness, the utility of debuffs, and his relatively small SP pool he's almost always going to be your first party member to run dry when in Tartarus. It's not too hard to deal with but it's definitely something to keep in mind.

Final Assessment: One of the best characters for sure. For the debuffs alone he'd be worth it, but he also brings powerful damage and good single target healing. You can feel entirely comfortable using him from now until the end of the game.