Part 245: Tartarus

Welcome to the Velvet Room: The Tower That Ate People

Let's talk about Tartarus itself for a bit and how it works. Much like Gaul, it is divided into parts, called Blocks. According to the MegamiTensei wiki the names of the blocks come from the Kabbalah, which I consider plausible because they do sound like Hebrew words even though I can't find a better source on it. So far we've seen Thebel Block and Arqa Block. Each block has its own unique appearance and each adds to the base Tartarus theme we hear in Thebel.

Most of the floors of Tartarus are 'normal' floors, which are randomly generated each time they are entered and are generally approximately the same size as each other. They'll always contain a staircase to the next floor, usually contain an escape point to the entrance, and will contain some number of chests. There are a few special types of floors, though. Guardian floors have fixed layouts, one-time only fixed chests, access points that you can travel between, and a mini-boss that must be battled. Barrier floors are also fixed, they're small empty rooms that can't be passed until a certain day has passed that limit our progress in Tartarus. The third special floor occurs between the last Guardian of a section and the Barrier. These floors are like the normal floors but are much smaller and contain fewer Shadows.

Speaking of Shadows, of course there are three types of them on the field. Normal black Shadows, strong red Shadows, and gold Rare Shadows. Shadows will actually continually respawn on a floor as long as we return to cleared areas, but we can only stay on a floor so long before The Reaper arrives. The Reaper is a powerful enemy that will absolutely annihilate us until late in the game, and we'll talk about him more when it's time to fight him.

So, Fuuka will often inform us that accidents are going to be more common on a day. 'Accidents' are special conditions that normal levels can randomly contain. Let's talk about these for a bit on their own, because they each have their own wrinkles (and indeed some are positive in P3P).

Separation- Sometimes we'll enter a floor separated, sort of like what happened to us before the Emperor/Empress. We can call our party together as if we'd split, and that should always be our first order of business because being alone is bad news for everyone.

Empty Floor- Sometimes Fuuka won't detect any Shadows, which is very bad news. While it gives us time to search for items unopposed, we also have to be careful because The Reaper will arrive much faster than normal.

Many Shadows- Some floors have a lot more Shadows than normal. These Shadows will either all be normal, all be red, or all be rare. Unfortunately, the time for the Reaper to arrive will be shorter and all the Shuffle Time cards will be cursed to reduce it even more. The all-rare floors are really, really helpful when we want to do the quests to kill those, and the all red floors are good for experience while they last.

Improved Experience/Drops- These are new to Portable. Sometimes we'll just gain extra experience or more gems from kills on a floor. There's no downside, stay there as long as reasonable (though don't tempt The Reaper).

Dark Floor- This floor won't have an automap and has greatly reduced visibility. These are incredibly dangerous and you should get off of them as soon as possible, nothing more to say.

Mapped- Sometimes you'll just get the map for the whole floor for free. This is nice when it happens, since it lets you get through more quickly.

And now you know about Tartarus. And knowing is half the battle.