Part 17: Shopping: Let Us Do Commerce
Gameplay Notes: Let Us Do Commerce
To have any chance of success in this game you're going to need to know how to get the best out of your money, and that's the focus of today's Gameplay Notes.
Money: Makes the Abyss Go Round
In order to be in a position of buying things, we obviously need money. Money is not terribly easy to come by in The Answer, though, so let's talk about our major sources of income. The most common source of cash is the Coins arcane in Shuffle Time. We can largely guarantee that we get a Shuffle Time and with practice reliably get the card we want, so that's one semi-reliable source of money. Chests in the Abyss are a bit less reliable but reward a lot more cash than Shuffle Time usually. Rare Shadows drop Coins when they die that can be sold for quite a lot of money. Also, every time we kill a Shadow boss we get some bits of its body that can be sold for huge cash. Chests will also rarely give us items that are valuable, and sometimes it's more worthwhile to take Swords cards and sell the resultant weapons. All of these sort of combine to try and leave you in a circumstance where you've got enough money to do stuff.
Gems: The Other Other Currency
Chests and Shadows will relatively commonly drop Gems. These are a Shin Megami Tensei tradition, and are used as a special currency. They can be traded for very valuable items. There's no real way to 'farm' for them, though, they're very random. You should have lots of them just from playing the game is the good thing. We'll talk about them when we get to the Antique Store in a bit.
The Police Station: Contributing To The Delinquency of Minors
We purchase weapons and armor from Officer Kurosawa in the police station. This is going to be where most of our money will end up. Every time we finish a door he'll have new, better stuff. I prioritize my upgrades as Aigis' weapon>weapons=Aigis' armor>Metis' armor>anyone else's armor. Aigis' weapons and armor are of course important for obvious reasons. Everyone else's weapons are also important, because having strong attacks that cost no SP is always good. Metis has higher armor priority than everyone else because armor she can use is very rare in the dungeon. You won't be able to buy everything you want, it's very expensive. You can usually get some good armor out of chests that will negate really needing to buy armor upgrades for human npcs.
Be Blue V: You Might Never Come In Here
Be Blue V sells accessories. They have very limited merchandise in The Answer, they mostly have items that give you the equivalent of Elemental Boost skills or stats. If you find yourself needing something it's worth remembering they're there I guess.
The Antique Store: We Sell Weird Stuff
The Antique Store is where you can go to trade your gems for awesome stuff. They have two main products. Incense Cards can be used to increase a Persona's stats. They are the face cards of the minor arcanas and will increase a Persona's stats permanently when used. You can also buy rare items with gems. This includes SP restoring items, items that prevent you being killed by Instant Death effects, and items that give the party buffs and reflective shields. We will be taking advantage of this, oh boy will we.
The Pharmacy: Are You Sure That's Not Prescription?
The Pharmacy is where we go to buy healing items and status curing items. We'll want to keep a good stock of healing items and Revival Beads early on, and we'll also want some Dis-Poisons and Dis-Charms. The party is actually pretty good at using these when they're needed, which is a refreshing change from vanilla Persona 3.
Remember, every day's great at the Paulownia Mall!
Mythology Fun Facts: Cocytus is the name of the lake of ice that makes up Hell's ninth layer in Dante's Inferno.
EDIT FUN FACTS:
This next update has 3/5 of my wipes in this whole LP!