Part 24: Let's Talk About Characters

Gameplay Notes: Let's Talk About Characters

I've never really talked about the pros and cons of different characters and the detailed thought process behind my team, so let's take a look at this.

Metis: The New Girl
Pros: Metis has no weakness, which makes her never be a real liability to the group. She's got one of the largest health pools of any party member and a strong defense. She's got the widest range of attacks, with Strike, Slash, Pierce, Wind, and Ice available to her when her Persona's maxed out. Her Attack is with Heavies, which are awesome. Neo Orgia Mode makes her do even more damage without spending any HP or SP and also take less damage from everything.
Cons: On some fights if you're not at a good level she can be left without an attack that's effective, and she's got no defensive support skills at all.
Feinne's Verdict: She's got the best offensive Persona not just in Persona 3 but also arguably Persona 4. Never a bad choice.

Yukari: The Rival
Pros: Yukari's weak against Lightning, which is incredibly rare to the point of near nonexistence on bosses in The Answer. Meanwhile she Nulls Wind, which is used by some of the harder boss Shadows. She's the only party member with group healing, and she's got powerful Wind magic as well. Her Attack is Pierce based and she can't stumble as a result of using it.
Cons: She's got one of the smallest health pools and just in general has flimsy defenses against nonmagical attacks.
Feinne's Verdict: Yukari is great in The Journey and she's great in The Answer. With Athena gone, she's got the uncontested best support Persona in The Answer. If you're not using her, you're going to need to focus much more on support for Aigis' Personas to make up for the loss of Media skills.

Mitsuru: The Mentor
Pros: Mitsuru Nulls Ice, which is very common on bosses. She's got a huge pool of health and very solid defenses. She's got very decent regular Attacks and the most powerful magical attacks in the game. She's also got the ability to heal and throw out some decent status effects on trash.
Cons: She's weak to Fire, which is a pretty common attack type for bosses. She suffers in the absence of Direct Command because the computer's not always great at using her abilities well (though it's much better in The Answer than it was in The Journey).
Feinne's Verdict: A very solid character, able to dish out incredible amounts of damage against anything that can be hit by her Bufudynes.

Junpei: Comic Relief
Pros: Junpei's immune to Fire, which is a common boss attack type. He continually regenerates health, which goes well with his physical attacks. He's got a lot of physical power and some party support buffs as well.
Cons: He's weak against Wind, which is less than ideal given that some of the nastiest Answer bosses use it. He's not quite got the breadth of skills Metis does.
Feinne's Verdict: Junpei's pretty tough and is certainly a viable option. A more offensive style than I usually play could definitely see a lot of use for Junpei.

Akihiko: The Fighter
Pros: Akihiko has a lot of great offensive support abilities and powerful lightning and physical attacks. He's pretty tough on defense and got a solid pool of health. His Strike Attacks have a very low stumble rate, which is good.
Cons: He's weak against Ice, which is a very common attack type for bosses.
Feinne's Verdict: Akihiko is a lot like Mitsuru in his role, but is more balanced overall. He's not as good at healing or doing magical damage, but is better at physical skills and has better support abilities. I use Mitsuru but one would be totally justified in swapping Akihiko for her.

Ken: The Kid
Pros: Ken's got a decent range of attack types open to him, though one of these types is totally useless on bosses. He's got healing and immunity to one type of instant death, and his weakness isn't elemental.
Cons: Ken is even flimsier than Yukari, and Hama attacks are actually very rare in The Answer.
Feinne's Verdict: I personally dislike Ken, but grudgingly admit he'd in theory be an awesome character because he's not weak against anything that any boss uses with any real frequency and uses Lightning attacks, which are a common boss weakness. A good character on paper harmed by the fact that I cannot stand him.

Koromaru: The Dog
Pros: Koro's also got a decent range of very powerful attacks, though again one type is useless on bosses. He's immune to Fire and Darkness, and again has no elemental weakness. He's got a massive pool of health and defenses second to none.
Cons: No support abilities at all, and Mudo attacks are also rare in The Answer.
Feinne's Verdict: I don't know why I don't use Koromaru because he's awesome. If there was someone I always feel like I should have maybe considered leveling up it's him, because he's an awesome dog with a knife in his mouth.

So when we build a party, we need to consider some things. Only Yukari has group healing at first, though by the end all four characters who can heal are at least decent at it. The other three characters can't heal at all. Our most solid all-around offensive character is probably Metis or Mitsuru. Akihiko, Koromaru, and Junpei are also able to put out some pretty decent numbers. Koromaru, Metis, and Mitsuru are the toughest characters we've got for the most part.

Honestly, though, you can probably beat this game with any party you like as long as you tailor Aigis' Personas to support the party's capability. Just play the game the way you like.