Persona 3 - Low Level Part 3: First Full Moon Event (Priestess)

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MoogleBoss

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Published on February 27, 2014 3:09:18 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg1B2TvQ2sI

Game:

Persona 3 (2006)

Duration: 7:58

2,645 views

40

Challenge playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c28XzFFSOOfN_E02Ybp1SK5

It's technically possible to face Rampage Drive in this challenge and there's no reason why you wouldn't do it immediately on a normal playthrough (i.e. Maniac without level restrictions), but the boss really does destroy me very quickly. Good thing nobody's put a timer on how soon I decide that it's time to progress through Tartarus. Usually I'll abstain if the rewards from Elizabeth aren't worth it and there's an unreasonable amount of farming to be done for questionable benefits (e.g. no access to a new sector with useful new treasure and enemies, namely the golden hands). This was certainly the case early on in the challenge.

The Tartarus bosses also provide miniscule amounts of experience, in contrast to the storyline bosses who do make for the majority of the levelling that takes place in this run. These levels are a huge deal, especially for MC whose list of Personas she could fuse extends considerably after every such battle. Of course the statistical increases in combat performance are nothing to ignore either.

The first full moon event features the first Arcana boss battle - against Priestess. The compendium becomes available the next day so I still have just two Personas - Pixie and the Angel that I fused out of Orpheus and Apsaras (the starting three Personas out of which everything in this challenge will be fused since I can't shuffle cards).

Since there are four mandatory battles against mooks out of which you emerge levelled up before the Priestess boss, I decided to show them too. My strategy for these is very simplistic - it's kinda how most of this game's random battling is done, or at least how I tend to do it (also applies to Persona 4 which does have different SP recovery specifics). Basically, the MC goes first and as such ends battles the soonest and the safest by running as many ways to penetrate weaknesses as possible. Though the party members can do the same and often about as well, if not slightly better sometimes, they're likely taking some blows before then (unless I'm patient enough to wait for the shadow to turn around, which is hardly often the case in non-challenge conditions), so MC's flexibility and first-turn uniqueness is what kills stuff for me.

So that's kinda the funny thing about this challenge - Tartarus navigation (especially in extreme conditions - e.g. splitting up members causes them to get caught and attacked when they're not significantly above the opposition in level as to induce fear in the shadows, Death showing up in the accident floors and so on) is unbelievably fun even though it can take ages to farm the right treasures in the right amounts, and the boss fighting becomes a lot more interesting with bosses' individual strengths and specifics very well pronounced because of my party's impotence. Extreme exploration and challenge over repetitive mook fighting and facerolling that is the outcome of that fighting.

P3P introduced skill cards, some of which you get as gifts (e.g. from Elizabeth) and some can be extracted from Personas while levelling them up (which happens mostly through Social Link exp bonuses). These make customising skills a little bit easier, as anything can be taught any skill if you have the card, and there's even an option to duplicate some rare cards (or re-fuse the monster that gets you the card).

By bringing a Juzumaru (rare greatsword for Junpei) to Liz for one request, I got the Maragi card, which is actually perfect for dealing with the mooks here - targets weaknesses everywhere and the rest can be finished off very easily. I duplicated it once or twice (nothing else to dupe at this point of the game), and it's not exactly a very contested item considering no bosses are fire-weak for a pretty long time. So it has the perfect application in this segment.

Some levelling will take place, and I try to feed Pixie exp to extract a Dia card from her (helpful for one request). Then there will be two random mooks that you can escape - getting a pre-emptive strike on the map ensures a 100% escape. The non-random mooks before them don't provide shuffle time or anything of the kind, sadly.

Finally, we fight Priestess at the end of it. Her attacks can actually hurt seeing how low our levels are, but this doesn't tend to happen often. She wastes a turn summoning two Muttering Tiaras, and since I fused Apsaras I can't Bufu them with an extra turn. The random MTs are also wind-weak but these ones apparently are not (?). Either way, they're best ignored as quickly attacking Priestess is the way to go not to find any unpleasant surprised later - Pixie uses Rakunda to lower defence, and then everybody just pummels the boss with their best attacks (switching to Angel again for Garu).

At the end of it, we get some much appreciated levels and the story progresses. About time.

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