I already used my one Hiimdaisy joke so instead let's drag Junpei around everywhere
Alright, let's go.
THIS IS IT, LUIGI.
Just follow my lead.
: Whoah! Is that you, Senpai?
: I'll be providing audio backup from here on out.
: Wait... Ya mean, you can see inside here?
...Uh-huh.
: That's why outside support is imperative.
It changes whenever you're not looking at it, it's like the internet in Mega Man Battle Network.
: Now, based on your current location, you can expect to encounter enemies at any minute. They shouldn't be too tough, but proceed with caution. Practice makes perfect.
: Right!
: Got it.
Like...?
Persona 3 - "Tartarus_0d01" (Yes seriously.)
I'm not transcribing all these fucking tutorials. I can explain them better. She tells us to kill every enemy on the floor, which is how you know this is a tutorial.
The chests in this game are briefcases.
This one has Medicine, a basic healing item.
okay thanks
You can strike out with your weapon to attack an enemy before they notice you. Once we're out of the tutorial, if the enemy hasn't noticed you, you get a free turn if you do so.
!! IMPORTANT PORTABLE CHANGE !!
In Persona 3 FES, The Protagonist can use most weapon types in the game, except for two whose very categories are spoilers. This affected pre-combat strikes. In Portable, he is restricted to one handed swords, while FeMC is restricted to naginatas.
Persona 3 Portable - Wiping All Out
I get your concern, Mitsuru, but this is literally brain-dead.
I just go with a normal attack to conserve SP.
wait junpei what are you doing
I didn't tell him to do that.
Nor her that.
Close-up on Yukari's Not Great model. Whatever, it's fine.
Snuff Soul: Restores 50 SP to one ally.
Don't get used to seeing these. SP items, especially those you can use in combat, are rather uncommon.
Also, note the lack of something important? You don't get money by default for random encounters. This is less bad than it seems, but it's still, uh...annoying? We'll get into this later.
:
Don't go up yet, we can't have you grinding to Lv99 by bouncing Wakka's ball back at him.
There's another shadow this way.
Literally already went over this.
Instead, allow me to show you this.
You cannot directly control your allies. Instead, you can select AI patterns for them to follow, to varying degrees of success. Knowing what pattern to set them to is paramount to winning...or, it would be, except we're playing Persona 3 Portable.
!! IMPORTANT PORTABLE CHANGE !!
In Portable only, you can directly control your allies. This almost singlehandedly makes P3P
SO much better to play, to a ludicrous degree. Set this on immediately and never turn back.
Anyways, time to get into weaknesses.
: Orpheus!
Obviously, a weakness does more damage, but that's not what's important here.
Hitting an enemy with a weakness or a critical hit will knock them down. When an enemy is knocked down, you get a 1more, allowing another turn, on the spot.
This can happen to you, as well, so be careful.
Upon knocking every enemy down, a prompt will appear, from a random party member if you knocked them all down, or from the one who got the last knockdown otherwise.
This animation will play, known as an
All-Out Attack! It deals significant Almighty damage (meaning it cannot be resisted), based on the party's offensive stats.
This skull cloud will appear if an All-Out Attack ends the battle.
And a group victory shot.
Revival Bead: Restores unconscious party member to 50% HP.
Another chest.
ok thanks mitsuru
I
just talked about that, so let's instead talk about knockdowns in more detail.
A target who is knocked down will spend a turn getting back up. However, if they are attacked prior to that, they get back up immediately. What this means is that single target attacks are the best way to get All-Out Attacks, leaving group targeting skills pretty situational.
...Except...
!! IMPORTANT PORTABLE CHANGE !!
Persona 3 Portable changes knockdowns. When attacking a knocked-down enemy with an attack they're weak to or a critical hit, they are stunned. This will leave them knocked down for an additional turn. In exchange, knockdowns are cured without wasting a turn, unless afflicted with a status that would consume their turn either way such as Freeze.
Also, the above group-targeting thing is fixed. Your attacks will never make an enemy get back up, except for an All-Out Attack. Once again, this makes combat flow so,
so much better.
Yukari's AOA prompt.
?!
So remember what Igor was talking about earlier?
The cards will shuffle around, with the patterns being based on how many cards are present. It's pretty easy to get what you want as long as you're paying attention.
If you pick the Suit of Cups, some HP is restored to your party.
If you pick the Suit of Wands, your experience is multiplied.
If you pick the Persona, it is added to your stock. Currently we can hold six Personas, Orpheus included.
Cowardly Mayas won't always drop Snuff Souls, obviously, this is just for Tutorial Purposes.
Also, level ups! I'm not gonna show all the stat ups, since you can tell from the bars, and either way, stats by Level 99 are preset.
...oh yeah i haven't gone over their personas yet hold on
Yukari's Persona, Io, is named for one of Zeus's many baby mommas. Initially a priestess to Hera, Zeus transformed her into a cow to protect her from Hera. Hera then asked for the cow as a gift, and kept her under the watch of a hundred-eyed giant named Argus Panoptes.
Zeus called upon Hermes to distract Argus, freeing Io, but still leaving her as a cow. She was stuck in that form for a good long while.
The symbolism here should be fairly obvious, as Io is literally a humanshape woman chained to a cow's skull.
Yukari has the highest magic stat of the party, but her other stats all lay around average to below average. Her primary purposes are Wind-element Magic damage and being the party's best healer. Though she never gets passive multipliers for her Wind damage, her high Magic does keep her in the game.
Junpei's Persona, Hermes...was already mentioned. But, that's only a small portion of his history. Hermes was the messenger of the Gods, aided by his winged sandals that everyone and their mother wants in Terraria if they don't want to spend 3 days getting to the Dungeon. He's a patron of many things, including travelers, commerce, athletics, literature and poets, sometimes of healing and invention, even of thieves and liars.
This is not Hermes's first appearance in a Persona game, as he is also the Persona of Persona 2's Jun Kurosu. However, in that appearance, he covers some of Hermes's other traits, such as his Caduceus staff.
Junpei's stats are heavily leaned towards physical damage, with a side helping of endurance as well. While he learns Fire-element magic, his stats are definitely not tailored towards it, and should only be used for knockdowns. Throughout the game he learns a variety of physical attacks, but will end up without Pierce by the end of the game.
Anyways, moving on.
One more Medicine for the pile.
MEGAMAN! MEGAMAN! OKAY I GET IT MITSURU
...Okay, but this one is actually interesting.
See, asking Yukari for healing is a bit of a relic of FES.
!! IMPORTANT PORTABLE CHANGE !!
This was not true in FES. Originally, you would need to talk to Yukari on the map, and she would cast healing spells on the party, with no regard for SP costs.
Sanity prevails.
Similarly, even
armor and weapons couldn't be equipped from the menu, requiring you to talk to them. I honestly consider FES to be borderline incompetent at points, and this is part of why.
I've already gone over this, Mitsuru!
I've always found these lines funny, I don't know why.
Anyways, time to discuss the music playing. As you might have guessed, Wiping All Out is exclusive to playing as the Female Protagonist. Given my thoughts on Time and Way Of Life, you might think I like this song too, right?
Nope.
Not even close.
I
cannot stand Wiping All Out. Okay, perhaps that's harsh. What I hate the most is everything prior to the vocals starting, but since combat ends quickly, especially with Portable's faster pace,
that's what you're hearing most often.
The other factor about Wiping All Out I don't like is what it replaces. In the Male protagonist route, the battle theme is instead, this:
Persona 3 OST - Mass Destruction
Mass. Fucking. Destruction. Genuinely an incredible song. Lotus Juice outdoes himself here on the rap, and Shoji Meguro's funky beats are absolutely
aces. I cannot speak enough good about this fucking song, and Wiping All Out replacing it is inevitably going to cause some problems.
Anyways.
Sometimes, the cards will be shuffled like a 3-card monte. Again, if you pay attention, it's no big deal.
Another Persona obtained.
And another pair of Level Ups.
The floor is now empty. On the first night, you cannot grind. I was somewhat nervous, but it turned out fine.
Mitsuru will exposit at you about splitting up, a feature you will not and should not ever use, but if you try to move forward without doing so...
HEY MEGAMAN! YOU'RE A LITTLE LOW ON AIR!
So it goes.
Junpei.
You'll pay for this.
Something, something, the cognition is weak here.
Something of a sticking point for you, ah?
Anyways.
> No problem.
Good way to put it. Confidence is the first step to getting good at something.
Statistically, no you're not. We'll get into that later.
: You look pretty tired yourself, Yuka-tan.
: I'm still trying to catch my breath, actually...
We sure will.
Yay.
: At this rate, they'll catch up to you in no time, Akihiko.
: Heh, we'll see about that.
> You feel a bond forming between yourselves...
> ......!?
> You felt the power of your heart intensify, as if in reaction to the bond between your friends...
...I'm not gonna say it. I'm not...
Oh, come on! I can take 'em! Lemme at 'em!
Fine...
Let's check in on Igor again.
Wow, that's rather specific.
Social Links give an experience bonus when fusing Personas of the same Arcana, up to 5 additional levels at max rank.
I'm not gonna do that.
Yep. You can fuse away your starting Persona. Mmhmm.
Obligatory relevant Awkward Zombie comic.
So, if we Fuse using Orpheus, we can either get Apsaras, or...
A Persona we cannot fuse yet, as we can only make Personas up to our level.
If we start with Pixie, we could make Nekomata if we were Level 5.
We could also fuse all three together for something we won't be able to use for quite some time.
Anyways, here's Clock Healing. It doesn't gouge you anywhere near as much as The Fox in Persona 4, but it scales up fast.
...Oh, yeah, this is new to Portable. I'll explain the ramifications of it when I get to conditions.
Anyways, now we leave.
The next day...
> I'm all right.
It helps that I know exactly what I can and can't interact with.
...Eh...
I hope you mean "because of your ribs" and not...
Anyways.
as an ice-type, she's actually weak to aura
Goddamn family ties. What's next, are the family ties going to let her be the director while still being a student?
...oh.
This is a long-ass speech and I'm not formatting it so instead take the raw paste from the script dump
[f 0 5 -258][f 2 1][f 4 6 4 1 3 0][f 3 1 1 0 0 10]As I begin my term as Student Council[n]President, I'd like to share with you[n]my vision for this coming year.[n][f 1 3 -1][f 1 1][e]
[f 0 5 -258][f 2 1][f 3 1 1 0 0 11]It is my firm belief that each of us[n]must accept the responsibility of[n]bettering our school.[n][f 1 3 -1][f 1 1][e]
[f 0 5 -258][f 2 1][f 3 1 1 0 0 12]However, change cannot occur without[n]sustained effort and an unprecedented[n]level of commitment.[n][f 1 3 -1][f 1 1][e]
[f 0 5 -258][f 2 1][f 3 1 1 0 0 13]That is why we must restructure our[n]daily lives to accommodate this lofty goal.[n][f 1 3 -1][f 1 1][e]
[f 0 5 -258][f 2 1][f 3 1 1 0 0 14]I'd like each of you to dig deeply[n]into your well of motivation, and[n]re-evaluate your convictions...[n][f 1 3 -1][f 1 1][e]
[f 0 5 -258][f 2 1][f 3 1 1 0 0 15]...To imagine a bold new future[n]without losing sight of the realities[n]around you.[n][f 1 3 -1][f 1 1][e]
[f 0 5 -258][f 2 1][f 3 1 1 0 0 16]That is the key.[n][f 1 3 -1][f 1 1][e]
[f 0 5 -258][f 2 1][f 3 1 1 0 0 17]I am certain that many of you have[n]your own visions of the future...[n][f 1 3 -1][f 1 1][e]
[f 0 5 -258][f 2 1][f 3 1 1 0 0 18]For us to reap the full benefits of our[n]education, your participation, ideas,[n]and enthusiasm are essential.[n][f 1 3 -1][f 1 1][e]
[f 0 5 -258][f 2 1][f 3 1 1 0 0 19]Thank you.[n][f 1 3 -1][f 1 1][e]
Excited, but not raucus, applause.
Junpei...
> Of course I did!
: Sure didn't sound like somethin' a high schooler would say... If it was anyone else, we'd be laughin' our asses off.
I mean, it's Mitsuru.
Back in class..
: ...You know what? I'm tired of these textbooks. I just went over this novel in the last class. I've got a great poem we can cover instead. Close your textbooks, everyone, and listen.
Never sleep during class.
: You should be ashamed of ytourself, taking a nap while I pour my heart into reading this poem! For that, you get another essay along with your regular assignment tonight!
Harsh. Still, I guess he brought it on himself this time--
Huh?
This has happened before?!
It was worth it...It was worth it...
Anyways, we're free! We can take on a variety of activities in the normal outside world that allow us to build up our social stats or create Social Links! Doing an activity will immediately jump to Evening, however, as will returning to the dorm.
I don't plan on talking to people often, but I figure I might as well.
Sure, some other time.
I've just been eating less in general recently, in addition to exercising. My schedule has been largely nocturnal, which kinda sucks when classes are starting back up soon.
Oh, uh.
> Sure.
...I'm outta here.
Honey, you've got a big storm coming.
Please, love yourself.
...k.
I'm sure this will never come up again.
Cheating is bad.
i dont know why this one wasnt resized
We'll be here a lot.
...The color scheme implies it's later than it should be. Huh.
I like the visual of the generic girls literally having no face in this presentation.
: I mean, come on! You don't even see girls flock like that on TV! I wonder where they're going...
nor this one
: I... guess so...?
: I want the two of you to meet me at Pawlonia Mall. You know where it is, right? I'll be at the police station.
In a mall?
: ...Uh, are your friends gonna come along, too?
: Who, these girls? I don't even know their names. They talk so much they give me a headache.
Obligatory "is this a jojo reference?"
: Man, how can he not know their names?! I mean, seriously! Just look at them!
...Do
you know their names?
: Well, I guess we gotta go... Sheesh, talk about putting a damper on a guy's afternoon.
Oh, no. That's not his role.
That's
my role.
Now, we're supposed to head to Pawlonia Mall. My goal for today is something else, and we'll get free time afterwards.
But we're given the choice now. What happens if I go try it now?
...Oh. Oh, there's unique dialogue for everywhere we can go.
This is my revenge for that awful one-liner.
...And the sexism, I guess.
Everything you think is original in Persona is actually from a previous Persona game. No exceptions.
If I had more than 20 bucks on me I'd feed this cat some goddamn Filet Mignon.
He says this for the other place here as well.
Alright, I'm leaving.
Next stop, Naganaki Shrine.
...Seems rather empty over here.
An offering to the Kitsune guardian of the shrine, expected to talk with Inari on the worshipper's behalf. More important in Persona 4.
Hey, fuck you too, buddy.
No.
No.
Next.
I don't love octopus. Mostly it's the tentacles, usually they're a bit too crispy for me.
Most days, my one meal ends up being McDonalds, and I'm still losing weight.
Oh, jeez, termites? That's bad.
Just get fast food and take it with you if you're that hungry.
It's always candy time, motherfucker.
You brought this on yourself, asshole.
If you want my recommendation, read Gabriel Dropout. It's one of the funniest fucking things I've ever read.
We're at the mall, but that isn't stopping me.
Maybe later, then.
Okay.
You said it was next door.
Ehh...
Do you promise?
Didn't take you as the kind of person to be interested in antiques.
Nah.
Uh-uh.
Finally broke him.
Ah, dammit, I forgot to check what happens if you say to not enter.
Persona 3 - "Pawlonia Mall" (Album version)
: Oh, these are the guys I was talking about earlier.
: This is Officer Kurosawa. He helps keep our squad well-equipped.
Officer Kurosawa? Dammit, I already made my Love Live joke this update.
HELL YEAH FIFTY BUCKS
I mean, you can.
Of course.
ACAB.
If only more cops would break code like this.
Not much is right. These weapon upgrades are pathetic.
The armor is a bit better, and the accessories are quite nice, but I think I'll just take the 50 bucks and run.
: I'm gonna take off, since I'm in a bad mood now... Later.
Blame yourself for that one.
Anyways, back to the movie theater.
A new film shows up every month, and each one has different flavor text, as well as a different social stat boost.
...Will that pump up your brain? Maybe Gekkoukan has foreign languages besides English...
...Whatever works, I guess.
: Akihiko is still on the mend, so for now, I'd like you to lead the team. You never know when a powerful enemy might appear, like the one you faced the other day.
You mean almost two weeks ago at this point?
: It's best to be prepared, or else you may find yourself in a difficult situation. So, whenever you'd like to explore Tartarus, just let me know, and I'll gather everyone there. Also, since I'm sure there are other things you will need to take care of, You may go out at night if you need to.
Free already. However, you can only go to Pawlonia Mall at night.
Of the options that we passed over before, one of them was a back alley, which lets you access the Velvet Room in the daytime.
We'll get to this later.
Arcade time.
Staying until midnight, with school tomorrow? Damn.
THIRTY BUCKS? I guess if you're staying there all night, but jeez...
This makes more sense, I guess.
Next time:
Gotterdamerung.
: I just...put it to my head...and pull the trigger. No chickening out...
: If you want to proceed, please sign here. It's a contract. There's no need to be scared. It only binds you to accepting full responsibility for your actions.
: Don't tell me...
: Is it alright for her to be here?
: Uh, y-yeah... Nice to meet you too.
: Oh, I'll show you the way. Follow me.
: What are you talking about? ...C'mon, it's not funny.
: Okay. Then, let's go.
: About last night... Don't tell anyone what you saw, okay? 
: School just started! You really ougtta find somewhere to change into some normal clothes!
: Okay, okay, fine. Quit glaring at me like that... Hey, where's the homerooms posted...?
: Eh, whatever.
: We're their teachers. We've lived longer than them. But Moriyama and her gang had to pull that on me at the very beginning of the term...
: I'm sorry... I've been so busy, I didn't have time to read this beforehand.
: Such enthusiasm! We could use more go-getters like you.
: Did you ever think you might be bothering someone?
: Yeah, right. It has to be THEM. Otherwise, it's not worth my time.
: Good evening.
: "Ikutsuki"... Hard to say, isn't it? That's why I don't like introducing myself. Even I get tongue-tied sometimes...
: ...What the...? Wh...What's happening to me...?
: Does that mean... he's bringing that thing here!?
: Mr. Chairman! Let's suspend our observation for now. We'll prepare for battle!
: ...R-Right! Be careful!
: I'm alright. 
: Like I had a choice! What are you waiting for, Yukari? Go!
: Thou art I... And I am thou... From the sea of thy soul I cometh... I am Orpheus, master of strings.
: What on earth was that...?!
: And that wraps it up for the Stone Age. *sigh*... I'm tired of lessons about stones. I'd rather talk about the Sengoku era! Japanese history's not that exciting until then. Though I'm paid to do this, so I've gotta... It's tough being an adult.
face while I send it to my friends.
: Y-Yeah, of course I can!
