Troubled

Changing Seasons

Since she just did something, we'll spend the day with Yukari.



It is spending the day and nothing more, though. We'll get something out of this later, when we have the time.

Iwatodai Dorm

There's nothing on the telly for the first time in a while, and Koromaru doesn't even wanna go walkies. If it wasn't for the plot scene at the start of the day, today would've been quite possibly the shortest one to date.



At least Sunday's gonna be longer because we have a date lined up and ready to go.

When the Moon's Reaching Out Stars (Reincarnation)

Iwatodai Dorm

Akihiko blowing some minds with that reveal, I'm sure.





I don't believe for a second that Red Hawk would do that! There must be some Wacky Misunderstandings at play.



We'll see just how right I definitely am next Sunday. For now, let's take Koromaru out for a bit.

Joy

I will gladly take this +10 at this point. It'll let us rank up Mamoru whenever we bother dealing with him again. Probably sometime around the next exam, honestly.



But for now, we have more relevant stuff to contend with.

Changing Seasons

Joy

Troubled

Iwatodai Dorm

There's nothing of note at the dorm tonight, at all. I guess when Naoki Tanaka's the only thing of note on the news as well, we've got a pretty lax evening all around.



We're not off to Tartarus juuuust yet, though. Last night I nearly did, but we'll go another day before thinking about it.

Changing Seasons

Joy

Iwatodai Dorm

The Voice Someone Calls

So, uh, about the Laevateinn. It's good. The Outenta Mitsuyo is the strongest 2h sword available normally, without overlevelling, since it marginally beats out the Claymore. The Laevateinn just blows past it and does not look back. Its downside is that its accuracy is almost literally the worst. 83% hit rate puts it below almost every other weapon. There is only one thing below it. Yeesh.

But, hey, 340 attack power. There's only 3 two-handed swords that beat that, and the weakest requires that we're level 70 to obtain, for a power of 351. Just think about that for a moment.



So, we're bringing these folks with us today. The Laevateinn even looks pretty dang cool. Could make a second and give it to Makoto, but I'd really rather not do that. Variety and all.

Maya's Theme

So, anyway, before we go much higher up let's see just how absurd Junpei is right now.



Makoto with the Gae Bolg and over 60 Strength (thanks Surt) just barely fails to kill this Maya. At least the follow up will do it.



Junpei averages 400. With sub-40 strength. The Laevateinn's pretty good!



Anyway, up until floor 151 we're just repeating the same stuff from just before the three knights. This at least gives us some new things to beat up.

Mass Destruction

First up we have the Growth Relic which is pretty focussed and simple, honestly. It's still weak as all get out, though, and doesn't really manage to achieve much. Being weak to Strike is sorta interesting, I guess.



On the exact opposite side, we have the Conviction Sword which is so thoroughly boring that it's not even funny. Base Counter is weird considering it resists Slash and Pierce. Mighty Swing is pretty meh ST Slash at this point (220 power, which isn't bad... but we've seen better).



Wondrous Magus are amongst the most common random trash Shadows in the black and are very focused on hitting you with Ice. Matarukaja is weird since if they get the first strike, they'll cast Matarukaja. If there are multiple Magi they will all cast Matarukaja. Don't question it.



They drop Gold Rings right now, which is good because we want 3 of those for Elizabeth.



Regal Mothers are sorta annoyingly good at dodging, despite not having anything boosting that. Rakukaja being their only ST skill is an odd one. No Ice Boost is sorta weird, but I'm sure not complaining.

On the other hand, they're weak to Curse stuff so that's unfortunate.



You may or may not remember Hakurou Musha from the previous block, but they're hanging around now as normal shadows. They usually come with Conviction Sword buddies, which is pretty good EXP all told.



Minotaur III is yet another in the long line of an annoying fight that comes solo. He's mostly annoying because he has no weakness and still ahs the audacity to have over 1000 HP. Regenerate 2 is annoying, but he only gets back 47 HP from is so it doesn't matter that much.



And finally we have the Mighty Cyclops who is very determined to use MT spells to murder you. That he's weak to Fire despite that is interestingly unfortunate, and he only Drains Ice and nothing else. If he wasn't a laughably weak joke, this'd be a very dumb idea for him. As is, he just gets stabbed and dies.



So, hey, Suzaku learned Growth 3 in all that. Zhe Qu is the earliest that has this beautiful, beautiful thing (outside of skill changes which are very inconsistent). Every Persona you have that has this skill gains full EXP for a fight, even if they're not Makoto's active one at the end. I used Growth 2 to make it easier to get Narcissus' heart item but that's only 50% exp. I'll undoubtedly be spreading this around later to make it easier to get various things.

Maya's Theme

The boss fight this time around is a bit of a trek from the previous one, huh. Fuuka manages to find it on floor 154, which is pretty early for her. Good job, Fuuka.



Along the way, we manage to find a couple of these things. Shadow Crystals are items that are pure vendor trash, like various boss drops and the Golden Hand coins. These things sell for 100k a piece, and we have like 4 of 'em by the time we're done here.



Gigantic Armor has 94 Defense and we could buy it from the Police Station right now, if we really wanted to. This particular one ended up having Magic +3, so I'll be giving this to Mitsuru for now.



And then we made it to floor 160, and we have just the one Shadow again. Alright, so heading back for a moment then...

The Poem For Everyone's Soul

Oh, Elizabeth. The Wondrous Magus is absolute cannon fodder. I sure hope this wasn't meant to be challenging, because it wasn't. I'll gladly take 340,000 for something that simple, though.



So, hey, during that climb Makoto hit level 54. That means we can finally do something that's been sitting in the Quest tray for-loving-ever. But first, we're making Daisoujou, since this is the next Fusion request. Daisoujou's good, but he's made with the four Mitama and also Mithra for some reason. He has Growth 3 by default which is nice, but we're really after that Samsara skill he gets at level 56. It's a multi-target Expel elemental instant death spell. For reference, Mahamaon is one step below and has a base 40% chance for 24MP. Samsara costs 35MP and has an 80% hit rate, by default. Hama Boost is literally the only thing he's inheriting that matters at all because thats an extra 50% multiplier on its success.

Note that Daisoujou does learn Hama Boost regardless, but he learns it at level 59 so we'd need to level him up once beyond the S.Link's bonus EXP. That caps him out here at level 58 which just so happens to also be when he learns Null Dark. Welp, so much for that one weakness he had!

(Commu there is short for "Community" which is the Japanese name for Social Links. That'd require redrawing assets entirely to change so I can understand why it wasn't.)

The Space Badge is a pretty meh reward, since it just grants Regenerate 3. Really, though, Daisoujou is his own reward even if his role here is to just grant the first of the three best immediate fight enders.



Next fusion quest is to make Alice with a very specific skill, huh? This is a doddle in Portable thanks to skill cards, of course, but we might have to get a bit creative here. Still, she's level 56 so that's a little ways off yet.

Plus we already have Nebiros, so we'll need to get a Belial first if I know my SMT like I think I do!



...Also being level 54 means we could also make Thor. Thor was nice enough to spawn his Heart Item. Thanks, Thor. Like, sincerely, a lot.

Now that we have him, we can finally do that one Thunder Call request from like May/June-ish. This was a dumb decision to put this early in the quest line, yes.

Vicious Strike, by the way, is MT Strike damage with a base power of 340. Gigantic Fist at 315 was the strongest Strike attack we'd seen before now and that was only single target. The biggest downside to Vicious Strike is that it only has a 1% crit rate.



That's not saying much, though, so let's go beat up a professional wrestler.

Strength Mythical Gigas

Master of Tartarus

Oh, Fuuka. You're so wrong. So, so wrong.



The Mythical Gigas is really boring to fight. He has a few skills but he primarily uses his basic attack for some reason.



Occasionally he might remember to use Power Charge. In this case it was his like third turn and also his last. The other two were basic attacks. How dull.



Since we have Thor, I bought a Take-Mikazuchi to fry this dude.



The animation is kinda boring, honestly. It's just a bunch of thunder drums that have a tomoe on them, like normal. Makes sense for thunder gods, and all, but that's it. That's all this skill is.



On the plus side, it does a decent amount of Elec damage (base power of 320) and has a 100% Shock rate. That 791 is without Rakunda in play, for the record. It is from boost/amp and Mind Charge, though.

He has 2100HP by the way, so uh... yeah. Pretty dang good.



Just in case you forgot that this is Tartarus and Tartarus hates Junpei, the Gigas resists Slash, reflects Strike and is immune to Pierce damage entirely. Fire is his only other elemental resistance and he drains it.

He does have skills that aren't Power Charge, like a Maragidyne to put his amazing 14 Magic to good use, but the fight is such a nothing anticlimax that you'll probably neither notice nor care anyway.

End

Maya's Theme

We'll pick up our requisite Soma and also other thing, and just keep on keepin' on.



The usual thing happens now, where there's barely anything around and floors are small for a bit.

...And then we make it to the top of Tartarus, on what would be floor 164. Well, I guess we did it. We made it to the end of the one dungeon. Appropriate that much like the Gigas it's just a bland thing that happens, really.



Let's just grab the final document while we're here. Gotta show this to Elizabeth sooner or later.



...But not before we read it first, of course.

The Poem For Everyone's Soul

Getting a Magatama isn't all that impressive, honestly. It's basically just like the Gems we can find all over Tartarus. This is Severe ST Elec damage, for reference, which in theory means it has a base power of 500 or 600. This is balanced out by this being the only one we'll ever get, outside of repeating this one quest in NG+. Because fusion quests don't exsit in Portable, for obvious reasons, this item ends up being exclusive to the FES release of the game. I guess that's something?



...And now we can clear out a fair few of these in rapid succession for new armor. I'll probably just keep it equipped for the rest of the game (at least on Makoto). Naturally we need Black Frost and King Frost for this one.

why is this after thunder call what the hell game



It just drops a giant snowman friend on all enemies! It has a base power of 149 and occasionally inflicts Freeze. It's alright, but the giant Jack Frost snowman is what makes it important.

So from this point on, we get the Summer outfits for most of the cast. Sweet! Koromaru, of course, doesn't have one and we can just buy Ken and Aigis' from the police station whenever. We still get these from requests in Portable, just different earlier ones. Their defense is thus reduced to compensate, but they have +HP effects added.



Next up we have a, uh... a skill that literally just references Nocturne in its requirements. Gotta have Forneus and Decarabia for this one. Forneus was the first boss in Nocturne and after murdering his rear end you could find a Decarabia chilling out in Shibuya waiting for him.



The Summer Outfits are pretty alright for defense, even though they have no added bonuses here. Note that only Makoto's is 95 though; the rest are all 85.



But they give everyone their cool casual summer clothes. Literally no reason to not use them, let's be honest.



Best Friends is very simple, but I can't complain about its effect. It's Rakukaja, Sukukaja and Tarukaja all rolled into one for the usual 15% SP. Not quite how I expected to give out some RaSuTa Candy, but it's alright. Better in Portable where its an item, of course. Nothing else to this one.

So, uh, what's next then?



Ah, a Midsummer Night's Dream. Of course. Naturally this requires Oberon and Titania.

what even is this order why has the highest level required gone DOWN again



Summer Dream sucks, by the way. Oracle is mostly good on paper but still kinda trash in practice. Summer Dream is flatout worse. It has 8 random effects and only 2 are beneficial.



It can fully restore all of your HP and SP.
It can fully restore all the enemies HP and SP.
It can do both, basically resetting the fight.



It can gently caress you over like it did here and knock down your party.
It can knock down the enemies instead (unless they're immune, of course).
It can knock down everyone wasting a turn entirely.
It can give everyone a random ailment, which is different for each target.
It can have no effect whatsoever, so that's SP well spent.

gently caress Summer Dream. Use it on the second floor for this quest and then never again. If this wasn't gating off more fashion and also eventually one of the best quest rewards, I wouldn't even touch it.

At least these skills can just go up from here. Next up we have...



Incubus and Succubus. Once again, the level requirement has decreased from the previous skill.



It inflicts Charm on every enemy. It's pretty good, but of course it's not perfect. If Succubus wasn't so outdated at this point, it might see more general use. If only it didn't cost the usual 15% SP.

Just one more Summer Outfit to go. Let's see what lower-than-Thor personae we need this time.



...Oh. We, uh, we can't do this one yet. I know, I'm shocked too. We gotta get to level 59 for this! Also, y'know, there's other requirements too but that's not the point.

Nothing else we can do here right now, so we're finally done for the night. Just a few days remaining before the final battle...

The Voice Someone Calls

Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Jul 3, 2018

When the Moon's Reaching Out Stars (Reincarnation)

This sure is still a thing that is happening. It's kind of amazing, honestly.



Anyway, my napkin math says we should talk to Yuko sooner or later. So, uh, let's do it now. Sure.

Joy

Iwatodai Dorm

Akihiko, we just went to Tartarus last night. Akihiko, you were there. You're level 50!



Needless to say, we weren't going to go to Tartarus last night unless it ended up being absolutely necessary.

Changing Seasons

For what it's worth, the real legal drinking age in Japan is 20.



Anyway, uh, we did just reset that pesky time limit thing so let's spend the afternoon with Yukari. Mostly because Yuko's not available today.

Troubled

Crisis

Troubled

Iwatodai Dorm

Basically four at this point, though. The day's pretty much over.



The only thing that's new in the dorm is that Lisa's back on the TV.

Changing Seasons

Whew boy, okay. So, before we do anything else...



We'll go and pick up this thing, I guess.



It's significantly stronger than the Gae Bolg, sure, but the accuracy hit is pretty bad. We'll give it a shot at some point, I guess, though. The Elec Boost isn't super-great in this instance, but it still has its uses.



Anyway, let's go back to Student Council. This is important.

Joy

The Path is Open

Joy

Iwatodai Dorm

Just a shame there's nothing at all in the dorm tonight.

Now that we're halfway through the final run-up to the full moon, we'll take a brief respite here. See y'all on the other side.

Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Apr 8, 2018

Drakenel fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Mar 9, 2018