How bad can I screw this up?

I've never been a terrifically big fan of RPGs or other games that impose a time limit on you (and I'm assuming that the end of the school year will be the end of the game). I just unlocked the sports clubs in the first week or so of game time, and I'm assuming that I'll get a job sometime soon as well. It seems like there's going to be a lot of side activity stuff, and I always get a bit anxious about trying to balance all the crap I'm allowed to do without totally boning my character in some way or another. I assume that if I do a different activity every day, things'll work out OK (on normal difficulty), but should I be going into the TV every time I possibly can or something? It seems like that's obviously the most important thing to do, but there's a fuckton of other confusing stuff that's popped up for me, so I guess I have no idea what's going on basically. Basically no idea.

Dont worry you can finish all social links after finishing the game with NG+. no rush basically

@rorie: If you are not sure if you can beat these dungeons go on rainy days until you have beaten them. normally the last few days of rain should be enough to finish a dungeon since you also get stronger with forming your social bonds as well.

Also do not worry about messing up the worst that can happen is that you go back a week in time.

Also, since you don't like the time limit, I'd just knock out getting into the TV and doing dungeons as soon as you are able to go in, and then focus on social links after you finish a dungeon until the three days of rain hits.

The best way to play the Persona games is not to worry too much. You can get all compulsive and try and do everything you can but that's not really fun. The game gives you plenty of time to beat the dungeons. There's always a solid week of pure rain before the time is up which gives you plenty of time even if you haven't entered the tv yet. There's nothing you can do when it rains (Besides some knowledge / courage boosts), so it's the games way of saying "Yo dude, here's plenty of time to beat this dungeon. Don't be an idiot." So my advice is to just not think about it very hard. The game is a blast if you just go with the flow and enjoy it.

The one exception may be getting the "true" ending because it's a little obscure, but that is the only thing that I ever looked up on the Internet for Persona, and I enjoyed the hell out of the game.

The game gives you enough leeway so you can basically waste a whole month and still come out on top. Just don't not do anything when given the chance I guess. Also, I usually dedicate the first week of a new dungeon opening up to finishing that dungeon. But do whatever you want, a guide isn't required unless you just want to do a perfect playthrough.

It's almost impossible to "screw up" unless you completely neglect going into the TV. You definitely should not go every day though. There are advantages to getting it done early, but there are also advantages to waiting. As long as you leave enough time that you know you can finish a dungeon then you're fine.

The S. Links you do are pretty much completely up to you. There is obviously an "optimal" way to do it, but it's very very unnecessary to beat the game. Best to just do what you want when you want, you'll likely have more fun. Party member S. Links are slightly more important since you get combat benefits for raising them, but not so important that you should do them over anything else.

But yeah, the time limit is pretty lenient. You have plenty of time to do anything you need to do and still screw around.

Also since you're playing Golden, the game was extended a bit. You'll have a lot more time to do things in this version. Another reason not to sweat it so much.

@rorie: Keeping in mind I watched the Endurance Run but do not own the game. There are a few more or less "forced go into the TV" sequences early on. After that, I wouldn't go in at every opportunity, as you could actually do that nearly every day, meaning you would never make time for any school clubs or friends. Go do the social link stuff you think looks fun or interesting, but on rainy days, A) a bunch of social stuff can't occur because it's raining, and B) the monsters are arbitrarily stronger in dungeons, so I think you get more XP so they're good days to head into the dungeon and get some levels.

The game does its best to telegraph the "deadline" for each dungeon with a big bunch of rain in the forecast, after which there's fog, I believe? When you see that coming up, try to finish your current dungeon before the big batch of fog, as if you reach the fog it's pretty much "oh noes, you didn't save that person". I believe you should've encountered a plot example already of "bunch of fog means somebody died".

Hope that wasn't too basic, but it sounds like you're asking about the basic structure of the game just to wrap your head around it.

Alright, thanks for the tips. Hopefully I'll manage to take some time away from Spelunky to play this. Especially since that tunnel guy wants me to bring him a shotgun. Unlikely!

@5socks5 said:

I suppose that's true. It's a very very long time until that comes into play, but the requirements to get the better endings are weirdly strict compared to the rest of the game. Although it's not like some games where you can make a bad choice early on and screw yourself over many hours later. It's basically just picking the right dialogue options in the moment, so if you did screw up a simple reload would let you continue.

Youll get back as much as you put in basically. You dont need to concern yourself with social stuff. ANY social stuff you get doesnt really add anything to the actual min/max style gameplay except for about 12 personae at the end. At least in P4G, they've streamlined it a bit and added a few casual concessions so that people can do a lot more social stuff.

You can pretty much finish every dungeon in one day. The only exception would be the very first one (still possible, but trickier. Do it in two instead). So only do those one raint days.

Regarding side activities: don't worry to much. Keep S-linking and study for exams. Popularity leads to intimacy

Well let's put it this way: I beat every single dungeon in the game on the first possible day you could, leaving all the extra days while your rescued crew member is healing, to advance my social links and other extra stuff. If you can pull that off, you should be able to do everything quite comfortably. If not, there is a bigger balancing act required, such as whether you should grind or spend a day with friends. Both can be beneficial, but the faster you can beat a dungeon the more free time you have to do other things, which in turn helps you become better prepared for the following dungeon in terms of social link stuff.

I don't think that's quite accurate. Technically you could beat the game without ever doing anything but the mandatory S. Links, but the ones you do raise absolutely make a difference. Especially party member S. Links, but even the basic exp bonus from any S. Link can turn a useless Persona into a useful one.

The first dungeon is the toughest, but every dungeon can be cleared within 1 day of game-time, especially on normal. If you are really worried about it, go as soon as the dungeon becomes available and beat it to get it out of the way before moving on to do other stuff.

Also as soon as you can, go to the vending machine outside of the Shiroku store and buy 5 TaP Sodas every week. They are the cheapest form of SP recovery in the game and will save your butt, especially during the early going.

One of the biggest mistakes I've seen people make when jumping into these games for the first time is trying to play too "optimally". You can beat a dungeon in one day, and if you do then that's great, but I highly recommend not trying to force it. Even if you are confident you can but are simply tired of dungeon crawling then take a break and finish it another day. A big advantage to the format of the game is that you have a pretty good amount of freedom to decide when you want to go dungeon crawling and when you want to do other stuff. I've seen more than a few people talk about getting burned out on the game because they think if they're not doing a dungeon as fast as possible then they're playing wrong, which is not true.

Remember: don't get high and spend the entire afternoon turning the crank on a capsule machine.

The game generally gives you too many days and a bunch of ones where you have nothing in particular to do. You can use those to grind if you want.

Though with some strategy and planning you can get away with minimal TV-World entering. I probably only went in there twice every month. One to beat the dungeon, and one for the boss. That left me with a bunch of empty days of just eating noodles alone though.... :C

SHAEK EET BAYBEEH

@ripelivejam said:

COULD YOU IMAGINE THE STEP?

Other than the first couple of visits, I finished every dungeon on the day it became available. Just pay Fox once you're running low on MP, and make sure to have plenty of Go Home's. I think it's close to impossible to finish every Social link on a first run through, at least in the original game, so focus on the ones you care about.

I never felt like I was in a time crunch. The game just kind of flowed naturally.

@rorie: Don't stress about the time constraint, it's pretty hard to fuck up. Just try to clear the dungeons in 1 day if possible.

If you wait too long to finish a dumgeon and the person inside dies, you'll get sent back 5 days. Enough time to get through. Rainy days are good for dungeon crawling, so go then. I think the only dungeon that you don't have tons of time to do is Yukiko's.

Otherwise, try to do something with every time period the game gives you and you'll be fine as far as Social Links and stuff goes.

Also, if you really need experience in a pinch, go to an earlier dungeon and kill golden hands.

EDIT: Also, there are a lot of people suggesting that you finish dungeons in one go or as quickly as possible.

If you do not want to do that, don't. You have plenty of time to finish dungeons, and if you're getting bored of dungeons then you should take a few days in the game to social link or eat steak bowls or study or whatever. It will be easy to get burned out on the game if you find yourself doing those dungeons in one go. I imagine you would also burn through resources pretty quick, too, so there's another reason to leave dungeons once you're out of SP and kinda tired of it.

Yukiko's dungeon is, from what I know, the only exception, they don't give you tons of time to finish that dungeon. I guess the thinking was that people would want to dungeon crawl more in the beginning of the game or something.

Spend all your time fusing. You'll be alright.

Some random tips:

• Use Yosuke. He's an allround awesome character.
• Don't sweat time management too much. The game can be played pretty casually. If you do want to 'play the game right':
  • Try to get new dungeons cleared quickly. The first dungeon might take a few days (though it can be done in one day), but later on it's pretty easy to clear dungeons in a day. This frees up time to hang out with people, and makes more people available for hanging out.
  • Raising your SLink with team mates provides the biggest benefits. Luckily, they also tend to be available a lot.
  • Beware the summer holiday. I'm not sure how much they tweaked this aspect in Golden, but in the original game several SLinks weren't available during summer (sport club, drama club, ...?). There was also a quest required to progress in another SLink, which couldn't be completed in summer. Getting that quest out of the way before summer helps a lot.
• Yosuke is your brosuke.

Trust me, you don't even want to know what the asshole wants next

@rorie

It seems like there's going to be a lot of side activity stuff, and I always get a bit anxious about trying to balance all the crap I'm allowed to do without totally boning my character in some way or another.

Social links are very important, they are the main component of the game. In fact, you automatically level up your Personas during fusion based on the rank of your corresponding social links.

I assume that if I do a different activity every day, things'll work out OK (on normal difficulty), but should I be going into the TV every time I possibly can or something?

I'd normally go in once or twice after the kidnapping, during rainy days just before the fog comes in. It's game over if you didn't manage to rescue the hostage before the fog sets in. I'd stock up on Goho-m, SP refilling items (before you meet the character that can refill your SP), and items to revive your party.

It seems like that's obviously the most important thing to do, but there's a fuckton of other confusing stuff that's popped up for me, so I guess I have no idea what's going on basically. Basically no idea.

Have fun on your first play through, there's no need (and it's very difficult) to max out all social links in the first play through. There's new game plus later on which allows you to bring over your personal stats (Knowledge, Courage, etc), change difficulty on the fly (which includes the amount of money and exp earned), however Social Links are not carried over though.

And probably you'd miss the additional epilogue on your first play through. You can fast forward a lot of stuff in your new game plus later on.

The most important part is to name your main character Charlie Tunoku.

Personally I always knock out a dungeon on the first go since it wastes a day if I don't. The only problem with this is that I end up in the dungeon for three or four hours at a time which is super boring.

@rorie All of the advice here is pretty sound. You should just play how you want, you can't really screw up that much. My advice to you is save going into the TV for rainy days. Most social links and other things are not available when it's raining. Feel free to check out a dungeon on the first day if you want and if you feel like it's too hard, set aside another day or two to catch up. As they tell you in the game, social links are equally if not more important than hanging out in the TV.

And remember, popularity leads to intimacy.

I always try and complete a dungeon whenever it's first available. This gives me time then to concentrate on building social links/skills while waiting for the next story beat to happen.

Watch the ER and do exactly what they do.

God Speed.

Yeah to echo the others, just defintely be ready to go and finish a dungeon before the last three rain days. Social links will make you stronger so just being ready to push through at the end is about the only important thing.

Also a little side tip: don't feel like you have to fight every enemy in a dungeon (because you don't). It'll conserve your SP.

I always took on dungeons close to the final week, because you have a lot of money from jobs to spend on gear and have furthered your Social Links as far as possible at that point, both of which make the dungeons easier. You might also want to go through the dungeons a few times for vendor trash, because that's how you unlock stronger equipment to purchase. It's not a big deal though. I would suggest taking the occasional rainy day off to go explore any new dungeons that pop up, because besides the (expensive) meat bowl special there's not a whole lot else to do when it's raining cats and puppies.

As for putting up your non-combat stats, focus on studying first to increase Knowledge and then do the rest through part-time jobs (which also has the benefit of giving you more money - I recommend origami folding, because Understanding is useful) and then meat bowl specials if there's a rainy day where don't need to go into the TV (maybe because someone's already been rescued) and can afford it. You need to maximize your Courage, Knowledge and Understanding for a couple of Social Links, but everything else can be leveled up whenever (if at all). No rush.

I've not played Golden, so I have no idea how much more lenient it is. Either way, it's really not worth the stress to play the game "perfectly": I feel it's the nature of the Social Link characters that many will appeal and some will repel, which means you won't have to fully capitalize your time to see all their Links through and can focus on doing whatever you want with your time instead. It's a little jarring if you're a nutso completionist like myself, but fairly vital if you want to enjoy the game at your own pace and not burn out.

Fuck that needy asshole.

There are two Slinks new to golden that you'd want to max out, Aeon and Jester.

The only thing to worry about Rorie is making sure you don't bone things up with Chie.

Well if you keep multiple saves it's impossible to screw up. Of course, who wouldn't do that? Hahaha, some kind of lunatic I suppose!

gamefaqs is your friend if you want to do everything