So ive just reached the point where the cast meet and im having a hard time picking a good party to use and was hoping i could get some duders advice. The team i would like to use is Front: p4mc, Chie, Koro Back: zen/rei, yukari. Now my only concern with this is that both koro and zen/rei have a weakness to light so would i be making a huge mistake by using them both? I've also considered swapping out either koro or zen/rei for naoto for a more balanced team but i can't make up my mind? So do you guys have any suggestions? and while your at it go ahead and post your own parties so we can all compare.

@punisherkaos: Best bet is to create several parties so you will have an evenly set party when leveling through the game. You know your A-Team with Keith David, and a B-Team with David Keith.

For example: I started with p3 and my go to team was Silent Protagonist, Hikari, Jumpei, Mitsuru and Akihiko. my secondary team was pretty much everyone else...

A lot of the characters come with their own signature moves (usually an elemental attack) but sub Persona make it possible to have any team imaginable. Match sub persona to give your characters boosted stats and new moves, and keep a good amount of support and ranged magic moves in the back, heavy hitting physical and defensive skills in the front.

My main team, as it always is in Persona games is Team Girlfriends (patent pending): Chie & Mitsuru in the front, Naoto & Aigis in back, & B team is Yukiko/Yukari subbed on back, with Fuuka on battle support for healing with an SP-less Healing Wave, and Rise on Navi support because she's adorable. I'm playing the P3 duder.

Also, you'll get Growth items which give non active members EXP on the side, so you can bench people without letting them wilt away. Happy dungeon crawling hombres.

I'm really digging Naoto in my lineup. I find most enemies in the first two labyrinths so far have a weakness to either light or dark. Megido is fucking great. The cost is 62 SP so I only get to use it when I'm boosted, so I have a sub persona with a few elements to facilitate that. I just added Chie and Yukari to my lineup to replace Teddie and Aigis and it's been quite an improvement, despite their lower levels.

Can I ask the people in this thread how they're liking the game so far?

I think it'll be a while before I get it since I already have Etrian IV and Millennium to play through, but I'd like to know if you guys are enjoying the combat, story, dungeons, etc.

@aegon: Love it so far, definitely one of my favorite games of the year

@aegon: Really enjoying it so far. Liking how much of a throwback it is to old Persona. First person dungeon crawling, everybody can equip personas, the battle formation matters, you choose all your party actions before the start of the turn, I think there was another thing too. Even if some of that is the Etrian Odyssey roots coming through it's still also old school Persona. And yet even with all that old school stylings I think it's the best combat system a persona game has had so far.

The main story has been sort of throw away so far and I assume none of the characters will have their memory when it's over, so as not to fuck with the canon of P4A/AU. The dialogue between the different characters in the non story parts has been great though. Stuff like Chie saying "Ohhh, it's the big hand one!" when you fight a grand manus is just hilarious.

Given how much of a down year games have had in 2014 this is easily my GOTY.

I'm losing my shit because when I finally meat the P3 crowd, I don't know what I'm gonna do with my party.

So many characters ._.

I'm equally disgusted with and proud of myself, but thanks to the sub-Persona system allowing any character to use pretty much any spell, I literally made a party called "Couples," which consists of the 2 MCs in the front row, and Yukiko (sorry, Chie/Naoto (Kanji?) fans!), Zen and Rei, and Aigis in the back. I've stuck with them and fought every battle I've encountered, and now I'm super overleveled and pretty much unstoppable going into Labyrinth 3.

Wow, this is so different from how I play. The leveling is so slow already that the idea of dividing the XP between different parties seems crazy to me. I feel like the sub-persona system gives me enough flexibility that I can adapt if I need to.

The remake for Etrain Odyssey 2 just came out in Japan as well as an announcement for another new, and very different EO game.

Oh, and Persona Q is fine. As an Etrian Odyssey game, it doesn't quite have any obvious party synergy due a lack of skill trees for characters, with a mixture of main persona skills, skill cards to add additional ones, and sub personas that operate in a traditional Persona manner. That aside though, the mechanics are all quite solid.

Just an FYI thought: if you're using one party for the bulk of the game, and it does not contain both MCs, put a growth item on the one on the bench.

@turambar: oh man, I just looked up why you should do that and it's pretty aggravating. They give you a ton of characters to choose from but punish you if you don't use 2 specific ones? That's super frustrating cause now I'm to far in to change. Hopefully the growth items can get him to 55 cause if not I'm SOL.

My personal team is.

P3 Hero - Mitsuru - Kanji

Yukari --------- Zen/Rei

Fuuka - Combat, Rise -Dungeon

I try to maximize the element damage so this was my choice. I'd love to use Chie or Aigis but they just don't fit the party I'm going for. Prob try out a second party with P4 protagonist since I need to level him apparently.

Fuuka feels like the better of the two supports for combat IMO. Healing wind lets me use HP attacks with reckless abandon. I set it up so that everyone has an HP attack they can spam or boost for SP attacks.

Had to use Kanji after he yelled out, "I have more man power and girl power than all of you!!"

Is there any reason (I don't need to know why) that I would need to keep everyone leveled up? Like is it ok to leave some people never used or do I need to have them see some action?

@daveyo520: Only need to level up both of the protagonists. Feel free to leave crappy party members on the side. Teddie for instance is mostly worthless.

@lotr_dan: Ya Teddie is.... Ok So I guess I'll put the P3 guy back in and forget about Yosuke.

Hmm, yes, that is unfortunate. For better or worse, these do feel like caricatures of the Persona characters. When some bird-like enemies show up and Chie yells "Ooh, chicken!", I do kind of miss the old versions, but I guess there's something fun about it.

Is Mitsuru limited to front line only?

@flstyle: I haven't tried to use her in the back row but I would think her attack option is. Her spells wouldn't be limited and her physical skills would be limited to attacking the front row.

Damn, so my team would be P4P/Yu - Akihiko - Mitsuru with Naoto and Yukiko in the back. Sorry Chie.

The front line / back line thing only effects the damage of melee attacks dealt/taken. Mitsuru is a spell caster more than anything else, so the back line won't affect her too much.

I actually have Mitsuru and P3MC both on the back line. They simply don't have the END stat to manage the front line all that well. Conversely, I put Aigis upfront since she is just a tank of mammoth proportions. That said, I may have to move P3MC to the front due to Turdak's Double and Golden Link passives coupled with his high agility. The same should be true for Chie or Akihiko.

I just realized that since you control all the characters, I can finally use Mitsuru without her CONSTANTLY trying to cast Marin Karin!

Is Mitsuru limited to front line only?

Yes! That's what I hoped. Can have Mitsuru join Naoto in the back row and keep Chie in the front with Yu and Akihiko.

You'll want to keep a growth item on the other MC if you don't use him, but other than that, naw. That said, the golden chest item from Labyrinth 3, floor 1, allows you to purchase Growth 1s, so putting them on everyone becomes viable, albeit expensive. (I just have it on Zen, Aki, Chie, and Kanji).

@turambar: I have not even run into any growth items yet. I would rather have Yosuke in than the P3 guy but I can live with it for now.

Naoto is probably the most useful party member in the first half of the game. She has no innate elemental weakness, she resists both instant death attacks, she can cast megido (unblockable elemental attack to all enemies /w knockdown) for fucking FREE when boosted, and she has high agility so she usually acts before the enemy. Aigis is in second with her high physical damage potential (from the back row too!). Tarukaja plus Orgia mode will lay enemies out. If she is up against enemies that block physical she can tank from the back row with safeguard.

As far as keeping a side party leveled I've found that if you keep up with the nurse office requests the unused members will stay somewhat leveled with your party. The EXP rewards from those quests extend to every possible party member and they get the full reward which leads to some good level boosts.

@championfetus: Some personas can learn Impure Reach, which increases the success rates of status ailments. Instant death via Hama and Mudo are considered status ailments. Yep.

@turambar: I'm pretty sure you can extract Impure Reach from Incubus as a skill card for use on any character. It's super great when paired with Poison Breath or Lullaby Song too.

@mosespippy: @turambar: Is this what Margaret is alluding to when she says that strong personas will leave gifts after the sacrificial spread fusions? Or is ability extraction a separate function?

It's a completely separate function that Margaret will get at some point in Labyrinth 3. Various persona skills will start being highlighted in blue, and you can spend some yen to turn that persona into a skill card.

That sounds super neato, maybe I should stop spending so much time trying to figure out who I want for my fifth party member before starting Labyrinth 2 and get a move on!

Also, Skill cards are totally one use right? I got the one from the first Labyrinth, revive I think it was, but been too paranoid to use it only to swap out that dude and lose the skill.

This is something different that you get later. What Margret is referring to is when specific personas are sacrificed. It's easy to figure out which specific personas to sacrifice by looking at Theo's list of materials. Example; he want's a Matador Sword, you get one by sacrificing Matador.

Well I changed my team line up a bit after running a second crew for P4 protagonist.

Not a fan of P4Hero's jack of all trades stats. I like a bit of Min/Max on my characters so I dropped him once I got another amazing EXP ring for him.

But Naoto... DAYUM. She takes the Nao-'Cakes' for being the most OP character in the game. Her base abilities just kill everything before my other characters have a chance. And I've set her up as status effects and heals for boss fights since she has a high chance of going first in any given turn.

So now my team is.

Aigis-Chie-Mitsuru

P3Hero-Naoto

Aigis is a fantastic tank and decent damage dealer. And Chie just uses infinite high damage physical attacks with the help from Fuuka (She is also effin Chie). Mitsuru is there for the magic and secondary support. I gave her physical attacks so she can get boosted for free magic and heals as usual (Same with P3Hero).

I really didn't want to drop Yukari since she's my girl, but her speed is lacking to be a priority healer. And I think Chie filled the Kanji's roll so he is out (He is still my bro right behind Junpei). New guys are decent, but they suffer the same stat problem as P4Hero so, out.