Persona 3 Spoilerzone

By Red August 31, 2009 7 Comments

Warning: this blog contains massive spoilers for Persona 3. If you haven't beaten it yet, don't read any further. 
 
 It finally happened. I beat Persona 3. I didn't think I could do it, but I did it, and in the way completely opposite I thought I would. I stopped playing Persona 3 four or five months ago because I didn't want to grind to beat the section of Tartarus I was on. Four and a half months later, I sucked up my pride, turned on a podcast, and grinded down. It actually wasn't bad, and ironically, I beat the game way overleveled. 
 

I think that what made me like grinding in Persona 3 was the fact that levels meant something. They weren't just slight ability upgrades, they let me fuse cool new Personas, and near the end of the game, the top-tier Personas were a fantastic goal. Around mid-January I was level 78. I just battled the Reaper to see if I was tough enough to take on Nyx. I died quite a few times trying, but in the end, managed to take him out. And since he was about as hard as Nyx was supposed to be, I was relatively confident that I could beat him. After returning Elizabeth's request for killing the Reaper, I noticed a door behind Aigis. I went in it and saw that it was the fabled Monad block, where all of the enemies were level 90 or above. I battled a monster, and after a relatively tough battle, I got tens of thousands of experience points.  
 
Leveling up from one fight after spending half an hour grinding so I could fuse Mara seemed insane. I had seen the videos of people fighting Elizabeth and using incredibly powerful Personas, but I had never thought that I could maybe use one of them. It seemed possible now. Within the same night, I leveled up my character from 78 to 90 and had fused practically every top-tier Persona you could imagine. I had gone from barely being able to beat the Reaper to killing him in one shot, and then being fully recovered so I could do it again*. 
 

This made the actual end-game of Persona 3 ridiculously easy, and it had already been pretty easy after I got on the grinding train. Takaya and Jin dropped like hats, and I didn't need Armageddon at all. Nyx was pretty easy too; I was taking out an arcana a turn. The only part that was frustrating was near the end of battle. Nyx put up his Moonlight Veil** and I forgot to put everyone's tactics at 'Wait' so Junpei and Aigis ran straight into his mirror-wall. I healed everyone up but then Nyx decided to charm my main character and have me heal him back to full health. Then I just said "screw it" and Armageddon'd his ugly little face. He was killed in one shot.           
 
The ending of P3 was when things kinda got a little confusing. When I thought that I'd never play P3 again, I decided to watch videos of the ending. However, what confused--and freaked me out--was when you were back in the highschool. I actually only watched the end battle with Nyx and read up on what happened after Shinjiro died, but I never actually saw anything at all relating to what happened afterwards. I actually thought it would all be a dream, as I knew that the Main Character dies at the end, and that I just saw him die. It did end up to be pretty good ending, even though things weren't quite as clear as they should've been.

Before I end this terrible blog*** I'm gonna give my take on the Persona 3 VS Persona 4 debate. I have always thought that Persona 4 was the better game, but there were times during Persona 3 where I thought that I might like it more than Persona 4. Then I battled the Reaper and remembered how bad the allied AI was. I'm not trying to beat-up on Persona 3. I really like P3, and I spent 20 more hours with it than I did Persona 4, but P4's just the superior game. The fast travel, the ability to control your party members, the humor, and the enhanced quality of the Social Links make Persona 4 a better game.
 
Now you may**** be asking "what game are you gonna play next now that you've finished with your incredibly long JRPGs?". I reply that with "more Persona 4". I never actually got the True Ending in P4, and since P3 taught me that grinding isn't bad and that top-tier Personas are awesome, I'm gonna finish Persona 4 the right way, or at least play it until The Beatles: Rock Band comes out. I also might delve into the FES part of P3: FES, buy Lost Odyssey or finally get around to playing Final Fantasy X
 
 
 
 
 
  
*There's a fusion spell using Helel and Satan called Armageddon that does 9999 damage to all enemies. I also got it so Helel had Victory Cry, which gives back all of your HP and SP after a battle.
 **A skill that reflects all damage back to you for 500.
***You still need to pretend it's the best blog ever, though. 
****By may, I mean 'most certainly aren't'. 

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