Hi--I recently started playing this game on the PS3 with a friend, and we were wondering if there's a true ending similar to Persona 4's that will require us to do some specific things, and if so if there's a spoiler-free guide for it? (Generally, no spoilers, too.)

Also, we would like to know if it's important to keep all of our characters leveled? A couple of times we were forced to use specific characters, and we don't want to die because we ditched a specific character.

Thanks!

There's only one thing you need to do to get the true ending in Persona 3:

Also don't use Shinji. His skills are really bad.

You are given a choice around November or December I think. It's pretty obvious what would lead you to the true ending. Shinji is a bad character to have on your party. You might think about trying him but you will regret it. In Persona 3 you can train for as long as you want because when you make it back to the "lobby" of Tartarus you are healed completely. The only danger you risk is that your party members will become tired and will just leave. However if I remember correctly you can force the main character to train for as long as possible even though he'll get tired.

Not strictly 'True' in the sense that P4 had one but there are two endings.

And it is fairly important to stay evenly levelled since you need to switch members in and out to cover your weaknesses during Tartarus guardian fights (the real boss fights, the Full Moon ones are pussies). However, the game only forces characters on you during Full Moon missions, which as I said above, are pretty easy.

Like the above people have said, there's a single point where you can get the bad ending and the good ending which will be readily obvious. Fortunately, if you choose the wrong one the game pretty much ends right there so it's relatively simple to reload the save and choose the other one.

Regarding characters, I have to agree with everyone else and say that Shinji is the most expendable level wise. His strengths are covered by other characters, he never gets any elemental spells and is really kinda useless. Never bothered leveling him up.

I always used Shinji.

Shinji is a bit useless but the game is not hard so even if you wasted time by not leveling another character because you use him you're not gonna have that much trouble later still you should stick to just one team of 3 instead of keeping every character at the same level, but because sometimes the game forces you to use certain characters you need to at least try to keep the ones you don't use at a decent level (say you can't use Ken so you need to bring your lvl 20 Yukari to a boss fight ) Yukari, Akihiko and Mitsuru is the most stable team.

I always, always use Shinji. If you like Shinji, use him, if you don't, don't worry about it.

You do not need to keep all your characters levelled, but you just want to keep in mind that you want at least one person who can heal multiple characters (though I would recommend having healing skills on your protagonist) and at least one other who can heal one person at a time in your party at all times -- this is pretty easy given that many characters in P3 have at least basic healing skills.

Just go with whatever party feels comfortable to you. I generally tend to use Akihiko, Yukari and Junpei (I'd use Mitsuru more, but she tries to charm enemies more often than I'd like), but a lot of people ditch Yukari for Ken later on or use Aigis instead of Junpei later on -- just depends on what you like. Akihiko is generally recommended since he is the most balanced character and he learns all of the de-buff spells which can come in handy during boss fights, especially if you find yourself a bit under-levelled.

As mentioned above, there's only one decision you need to make to go on the true ending path, and you'll know what it is -- your characters spend a lot of time agonizing over it.

In regards to the first question, thanks! I had previously gotten some spoilers for the game under the assumption that I would never play it, so I'm pretty sure I know the spot you guys are talking about and how to deal with it.

In regards to the second question, I don't need to know what characters are good, just if it's important to have every character leveled in case I have to use them. Not sure why it's turned into a discussion about a character's strengths. I did get the information we need, though. (And for the record, we just got through a Tartarus boss with exclusively electric attacks with two characters that are weak to electricity, so hopefully no problem there?)

You don't really need to keep every character levelled because the game almost never forces you to use specific characters that I can remember except very early on. For instance I've never brought Mitsuru into a single battle and I've played through the game 3 times. There are some occasions where it does NOT let you you use some of your characters though. This happens pretty frequently with Shinji, a little with aigis, it happens a few times with Junpei I believe, and maybe once or twice with Ken. So choose 3 dudes you want to roll with the MC and have maybe one backup character whose of a comparable level, for those instances where you can't use someone or one of your characters is a liability against a boss due to weaknesses or something.

@Soupnazi: There are ultimate weapons based upon fusing weapon blanks (basically) and specific high level persona. In general you need a weapon blank of a particular type to make a weapon but with special ones and ultimate one and of the blanks will do. Many of these special weapons are closely associated with the persona used to form them. So if you end up with one of those you may want to use the weapon with the character that can wield it.

@endaround: I really don't mean to be rude, but in what way is that related to my questions?

@Soupnazi: Yeah doing a bunch of things at once doesn't always work. OK. The ultimate and special weapons are of a fixed type (sword, bow, spear, etc). All characters beside the MC can only use one type of weapon. So if you create these weapons and want to sue them you need the corresponding party member.

@endaround: But how is that related to the true ending and whether or not characters need to be leveled to ensure one's survival?

@Soupnazi: The idea is that if you want use those weapons at the end game you'll need those specific characters leveled. You can just FAQ the weapons for the character you use but if you want to experiment you will have these great weapons with no one to use them.

@endaround: Aha! Much more sense making.