Endurance Run: Persona 4 - Part 20

You guys didn't do much wrong, in the last fight. I would've done the same thing. The problem with Yukiko's dungeon, is that it hits you hard, and you barely have anything to fight with. I do recommend hella grinding (up to about 14-15), because the dungeon boss will rock you right now.

Recommendations

• Don't use weapon attacks as much as you do! Use your Persona's physical skills. At this point, the skills don't take off much HP, so you get a great deal of good damage for little HP.
• During the boss, only use Orobas. Seriously. He's resistant to fire, and it will help so much...or you could fuse Jack Frost, and then you'll have fire resistance, and the boss' weakness: ice (Chie is kinda screwed).
• Buy Charlie a new weapon! While physical skills are preferable, there are times when you can't afford the HP. Charlie is dealing like...10's right now. Honestly, that's kind of terrible. Also, talk to Yosuke while in the yellow room inside the TV (the one with the door to the Velvet Room), to go to the liqour store. There is a better weapon for Yosuke there.
• Using things like Rakunda (Izanagi has it. It lowers the enemy's defence) or other buffs/de-buffs (I prefer debuffs), is the key to winning in Persona 4. Rakunda is a god send later. It's why I kept Izanagi around, even though I really didn't need to.

" Also, talk to Yosuke while in the yellow room inside the TV (the one with the door to the Velvet Room), to go to the liqour store. There is a better weapon for Yosuke there."

They can't do that till they rescue Yukiko.

watching you guys play this game is physically painful...ugh lol

Ahh man I hope they don't give up. Don't give up hope guys! Charlie is strong!

Rofl it took that long to turn the dial?
I hope you have enough time left to plow through O_O
See you guys next week.  Can't wait =D

AWESOME! Can't wait for the next installment!

It's looking bad for youse guys. You should be going to the soda machine every day to get as many cans as possible.

Don't go home yet; Heal up with Yosuke's SP and get your asses back in there. You'll want to get as far as you can since you only have one day left.

Even if you guys don't make it, I'm glad you showed us a bunch of social stuff instead of a lot of grinding. >_>

Eerg. I was pretty sure this would happen when they went all GiantBomb on it. And by that, I mean they goofed off and made it hilarious. Which is fine, because I love that stuff, but as someone who will probably never get a chance to play the game, I was actually taking it half-seriously. I'm a general pessimist, so I'm fairly certain they'll bite it, and when they bite it, I'm not sure if they'll continue onwards. Oh well. Either way, it was a great ride and (super-deep-down-mabily-hopily) it will continue to be ;-)

Good luck guys. From the comments I have just scanned through, you will need it.

It's kind of funny... for all the time you spend in what is basically a glorified tutorial, the game barely teaches you anything about what you actually need to be doing (Why do I need "expression"? What is the right balance between grinding and social stuff? When should and shouldn't you fuse persons? Is Kou gay for Charlie?).

Some things to keep in mind, commenters:

1) Chill.
2) They most likely record 2 or 3 of these at once, so a lot of your pointers are in a time-warp.  In this case they stopped at a save point so they may have stopped for the day and will be able to take your advice.
3) Must you take this so seriously?  Neither of these guys are JRPG buffs to begin with, and it seemed clear to me from the start that this playthrough was kind of a joke.
4) Calling these guys out for being bad at the game doesn't do anything but give you a sense of entitlement.

Nah, they are doing quite well at the actual combat part. They just haven't figured out how to fuse anything well, and because we have been yelling at them to do Slinks instead of dungeoning they managed to back themselves into a wall.

BTW: when we tell you to level your persona to get skills, all you need to do is have that persona equipped when the battle end. Completely unrelated to skill usage, deal 99% of the damage with whatever attacks you like, just make sure you have the right persona on when the final blow lands.

"Some things to keep in mind, commenters:

1) Chill.
2) They most likely record 2 or 3 of these at once, so a lot of your pointers are in a time-warp.  In this case they stopped at a save point so they may have stopped for the day and will be able to take your advice.
3) Must you take this so seriously?  Neither of these guys are JRPG buffs to begin with, and it seemed clear to me from the start that this playthrough was kind of a joke.
4) Calling these guys out for being bad at the game doesn't do anything but give you a sense of entitlement."

No, they record them daily for the most part.

These videos make my day!

Man, yosuke almost ate it. He had like what? 1 hit point left?

Why the hell did you guys leave? Just go back to the locked door and you might find something there like the one you were supposed to save. Just heal up and go for it. Seriously Vinnie uou're a bit of a pussy.

Also you should have changed back to the horse persona since he did 70+ damage whit Agi or what ever its called. Good thing Jeff said to go for it because otherwise you'd be dead. You should probebly listen to him more.

All this leaving the dungeon is kinda pissing me of(I'm not a good "passanger" so when you guys do something i wouldnt then i start yelling at the damn TV . Its pretty funny). And how didn't you guys figure out that after you get telleported around you jusr turn around and go the other way. Also now that you can fuse a lvl 10 persona go make the sun persona so that you get the bonus from the drama club chick.

I know you guys get confused when people get angry sometimes for getting called by there first name. In Japan it is more respectful to call someone by there last name unless you are friends or at least acquaintances with them.
Just thought ya might want to know.

Okay, guys. Calm the hell down. "ZOMG THESE GUYS DON'T UNDERSTAND MY JPRGS!" It would be pretty boring if they blew through the game so easily. It's about a hundred times more entertaining this way. If anything you guys should be mad at the game. Let's face it here. Persona 4 is fucking dumb. WHY IN THE HELL would you have capsule machine that wastes an entire day? What is the point of that?! Also, the game doesn't prepare you for the dungeon at all. The game has never explained what expression does or what diligence does or any of that. The game spends 95% of the time throwing clubs and jobs at you that it completely forgets the actual fighting. Why would the game give you all these social things to do when you are so pressed for time to save Yukiko? Putting a time limit on a game is stupid enough to begin with but throwing a million different things at you at once and putting a time limit is just stupid. 

@Jayge, if they record them daily then how do you explain them stopping at non-save points?  Also, I think in the past people have dug up the next day's unreleased episode, because it had already been uploaded to the site.

"@Jayge, if they record them daily then how do you explain them stopping at non-save points?  Also, I think in the past people have dug up the next day's unreleased episode, because it had already been uploaded to the site."

It's a PS2. They don't consume much power. You can leave it on for very long periods of time. Like I said, most of the time it appears they've recorded a new episode each day. You can tell by the way they refer to things that happened in previous episodes, and I'm pretty sure that every time they save it shows the date the save was made. If you really don't believe me, you can check for yourself.

I might check some of them.  I figured the play timer would go up, unless it only runs at certain times.  I'm not trying to be stubborn, I just figured they would play for an hour at a time and decide when to have episode breaks.

Pro tip, you should have played on Easy mode, I did that the first time I played P3, there is no shame admitting you are a noob at this sort of game...well maybe there is, but it's better than dying ^^

Did they ever buy any armor for Chie??  I think they just got her a weapon.  Maybe that might be a good idea?  This endurance run is hilarious.  Keep it up!

edit: Heh  Fox Mulder posted above me.  Awesome!  Queequeg is Scully's dog.

WOW!  From all of the comment it sounds like you guys are pretty much screwed!  I kinda figured it would happen since you guys spent so much time not leveling up and not buying better equipment.  I mean Charlie still has the first weapon he gets in the game! haha as funny as it is, that was kinda a bad move.  Also you still have 3 floors to get through and you only did one today.  It seems like you guys leave TV world more often then you should.  Buy alot of HP and SP potions and stuff so you don't have to leave and rest to heal every time you do a floor.  Here's to hoping you guys make it through, but it looks pretty grim.  

I think most of you are over exaggerating their situation...it is pretty bad, but pretty far from impossible. I know I beat the dungeon in 2 days, doing pretty much what they did (fighting every enemy). The only thing is, they have so few SP items.

What they need to do is heal, then battle their way up to floor 7 or so, using all their SP items as they go. It doesn't even have to be the boss floor, just close. Then, return to junes and get some rest, go into town and buy out all the TAP sodas and other sodas they can, upgrade their armor, and go back in to grind a few more levels. By that point they should be able to beat the boss-very far from impossible.

Of course, they probably won't do it like this, so maybe they really are screwed.

If you don't save the victim before the fog comes, a short cutscene will play in that evening, and following that you can choose to go back a week in time. Obviously none of your alternative future progress counts, but say you became smarter or more courageous, ie. you might think you're still the same person. Nope, you're back to being as dumb and as cowardly as you were a week ago. All of the dialogue/SLink stuff you go through can be fast-forwarded with the triangle button (in dialogue, holding triangle is like a rapid-fire X button), and all of today's progress was just one floor anyway.

As people have said, you're in a bind right now, given that the normal game plan is usually as follows:

Third last day: Power level to the last floor. At this point if you're not completely exhausted, a couple of fights will get you there. You also want to fuse a Valkyrie or Archangel persona so you can grind for the all heal spell. Before you enter Junes again, restock.
Second last day: With fresh supplies, replenished HP/SP and maybe new weapons and armor, you grind floors 6 and 7 until exhaustion. If either valkyrie or archangel have been equipped for at least half of your grinding, they should have gained enough XP to get Media. Many players usually have Yosuke and Chie at least lvl 14 by the end.
Last Day: WIth full HP/SP, you fight Shadow Yukiko.

The only EASY thing I can think of that MIGHT let you get away with everything is to burn 10k yen on Value Medicines, which is just for the boss. You should probably buy one or two revival beads too.

PS. Besides, I don' t think you guys have collected enough mats to get access to the new armor.  The advice here can be quite thoughtless sometimes. I'm so tempted to rant about it, but it's TL:DR grade.

You guys should just set Yosuke to heal and Chie to act freely unless you're fighting a boss. They're pretty good about attacking intelligently on their own during standard fights.

I just noticed that this week's Escapist's Unskippable is Digital Devil Saga. Quinkiedink? I don't think so.

I think its important to stress how useful status attacks are in SMT games.  For example Yosuke learns the spell Tentarafoo at Lvl 23.  It casts confusion on all enemies.  I was still using the spell to great effect in the very last dungeon of the game 60 levels later.  Skull Cracker, Hystreical Slap and soon Arm Chopper are really useful physical attacks at this point.

Elitists please shut up. These are awesome. Who cares if they aren't amazing at it, I'd be the same as them.

I am really enjoying the Endurance Run series of videos. I haven't had a console or decent computer in a long time so I've missed out on a whole mess of games. Even then, I doubt I would have picked up on Persona, but I have to say it looks like a lot of fun!

I just wanted to add my thanks for the videos and that I am looking forward to the update on Monday!

L1 is the shortcut for analyze.
U better save here the next day or u need to start over.
also 2 things
1. if your guy dies it GAME OVER. if your ally dies you can revive them.
2 buffs in this game ROCK!!!!! if you tarukaja and then attack you can do CRAZY DAMAGE!!!!!

I'm loving these endurance runs. Hopefully Vinny and Jeff will keep it up until the very end of the game!

"Hey 50!!"  That's gold!

I was laughing so hard after the capsule machine. I've never turned the dial on the capsule machine, but I've ended up wasting days because I didn't realize some activities took up the whole afternoon. If it wasn't for that, Vinnie and Jeff would be fine. They should be able to save Yukiko, though. When I got to Yukiko I kind of fumbled through the fight and died once or twice, but I finally beat her. With all the tips and tactics everyone's been giving, they should be able to beat her even if they're not at level 15 yet (I hope).

I think the only reason people are being so vocal with the advice this time is because of the time crunch. It makes things a little more tense to rescue her in two days. We just want to make sure they succeed and at least get to the second dungeon. Also I think these videos kind of lend themselves to the "screaming at the screen"-type reactions when people think you're doing something wrong. Except in this case, they might actually follow some of our suggestions. Plus Vinnie did ask for advice at the end of the video.

I just got to the second dungeon yesterday. OMG!!!

I love the Endurance Run. I picked up Persona 4 a while ago, but I could never get around to playing it. I'm going back to school full time and I kept hearing about how the first 3-5 hours are really slow and boring and I didn't feel like trudging through all that. Then you guys started doing the Endurance Run and it made me start playing Persona 4. I'm totally hooked now and I don't know if I'd ever would have gotten around to playing it if it weren't for these videos. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, Vinnie.

You guys are boned

Loving this so much, I ordered the game for myself.

Why doesn't Vinny ever use any of the other save slots?

From now on: Complete the dungeon/story stuff first- leave when you need to- and then after that- go and hang out and Social Link

That was a close call. Keep it up :)

@Curufinwe

I think it's totally cool that people are trying to help them out.  It's just pointing out "haha you suck" that I find funny.  It's like, hey, I called out someone who writes about video games!

It's way more fun and entertaining if they "suck".  The lulz from the "oh &^%@" moments alone are priceless.  I think they are doing a good job so far, but I've never played it before so meh...

id recommend using rakunda
it lowers the enemy's defense for 3 turns
better than tarakuja(spelling?)
better to lower its defense then to beef up one character's attack.
i find it extremely useful. good luck guys!

So far, you guys have been trying to do go into a dungeon, fight, and go home all in the length of one endurance run episode.  That might work now when the dungeons are short, but it simply isn't possible to keep that up and expect to beat the game, unless you're so much of a master at it that you're doing a speed run and skipping every random monster.

I was level 16 today when I beat Yukiko's shadow. You need to be a high level.

I love these videos, Jeff and Vinny, you guys made me order this game and when its released tomorrow here in Europe Im gonna get it