So I know most people played through this game a long time ago but Ive been slowly crawling my through it since December. I am wondering, is it essential and or worth it to unlock the ultimate personas? The reason I ask is because I have stuck with one team the entire time and they are all level 50. However, the 2nd protagonist is not in this team (at lvl 30). The fact that they never tell you both protagonists need to be at level 55 to unlock ultimate personas seems kind of crazy to me. So is it worth it for me to put in the time to grind 25 levels on a character I won't use after unlocking ultimate personas?

@xanadu: It helps a lot but is not necessary to complete the last dungeon since there is a noticeable difficulty spike if you aren't prepared.

I'll add getting the other protagonist up to 55 doesn't take that much time if you equip him with Growth 3 and the brave shirt that doubles XP while lowering health. The ultimate persona skills are pretty cool if you're willing to do a little grinding to even out your team.

@archnite: But is it actually worth it to grind everyone to 55? Seems like with sub personas you can make a team with little to no weakness and stick with it for the whole game.

@xanadu: Everyone? No not really if your only interested in combat efficiency stick with your main team. But by playing through the game your going to get your team to at least level 55 anyway so wouldn't it be nice to get their ultimate skill instead of just another stat increase? You only have to level PC2 up and since he is a lower level taking him into higher level dungeons will level him faster and using a combo of Growth 3 and any Heavy Items (1/2 hp, 2x XP) will make it quick.

Ultimate persona skills are unique and most of them are pretty cool, and it is satisfying to finally have all four main persona skill slots filled out. But if you are so adverse to grinding out one character you can build a very effective team using the proper combination of sub-persona, but I remember this to also require to some grinding to get enough money to summon from the book repeatedly or just to get XP to unlock skills. My sup-persona roster was constantly shifting to meet the weakness of the dungeon and to get cooler skills.

Ultimately sub-persona are the crux of the combat but the ultimate persona can add an interesting, permanent wrinkle to how you take on enemies.