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26 - January 3 | Table of Contents | 28 - Finale Part II
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Alternate Title: Hell

Chris: Whew, it has been a minute since I posted these, hasn’t it?

Yo, everyone. Welcome to our very last post on Persona 3 Portable before the final boss, the Answer, and the final thoughts.

Shinjiro: You seem to be saying “last” every other sentence lately. You that eager for this game to be over, man?

Chris: *dragging hand down face* Yes. But fortunately, some fun stuff is coming up. We’re on the last day now, 1/31. It’s time to face Nyx. When we get to the dorm, we’re summoned to the command room to meet. Mitsuru says this’ll probably be the last time we meet like this, and asks if everyone’s ready. Yukari wonders, for a moment, if they might lose their memories even if they do defeat Nyx. Even if that should happen though, she wants us to know she won’t forget any of us. The rest of the group voice their agreement.

Junpei says that we should promise to, after the battle, meet each other again. There’s some deliberating, and we decide we’re going to meet on Graduation Day, on the school’s roof. That arranged, we get ready for the final battle. We’re given control, and we go pick up our Metatronius for Aigis at the antique shop before heading to Tartarus.

Tristram: I’d forgotten Junpei was the one to suggest meeting up. It’s one of the moments I really like about this whole finale segment of the game, everyone deciding that the memories we have together are too important to be forgotten even in the face of potentially Death herself. (Or the giant. Alien. Thing. I’m never going to get over that.)

Empyrea: I will never get over that myself. Still, this scene is pretty cute, I’d say.

Chris: As I said, it’s time to face Nyx, but let’s enjoy all that we’ve worked for so far. First, the optional block of Tartarus, Monad. Here, we’re supposed to find the last sword for Theodore and then fight him at the end of it.

Shinjiro: So, what's Monad like?

Chris: Visually, it's an exact replica of Thebel, complete with the base music track and the repetitive bloodstain patterns. However, instead of green, all the color is yellow, giving the appearance of the entire place being a bad ketchup and mustard stain. The enemies are far more dangerous than anything you'll encounter in even Adamah, and even level 80 party members and up will have a hard time surviving them.

Tristram: Oddly enough I much prefer Monad’s appearance to Thebel. It’s a little gaudy, yes, but it reminds me of the Heavenly Keep, Etrian Odyssey 2’s final stratum before the endgame. With how much darker every section has been, the sudden return to brightness is a welcome change.

Empyrea: Any block that isn’t the color vomit that is Harabah is good for me.

Chris: The treasures don't change much, but we did find a rare chest containing superb footwear that blows every other footwear's stats out of the water and provides high evasion against all magic. Going here is a great way to grind EXP, and is how I got my team to level 90 last post. What's more, the enemies are all universally hard and don't change. You can encounter the hardest enemies Monad has to offer right there on floor 1 (well, that’s not quite true—the Chaos Cyclops doesn’t show up until the later floors, and it is nasty, but no more so than the others.). All of them are pale white, just like the ones in Adamah. There's no golden hands here, and like with Adamah, no red "hard" shadows either. Lastly, you aren't allowed to start at the furthest floor you reached like with the main portion of Tartarus.

While here, I tried to use Fuuka’s Oracle. That shit said it had fully restored my health and SP—neither one happened. I tried to use it again in a second battle on another day (she can only use it once a day), only for it to tell my my HP had been reduced to 1, but that didn’t happen either. I tried it again one last time on a third day, and due to suspicions, when it said it had cured all our ailments, I checked and it had actually both charged and focused our party. So it’s not broken, it just has no idea what it’s doing and its text popups are mixed around. However, I’ll be sure to use that if I can get some charges out of it. Yukari with a Mind Charge and Junpei and Aigis with Power Charge would be nice.

Empyrea: This is a port issue, I think? I’ve never encountered that problem with Fuuka’s Oracle in the FES version. *rolls eyes* Nope, the problem was I kept getting the short end of the stick instead.

Bad Game Design: 81

Chris: I still have to give it a point even if it didn’t hurt anything, because there’s no reason someone shouldn’t have playtested that and noticed the glitch.

Tristram: That’s something they did much better with Rise and Futaba. Rise’s abilities worked exactly as advertised, which was nice. Futaba straight up plays merry hell with the coding of reality, which is hilarious whenever it kicks in. Fuuka gets along really well with Rise and Futaba in Persona Q2 as well; honestly that game is probably a better representation of what they were trying to do with Fuuka’s character than her own is.

Empyrea: I’m probably in the minority here with the opinion that Rise is kinda too OP... Can’t say much about Futaba, though, seeing as I’ve never played 5. That said, messing with the coding of reality itself sounds cool as hell!

Chris: I also leveled Messiah to 99, receiving a Megidolaon skill card for it. I also received a piece of equipment. Unlike with all other Personas, there are multiple pieces of equipment that only Messiah can generate. They include the best armor for you, the best armor for Aigis and Koromaru, and a 1% chance Omnipotent Orb, which nulls all attacks except Almighty. I got the Armor of Light for myself.

Speaking of ultimate Personas, it’s time to fuse the last one: Orpheus Telos. This is what we worked so hard to max all those Social Links for! You’re supposed to fuse him in a hexagon spread with Thanatos, Asura, Chi You, Metatron, Helel, and Messiah—requiring you to have fused the maxes for Death, Sun, Tower, Aeon, Star, and Judgement. However, you can also get him by fusing Messiah, Metatron, and Atavaka.

Orpheus Telos resists everything—

Shinjiro: Why resist? Wouldn’t nulling or draining everything be more useful?

Chris: You’ll see why soon. Anyway, in the good name of the Fool Arcana he represents, he can truly inherit anything, including Victory Cry, which he gets at level 97 and gives a skill card for at level 99. I am absolutely not fussed about any inheritance he goes through, and you know why? Because while I built Messiah with a spellcasting beast in mind, I’m building Orpheus Telos with a physical casting beast in mind. On Messiah, I had to get Morning Star, Thunder Reign, Victory Cry, and Mind Charge on there, under my own fusions.

Here’s the skill build for Messiah I went for:

Invigorate 3, Mind Charge, Magic Skill Up, Enduring Soul, Victory Cry, Thunder Reign, Morning Star, Salvation

Here’s the skill build Orpheus Telos is going to have:

Pralaya, God’s Hand, Regenerate 3, Power Charge, High Counter, Enduring Soul, Unshaken Will

And the good thing about all of those? Every single one of them is available on skill cards. I have half of them already—I just need Power Charge (available from Setanta, Cu Chulainn, and Narashima), Regenerate 3 (available from Seiten Taisei), God’s Hand (available from Metatron), and High Counter or Apt Pupil (available from Siegfried and Okuninushi, respectively). If Unshaken Will turns out to be a bad idea, we can use Phys Boost instead, which I got from rescuing one of the missing people, or re-fuse him with other things. There’s one fight in which we’ll use Orpheus Telos in which we’ll really want High Counter, and another in which we really won’t.

Tristram: Ahahahahaha oh my god that’s one of the most broken things I’ve ever seen! The game is about to beg you for mercy and it will receive exactly as much as it deserves.

Empyrea: You and my sister really like kitting out your personas...a tad too much. *nervously chuckles* Or I’m just super lazy, as per usual.

Chris: All of our party members have 999 HP and SP, like us—that happens if they get to level 99. So! First thing’s first, let’s find that damn sword. We find the Myouhou Muramasa quickly enough, returning it to Theodore for two Somas.

Up next, Vision Quest. As previously mentioned, Vision Quest is divided into two sets of challenges, one being puzzles and the other being heavily revamped bosses. We’ll be doing the puzzles first. Or, we’ll try to—we have to redo the Priestess before we can access the others, but nevertheless, for organizations’ sake, I’ll tell you about them in that order.

These puzzle rooms will adjust our stats and Personas, which will go back to normal after we leave. The first door is the “Power” door. And guess who’s behind it? Mitsuru, Yukari, and…

Shinjiro: *smiling* Yo!

Chris: Shinji! Even if it’s just a non-canon non-story-related miniboss event, I’m happy you’re here.

Tristram: Non-canon whatever, it’s good to have you back with us!

Chris: The Power Room’s challenge consists of three Gigas enemies, labeled “Might Guardian” (wearing a gold belt), “Strength Guardian” (wearing a rainbow belt) and “Power Guardian” (wearing a silver belt). I had zero idea how to beat these guys when I first came in here, but then I figured it out: If you attack more than one at a time, you’ll never win. All three will use Power Charge upon entering, but none will attack until they’re attacked. And each time they are, they’ll use an “atmosphere change” to rotate their weaknesses. The weaknesses will always be physical, so you’ll always be able to hit it with someone in your party, but figuring it out and keeping it from retaliating and cycling as long as you can is key. We’re given a handful of Personas that all have identical stats and carry whatever skills we might need or want. We select the Power Guardian for our first assault. When it nulls pierce, it’s weak to strike and drains slash. When it drains pierce, it’s vulnerable to slash and nulls strike. That’s all I knew before I killed it and repeated the process on the other two. All of them will null magic, but you can use Yukari’s and Mitsuru’s break spells to get in extra damage. It’s a long fight, but an easy one if you know what you’re doing. When we’re pummeling Might, we get a co-op attack prompt from Shinji. I know it’s a bad idea, but I couldn’t help it. Strength becomes a pain for a while as a result, but one knockdown on him and he’s KO’d by the All-Out Attack. We get a Power Charge skill card for it.

Tristram: Awwwww. Sorry, I’m just grinning like an idiot. Of course when we get you back you offer to help us kick some ass like that. We missed you.

Empyrea: After my current playthrough of the Answer? Yeah, Shinji kicks ass (seeing as, stat-wise, Metis is pretty much his stand-in)!

Chris: Up next is the Magic Room. This one is similar to the last, presenting us the “Arcane Guardian”, “Sorcery Guardian” and “Magic Guardian”. Junpei replaces Shinji here, wielding the goddamn Dragonslayer to make up for it. They know all magic and will pummel you with it, and aren’t vulnerable to physical attacks. The trick is to wait for their Hamaon attacks and repel them back at them, either with Sandalphon or a Makarakarn, and let them kill themselves with it. The latter can backfire as it heals them if it reflects a ma-dyne at them, but it doesn’t really matter since you can’t kill them conventionally anyways. Eventually it takes and we win, gaining a Mind Charge skill card.

Tristram: I never figured these rooms out and now I feel like an idiot. Except with this room because it’s so rare for Reflect to be as outright useful as straight up nulling or absorbing something, given that most enemies tend to heal off their own elements.

Empyrea: Better than me. I’ve played P3P with my sister’s clear save, so I never bothered with these rooms. It’s kind of interesting they’re puzzle battles, in a way. But it also added Margaret into this game, so meeeh...

Chris: Up next is the Resistance Room. We meet three guardians of Stamina, Endurance, and Fortitude. One casts Tetrakarn, the other casts Makarakarn, and the last casts Power Charge when we walk in. They cast ma-buffs on the next turn, and ma-debuffs on the next turn after that. Akihiko comes in as the guy on the team now. There are several conditions to this fight, those being: you cannot undo any of their buffs or debuffs with the Dekaja and Dekunda that Mitsuru and Yukari now have, and you can’t lift the poison they’ll cast on you. Do either of those, and they’ll instantly kill the group with a 9999-damage Megidolaon. After they get bored of buffing or poisoning, Stamina and Fortitude will attack directly, having a high chance to miss and fall over (or just kill you). You’ll need to break the Makarakarn to get Endurance, who has a wind weakness, and these will lead to All-Out Attacks which are pretty much the only way to deal significant chunks of damage. I must be doing something wrong though, because I’m still getting KO’d after I take too long. After a while, I figure it out: you can use Akihiko’s debuffs, just not Dekaja or Dekunda.

I finally figure out that we need to have Akihiko cast Marakunda before the All-Out Attacks, as they'll usually miss automatically, rendering Masukunda pointless. With that done, they'll take enough damage that it takes only two All-Out Attacks to kill them and we can win before the Megidolaon. We take them out and earn an Enduring Soul skill card for our troubles. Have to admit, that one took me a few tries to figure out.

Up next is the Speed Room. This time it's just us against the Agility Guardian, an Eagle-type enemy. Took me a longer minute to figure this one out, but its strengths and weaknesses have an irregular pattern. Even if you do strike its weakness, you'll never win in time to avoid the instant-kill. So, you check your items, and find several Magatamas. Using them to deal set amounts of damage will help. I'll admit, this one had me stumped for a while because it's not an easy pattern to figure out. From what I can gather, sometimes it's weak to the attack it'll use next, sometimes it's not. Here's what I did when it started its Spirit Drain chain:

Sarasvati, Block > cast Garudyne, change to Mothman, use Gale Magatama > change to High Pixie, use Shock Magatama, cast Ziodyne > change to Jack Frost, use Frigid Magatama, cast Bufudyne > use Flame Magatama, then use a Bead > change to Mothman, cast Primal Force, use Bead > change to Narcissus, Block > use Brave Blade x 2, and that should finish him off. Pray none of your attacks miss or you’re doomed.

If it started any other attack chain, I just turned on Rush Mode and let it kill me, because I don't have time for that. We get a Spell Master skill card for beating it.

Finally is the Luck Door. Behind it is the Luck Guardian, a dice-type enemy that will say either “1” or “2” on its one and only turn, or will cast Mahamaon or Mamudoon, depending on if you have Pixie equipped. If it says 1, it’s weak to Dark and repels Light. If it says 2, it’s weak to Light and repels Dark. We get an Arms Master skill card for its defeat. In all honesty, this should really be the speed door and the previous one the luck door.

The Shadow bosses have party conditions, which match the ones given to you in the game proper. For example, we’re required to have Junpei and Yukari and can’t take anyone else in for the Priestess battle. Speaking of, the Priestess herself now has 5000 health and repels ice attacks. We’re no longer on a time limit, but she’ll use Bufudyne, Mabufudyne, Primal Force, and Tentarafoo, and has the stats to back it up. However, we make short work of her—it’s the later boss variants that we’re really here for and that we leveled to 99 for. We get an Absorb Slash skill card for beating her.

Up next is the Emperor and Empress. We kill them with an All-Out attack for each party member, taking them out before they even get a chance to attack, but if you must know, the Emperor can use charged Vorpal Blades and God’s Hands and the Empress can use Magarudyne, Megidolaon, and will cast ailments to assist the Emperor. We get an Absorb Strike skill card from them.

Next, the Heirophant. This is where things start to fuck us over—in addition to Maziodyne and Megidolaon, it’s much more prolific in its use of Prophecy of Ruin (fear on all) which it will use to immediately kill anyone afflicted via Ghastly Wail. Surprisingly, a charged Pralaya from Orpheus Telos doesn’t put it down. But, overall, no fuss. We get the Absorb Pierce skill card this time.

Tristram: Prophecy of Ruin and Ghastly Wail are an exceptionally mean combination for any SMT game but here it’s just evil. And I say this as someone who did all the bonus stupid-hard content and max level DLC for SMT4: Apocalypse. At least there it’s relatively easy to find ways to completely block status effects, in this game it’s all but impossible to cover an entire party even at end game.

Empyrea: Heh. It is a port of a PS2 game. The PS2 SMT games have very, very unforgiving RNG that hate you for simply existing. Honestly, while I have died to a full party charm and enrage, for example, it didn’t happen anywhere near as often as the same happening if I were playing Nocturne or even either Digital Devil Saga game.

Chris: Now, the Lovers. It is just as useless as last time due to spamming inaccurate Marin Karins and Holy Arrows. It went down without a fight, and at this point I really just have to give it this:

Bad Game Design: 82

It’s one thing for us to be overleveled, it’s another thing for the boss to completely waste its turns. Unlike the Hierophant, the Lovers doesn’t get any unique scarily-accurate ailment move. We get Absorb Fire this time.

After that is Chariot and Justice, who have Arrow Rain, Primal Force, Poison Mist, Myriad Arrows, Vorpal Blade, Vile Assault, and Mahamaon. I’ll grant them that this time, they could threaten someone who wasn’t so overleveled. For their defeat, we get Absorb Ice.

Then is the Hermit. Margaret goes out of her way to inform us when we walk up to the door that we have the option of choosing Shinjiro to be with us in the party, here and only here. Except that we can’t, because the team list won’t allow us to.

Shinjiro: Seriously?! I don’t even get to re-fight my one boss?

Chris: Yeah, that’s fucked up. They go and put Margaret in saying we’ll probably encounter Shinjiro in there, and then fail to put him in the party list. Apparently either no one noticed this or no one saw a problem with yanking my chain like that.

Bad Game Design: 83

Tristram: Oh fuck that! I defy anyone who played this game blind to NOT have used Shinji for this fight in the plot, and dangling the chance to have him again and then snatching it away from us is grounds for an almighty FUCK YOU that echoes across the universe! What were the designers even thinking when they did this?!

Empyrea: Margaret is truly plotting to make you suffer, I swear...

Chris: The Hermit is quite another beast than the other Shadows. In addition to Maziodyne and Megidolaon, which it can Mind Charge, its Giga Spark has been amped to hell and back and only takes one turn to Charge this time. It also has Mamudoon, which is bad. An All-Out Attack fails to take more than a sliver off its health. It uses Giga Spark thrice in a row, nearly spelling doom for us. We beat it though, receiving ten Thunder Call items (the Persona fusion thingies). We get Absorb Elec on a second try.

Next, Strength and Fortune. In the interest of seeing just how difficult this battle really is without cheesing it, I didn’t abuse the Wheel. I did mistake panic for rage and accidentally get us hurt, but not severely. Again, probably a bigger danger if we weren’t overleveled, but a better challenge overall. Strength does put up a fight—and gets a lot harder when Fortune increases its defense, making me suspect that it boosts or hinders the percentages a lot more than your basic Rakukaja. Strength is also fast enough to dodge attacks once in a while.

Then it uses Sexy Dance and charms three of our allies and I don’t have fucking Charmdi—AIGIS NO DON’T CAST DIARAHAN—shit.

Tristram: Oh damn, I just got massive original P3 flashbacks. At least it’s not the final boss this time?

Empyrea: *groans* I just mentioned getting killed by a party-wide charm, too... But same. Night Queen, man.

Chris: ...Probably should’ve terminated this thing from the start. Well, we go through it a second time and then take out Fortune too, receiving Absorb Wind.

Finally, the Hanged Man. This is the battle we maxed out everyone’s level for. This dude gave me absolute hell the last time I played it, it must’ve been a miracle that I won even after leveling. The statues are barely scratched by Morning Star, and aren’t taken out by Pralaya, but they’re fear-stricken, so Junpei’s Vorpal Blade does the rest. The Hanged Man himself has absolutely monstrous health and stats, and he quickly starts to wear us down.

Shinjiro: *dryly* It took him over an hour, I watched. It’s like a different species than the other Full Moon Shadows altogether.

Chris: *stunned* A Pralaya under Power Charge and Matarukaja didn’t even kill those damn statues! How?!

It should be noted that we don’t die at all in the fight, despite it being so damn long-winded, which I attribute to us being at level 99 and thus most of our party members having double the health they had at level 98. Any less, and Yukari or Mitsuru likely would’ve run out of SP healing us and attacking. We finally kill it, receiving a Victory Cry skill card for it.

Margaret pipes up when we emerge from its room, saying she’s been waiting for this. The last door, Pandora’s Door, appears. It bears a heavy resemblance to the TARDIS and will take us to Margaret’s battle. If we go through it, we can fight her. However, first we have to take on Theodore.

Tristram: Actually the Velvet Room being Time Lord technology would explain quite a lot.

Shinjiro: Is Theodore a Persona-user?

Chris: Yes. Like us, the Velvet Room Attendants are Wild Cards and can summon any Persona they please, and they’re all enormously powerful opponents. Theodore will fight in a cycle like so, identical to Elizabeth’s tactics despite using different Personas:

Maragidyne
Mabufudyne
Maziodyne
Magarudyne
Mahamaon
Mamudoon
An ailment skill
Megidolaon
At half health, he’ll use Diarahan and then re-start his cycle.

Putting to one side the fact that he uses multi-target skills despite refusing to fight any further than one-on-one...

Ill logic: 105

…To be honest with you guys…I’m not fond of this fight. Not fond of it at all. I get that Elizabeth and later Theodore are the great bosses that people in the fandom love, but I don’t think so. The biggest reason is the amount of conditions placed on the fight. They are as follows:

You can only fight alone.
You cannot equip a Persona that nulls, repels, or absorbs any of Theodore’s attacks against you.
You cannot equip a Persona that nulls, repels, or absorbs more than two types of attacks, even if they don’t match what you’re being attacked with at that point.
You cannot equip any accessory that does any of the above.
You cannot use an attack mirror/Tetrakarn or magic mirror/Makarakarn
You cannot use the Armageddon skill/item, at least while Theo has health enough to retaliate after.

Violating any of these conditions is grounds for an instant termination via 9,999-damage Megidolaon.

Shinjiro: Wha—but, wait, how are you supposed to fight back then?

Chris: Apparently, you aren’t. Look through your Compendium and see how many goddamn Personas null at least one element. Personas start nulling elements as early as the mid-teens levels, beginning with Jack Frost. You are locked out of 95% of the Compendium for this fight. You know how many Personas I found that don’t block something? Nineteen. Just nineteen out of, what, a hundred and fifty? Two hundred? More?

All but four of those nineteen have weaknesses to cripple them, and very few of them are over level 50, much less the 80-90 level requirement to even be considered a good choice for fighting Theodore. And of the ones that don’t null anything, many of them learn skills that do, making them equally useless unless they’re all built and leveled specifically for Theo.

Shinjiro: That’s bullshit. They can’t seriously consider that a good boss fight, can they?

Chris: This is what we have Orpheus Telos for. You wanna stand a chance against the bonus boss you worked your ass off to confront, you have to work your ass off even more to get a specific Persona. Even Messiah isn’t viable in this fight.

That’s not fun. That’s not challenging. That’s not fighting a boss that’s tailored to truly test a Persona player’s skills. It isn’t a boss that will appreciate the hard work I did to earn the vast majority of my Personas. All that it tells me is that Theodore, even one-on-one, would be toast if I wasn’t so heavily restricted like this.

So, first and foremost, I’m giving it a BGD for every one of those instant-death conditions.

Bad Game Design: 89

‘Ultimate opponent’ my ass.

But we’re not done. The Mahamaons and Mamudoons are of course, instant kills too, so if you want to not have a lot of hard work interrupted by instant death, you’re also forced to stockpile a shit ton of Homunculi, since you aren’t allowed to void the attack. I’ll just have to hope nine is enough.

Bad Game Design: 90

And yet again, we’re not done. That Megidolaon? It’s not a typical Megidolaon. It’s the 9,999-damage instant death variety—and he casts it every six turns. That gets a point on principle, but it gets another point because yet again, it forces you to fight a certain way: either by having Vishnu and Ananta in the original and FES, or by paying out the ass for the Infinity item in P3P.

Bad Game Design: 92

Chris: No single boss should be getting this many Bad Game Design points, especially one the fandom holds in such high regard.

Tristram: And this is why I’ve never fought any of the Velvets after the first few times I ran face-first into Margaret in P4. I’ve never tried Caroline and Justine, and the one time I tried the Ticos in Devil Survivor 2, the moment I saw that Megidoladyne I noped out of there top speed. I genuinely don’t understand why people think these fights are fun. I don’t like puzzle bosses, I don’t play these games for puzzle bosses, if I liked games that made me frustrated I’d be much better at Dark Souls.

Chris: They’re not even puzzle bosses, Tris. A puzzle boss can be fun, if you make figuring it out interesting. A puzzle boss only looks unbeatable, and once approached from the right angle, becomes no worse than any other fight. Theo and Liz aren’t puzzle bosses, they’re just assholes.

Empyrea: Yeah, I don’t understand the appeal, either. Really, I personally fought Elizabeth just to prove that I can. The reward isn’t even worth it! Although, I will note that the fight is a bit...poorly ported over. Fusion Raids are turned into items in P3P, so the every-six-turns Megidolaon suddenly required a butt ton of farming. In P3FES, all you need is to have Ananta and Vishnu with you, switch to either one, and boom, you can use Infinity so long as you have MP. Which you should, as only Armaggedon really needs a lot of MP (499 at lv 99).

Chris: If you want an example of an excessively difficult bonus boss done right, check out Margaret from the next game, Persona 4 or Persona 4: Golden. Yeah, she’ll still kill you if you equip any accessories that null her attacks, but you can have a full party (or not, if you wish) and she won’t punish you for equipping the wrong Personas. You have the ultimate freedom here to fully exercise all the hard work you’ve put into the game thus far, in addition to your heavily customizable party. And she’s balanced for that, not to mention she gets more creative with her attack patterns than simply the high-tier levels of every attack.

Empyrea: Ehhh. I personally think Margaret is kinda boring in comparison. But I will admit being biased against the character, and P4 is just infinitely easier anyway. I will agree she’s better as a boss that won’t have you tearing your hair out in frustration, though.

Chris: All this said, onward we press. Orpheus Telos is our key here, and we reach the tenth floor of Monad. As if we didn’t already know, who should be waiting for us there but Theodore?

(This and the following images come from ArchusEden on Youtube, as Chris Caine did not fight Theodore)

There's a case behind him that holds a million yen, by the way. When spoken to, Theodore reminds us that he told us to meet him here alone. Yeah Theo, I know, I just didn’t want to wander around the damn floors ‘til I found the stairs after ten minutes ten whole times. Wouldn’t have that problem if there were a two-way teleporter on this floor, hmm?

Bad Game Design: 93

When we accept his request to fight him alone, we get a voiced scene. He’s been waiting for us, he says, explaining himself as both the giver and the target of the final request. He, an avatar of power, wants to face us, one who holds infinite possibilities. He can only reach his “answer” when he finds one whose power surpasses his. Dude, just talk to your big sis, then. But no, he wants it from us. Quite politely, he asks for the honor of a duel.

The battle begins, and Fuuka voices her disbelief at how powerful this opponent is, using “she” because they didn’t bother to give her new lines for a male opponent in Elizabeth’s place.

Bad Game Design: 94

Tristram: *facepalm* Of course not.

Empyrea: Yeah, because that was such a hard thing to add, right, Atlus?

Chris: We start off with a Power Charge from Orpheus Telos. Theodore, before he begins his own two turns, explains that it’s both unnecessary and insulting to hold back—we need to fight as though we intend to kill him. He then starts us off with two Maragidynes, which we answer with a Pralaya. His next two turns, both Mabufudynes, kill us and use up our one HP restore for the fight.

This, mind you, while wielding our +10-to-all-stats weapon and wearing armor that resists magic and shoes that evade magic. Some help Orpheus Telos turned out to be.

This is also why we want High Counter—Theo will occasionally stroll up and use a direct attack, which we can reflect back at him. For more damage than Pralaya.

Empyrea: I’d hazard a guess that’s because of how reflect works. He deals higher damage than you, so reflecting that back to him would, of course, deal more damage than your own skills that scale off your stats. The problem here is...I don’t have proof of that.

Chris: Oh, he definitely does higher damage. But it seems pretty difficult to outdo with a casual attack what it would take a Power Charged Pralaya from an ultimate Persona to equal. Continuing the first try, his Mamudoons from Lilith use up one of our homunculi. I’m happy to find out that Unshaken Will is allowed, and doesn’t result in an instant kill when his ailment turn comes up.

Herein comes the part where we want to re-assign which skills are on Orpheus Telos. Since we have a Victory Cry skill card and we’re going to get another one from him at level 99 anyway, I replace Victory Cry on him with Arms Master. May as well, since we can’t afford the cost of it with the damage we’ll be taking. That is, 500 points of damage for every time our turn ends.

Empyrea: *blinks* 500? Wait, wait, wait. I remember in FES that Elizabeth only deals 170-ish damage per attack, so you’d at least have space to attacks between heals. Uhhh, man, I have to redo this fight at some point myself.

Chris: *hollow, dead-inside laughter* I don't know, either. I didn't play this on hard mode, and I have the same stats as plenty of other people who posted their fights on YouTube--who displayed a fight more akin to what you're saying. But I guess something went wrong with my copy. It’s a chore just to fucking survive. And every time we die, we have to walk all the way back to do it again. And hear his two speeches all over again.

Bad Game Design: 95

There’s ultimately nothing we can do. Even the best Personas of the game, the few that are allowed, aren’t strong enough to endure his overcranked spells. To actually sort-of fight on an even level, we’d have had to use stat-boost cards out the ass and abuse that.

Bad Game Design: 96

I tried using Weapons Master on Orpheus Telos, and managed to get in a measly 310 damage with a critical hit. That, and given he can take off half my health in one turn, I’m having to use full health restores every fucking turn just to survive, leaving me no room to counterattack.

Bad Game Design: 97

By the sixth try, I am well and truly tired of this. Feel free to eat my ass, Atlus. Oh, and I turned on rush mode. It doesn’t work here—well it works for us. It doesn’t work on Theo, who is fully animated despite it.

On, what, my tenth try? A mix of Beads, Infinity items, and successful High Counters has taken Theo’s health down enough for him to try dialoguing at me—that is to say, not that much.

I then die, mostly due to being unsure of when his Megidolaon was coming along.

Finally, I just get fed up. I reload a save, buy a crap ton of stat-increase cards for Orpheus Telos until he’s maxed all his bars, and redo Vision Quest until I get a special reward from Strength and Fortune: ten Infinity items—which I really needed anyway, having only had three. We first get twenty pearls, which is useless given we can’t trade them since it’s the final day. We finally get the Infinities on probably our twentieth try (and believe me, I was about to give up). And, having used up our homunculi stock fighting shadows in the meantime, I go farm those.

Eventually, we get him down to half health (10,000), whereupon he trash talks some more, uses Diarahan, and makes me miserable. I then die.

But finally, I seem to have found a strategy that sort of works. I use Mind Charge on Orpheus Telos on any turn that’s free, use Masukukaja on the free turn after the Megidolaon (to make sure my equipment with Angelic Grace attached can use it successfully), and then follow up with a thrice-boosted Thunder Reign from Messiah to get in almost 1,000 damage per turn cycle.

Knowing my limits, I knew I wasn’t going to last if Theodore got his Diarahan off and I had to repeat the first half of the cycle. So, I calculated each amount of damage I was able to do carefully, including his reflected High Counters, and stopped just before the halfway point, allowing him to reflect back on himself the last bit of damage needed to get him over halfway down. Then, I unleashed Armageddon.

Empyrea: Yeah, just about every successful fight with this boss required a calculator. Which is both hilarious and really sad. I also forgot there’s a quest that gives 10 Infinities...probably because I didn’t do this fight (my sister did). Hehe.

Shinjiro: *eyes bleary* …………

Chris: HEY! I won!

Shinjiro: I know, I’m awake, I’ve just had all the excitement drained outta me. Nice job.

Chris: And there were some close calls in there. Luck, aka the RNG, played a very large role. Upon his defeat, what does Theodore have to say?

“I would have my answer when I met one whose power surpasses mine… Or so I (had long) thought.”

The part in the parenthesis was voiced but not put into text.

“But despite my loss, I hear no faint epiphany whispered in my ear… And yet… what is this emotion that wells up within me…? It’s as if the core of my being is filled with satisfaction… Could this be… my answer…? Only I can answer the question of my true self… Is this, then, the first step toward finding that answer?”

Are you saying that goddamn fight was pointless?! You had the answer within you all along?!

“…Well done. You are indeed a wonderful guest. …I will dole out your reward in the usual fashion. Oh, and… please take this. It’s not a reward, only… a sign of my gratitude.”

> You accepted the gift.
> Obtained Fragrant Bookmark.

“Well then, may we meet again in that room… Mind how you go on the way back.”

We go back to the lobby and into the Velvet Room. Theodore says he obviously doesn’t need proof handed in of his own defeat, and says we’ve used our power to help him in every way, which he thanks us again for. No matter where we go or what we do, he’s sure we’ll power through, and he looks forward to watching it happen. He grants us the Omnipotent Orb, an item that nullifies any and all attacks that aren’t of Almighty (non-elemental) type, aka the Megido line. Try using it on Theo, Liz, or Margaret, and they’ll instantly KO you, but otherwise it’s viable for any and all other encounters.

*sigh*

Tristram: You know what, I take back my earlier Dark Souls comment. Not even the most massive Soulslike fanboy would think that was fun or entertaining. That was unbearable just to read about!

You guys need to understand, I play Etrian Odyssey games. That’s a series known for its bitter difficulty curves and normal enemies with absolute bullshit abilities that tend to start showing up from about the third floor of the very first stratum. Etrian Odyssey Untold 2: The Fafnir Knight is so poorly balanced that you have to use the system intended to let you cover holes in your team with bonus skills to boost your normal skills to twice their usual maximums to handle the final story boss, let alone the postgame bosses. Etrian Odyssey 3 has a final postgame boss that can literally only be won through abusing the system like there’s no tomorrow because it reads your inputs each turn alongside abilities that are straight up designed to counter anything remotely normal. The best way to kill it is to use the bonus classes that you’ve probably never even used because they don’t get unlocked until 4/5 of the way through a run.

And I’ve still never fought a boss so utterly frustrating that it can’t be handled with some careful application of cheese and good party composition before. I’m absolutely boggled by this mess!

Empyrea: I don’t know... Sure, he’s frustrating, but have you guys tried Ozma from FF9? Now that had me throwing controllers. Very nearly, anyway.

Chris: Theodore wasn’t the only one drawing a blank with the results of his fight. That disaster? Took me over thirty tries. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t a real challenge, it was a colossal pain in my ass. None of the hard work I did over the game mattered. Orpheus Telos barely mattered. I didn’t win because I’d worked hard to get a lot of good Personas, I won because I had saved up sixty Beads, bought an Armageddon, farmed Homunculi, fought Strength and Fortune over and over again until I wanted to tear my hair out and won ten crucial items needed, and then we abused them. There’s none of that post-boss euphoria. I can’t be proud to say “I beat Theodore!” because I didn’t. Collectible items beat Theodore and are the only way to beat him. The only thing I’m happy about after that boss fight is that it’s done and I never have to do it again. I can’t believe people actually praise it.

And for that, it’s getting one more of these.

Bad Game Design: 98

Empyrea: *pats* I’m still putting the additional grinding required solely on P3P changing Fusion Raids into items. P3FES needed no such thing, just you conserving your MP. Still is an annoying and frustrating fight, though.

Before we go and re-assign all the skills we wanted back onto Messiah and Orpheus Telos, we have another boss to fight.

Shinjiro: And she’s supposed to be even worse than Theodore?!

Chris: She’s stronger, definitely. But not nearly as much of a drag for several reasons. Still rough, but after that three days of annoyance trying to bash Theo, I look forward to it. We go to the Vision Quest Hall and check the blue door that’s appeared in the middle. Everyone, please meet Margaret.

> You feel a terrifying presence…
> Are you sure you wish to enter?

True, you can fight her with a full party now, but that’s much less useful than it was in Persona 4 due to your party being non-customizable and, frankly, just all-round less useful here, and that’s getting it’s own BGD because I’ve got an entire post waiting on why.

Bad Game Design: 99

Margaret’s attacks and defenses have been cranked up, frankly, at least as high as Theodore’s. Like him, she also employs invisible conditions in the fight—bring all the Persona nulls you want, just no nulling accessories, like her P4 fight. She works in stages, during each of which you need to deal at least 5,000 damage to her within ten turns or she’ll terminate you.

What’s also different is that she doesn’t shut up. She has something to say every single time she casts, and now yells “No!” (which she said when struck down at the end of her fight in P4) every single time she’s hit. It’s beyond annoying and I don’t know why no one said so before it was published.

Bad Game Design: 100

First phase: the Four Heavenly Kings (Zouchoten, Jikokuten, Koumokuten, Bishamonten), during which she’ll only use physical attacks (Myriad Arrows, Akasha Arts, Vorpal Blade, Primal Force, God’s Hand, Brave Blade). She’s only vulnerable to whichever two physical types she didn’t use on her second turn (she’ll drain that one, thus why Orpheus Telos can’t have High Counter). She’ll use any critical one-more she gets to Power Charge.

This stage is ridiculous, but perfectly suited to Junpei and Aigis, two characters with enormous endurance and good physicals. Shinjiro too, should you fight her on a new game plus early enough for him to be present, although both he and Junpei having High Counter hurts more than it helps at times. Getting the necessary damage in is still a nightmare, though. Being at level 99 and stacking buffs helps tremendously. Yukari is practically mandatory to keep up the health of the other three. Margaret, meet Power Charge and Pralaya.

Yeah, she killed me before I could access the second phase, but overall this wasn’t as much of a nightmare as I remember. Definitely a proper challenge, unlike Theodore.

Second phase: Ailments. She’ll use Mokoi to cast them and, when she’s succeeded in afflicting at least one party member with them, start casting a variety of attacks with Neko Shogun, with a strong but not definite tendency to target the afflicted. Poison is crippling, since it affects our strength, and charm is a bitch because, again, not only is it devastating, but unless you have Amrita on you your whole party will likely have to sacrifice turns to remove it. On the other hand, the rage ailment is incredible, especially since this is a “free” phase where any attacks except light and dark are viable: we can cast mind charged and amped Thunder Reign on Margaret, and let the other afflicted party members attack directly for rage-boosted (double damage), critical-hit-boosted (1.5x damage), glorious pain twice each.

Third phase: This one requires strategy again. She’ll use the Mitamas (Nigi, Saki, Kusi, Ara) for elemental attacks (ice, lightning, wind, and fire respectively). Otherwise known as the “abuse weaknesses” phase. This one is hell, especially as she’s only vulnerable to the opposite of the element she used, which can be difficult to keep up with.

Final phase: This one is another “free” phase. She’ll cast Power Charge and Mind Charge with Clotho, follow it up with any number of debuffs, ailments, or drains (and her Spirit Drain here takes up more than 300 of your SP, holy shit) with Lachesis, and then attack with Atropos. Atropos scares us because she starts with Megidolaon, but it’s the non-instant-kill variety, so we’re good. And then, finally…

Shinjiro: !!!

Chris: I DID IT, SHE’S DOWN!!!

Tristram: *applauds* Oh, nicely done!

Empyrea: *joins in on the applause* Now you don’t have to do this ever again!

Shinjiro: How the hell did you even do that?!

Chris: I barely know myself. Back in the Vision Quest Hall, Margaret congratulates us, or rather, she thanks us for giving her a fun time. She says she’s leaving, but the Hall will be left open for us to use, and she’ll continue to watch our battles from somewhere else. On getting into the Velvet Room, Theo offers us a proper congratulations.

*nastily* She didn’t cause us nearly the amount of trouble you did, buddy. Not even close.

She really didn’t. Yeah, it took me several tries, because it’s a very hard fight. It’s challenging. It’s fun. It is nothing like that hell with Theodore that took me so damn long to do. It left me feeling proud and accomplished at the end, unlike the fight with Theo. I would trade the Margaret fight for the Elizabeth or Theodore fight a hundred times over. I almost feel inclined to give it a good game design point.

And with all of that done, we’ve officially one-hundred percented this game. All Social Links done, all Personas acquired, Orpheus Telos and Messiah acquired and organized the way I want, all Velvet attendant requests done… All that’s left is to finish the game itself, transcribe the Answer, and begin the final thoughts.

I’ll see you then.

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