Fynn
is an EoFF Hero and/or Heroine
Radical Dreamer

It's not as bad as people make it out to be. It has it's fair share of problems of course but I've always felt it had enough good ideas to balance the bad ones.

Good luck with the Vishnu run. I've been jumping back and forth with games from my Top 100 list at the moment, and kind of rediscovering some other titles I've either not given enough attention to or checking out some games for the sake of it.

No problem ! I see you as a very cool friend and awesome person and you have been so kind and supportive to me since joining this forum so just wanted to say thanks ^^

It's really more about the characters to be honest. Gameplay is not a selling point for this game, hell even the basic plot really isn't a selling point. As I said, it's a bit hard to explain but I know lots of people who like the game and would say something similar. Like the game is incredibly generic, but it's characters and humor are so outstanding that it makes up for all of these shortcomings.

I was kind of hoping to say a bit more than that.

It's just hard to say cause it's more of an emotional element, and I'm not terribly good at verbalizing that sometimes. The best I can come up with is that it's a game that doesn't really do anything special, but does all of it's elements well enough not to need to.

Looks cute enough.

I'm currently trying to grasp the words needed to discuss my next entry for my top 100 thread. I mean I feel it deserves to be here, but it's hard to put into words why.

Yeah, I haven't bothered with Vishnu either. While I'm more forgiving with this game that you are, even I have to take breaks from it.

Vishnu requires making a contract with every demon in the game at least once, which becomes a bitch when you have to find the rare demons in the optional dungeon, not to mention that it's much more difficult to do without Reiji or going into the game with the intention of getting him.

Combat is just something you're going to have to live with and the Personas are much more unbalanced than later games. I will say right now that Lilim is a great mid-game persona since she absorbs all magic and has lots of customization options with magic stones.

The biggest thing I'll point out is that XP is rewarded by who did the most in battle. So mutli-target spells will often reward lots of XP as well as healing and killing enemies. The main reason I bring this up is that some characters are speedier than others and thus you can easily find yourself in a situation where half your party have a five level gain on everyone else. Be aware of this and exploit the fact that most of the party can use most of the Personas.

Also, Dexterity and Agility are the only stats that really matter. You can pour some into Vitality to gain health but Dexterity especially tends to raise multiple stats across the board and personas can cover other weaknesses. Strength is worthless so don't bother.

Ultimate Personas depend on which scenario you're in. For SEBEC (Main) you simply need to make all the right choices to get the game's best ending because it will take you to the place where you acquire all of the totem items to make them. In Snow Queen, you have to beat the Towers in reverse order with Thanatos first to acquire the bonus item material needed to be traded for the items during the end game. Technically, there are better Persona options for every character and the "Ultimate" don't really live up to their names. Hell, the MC almost never gets shown with his real Ultimate and no official artwork exists of it outside of the sprite work, He's usually shown with Vishnu who is away better Persona.

Other than that, getting Personas is pretty much a more dumbdowned experience in terms of fusion, you may need to buy some items at the Casino for some forms, and others are only acquired by beating certain enemies in the optional dungeon, but you can easily beat the game without some of these. Conversations are a bit more nuanced than later entries and it can be difficult to tell what works especially since there is something like a 10% chance that the conversation style that usually works can fail. Just remember to get them excited to make a pact with them in order to get their card. Reiji is actually the best character for this because there are no enemies in the game that don't respond positively to one of his conversation styles.

If you're going to do the SEBEC arc, try to go for Reiji, it will make the first part challenging, and he adds a bit more to the story since he's connected to the main villain. Use the negotiation system more, and learn to appreciate how much of a cold hearted bastard Nanjo is, but make sure to always ignore his suggestion if you want to see the best ending.