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Re: Sony PSVITA Discussion
You'll get the full rundown once you get a ways into the game (and there's a load of info you can bring up and look at anytime), but here's the basic idea...
Personas are the things that fight for you in this game - they all have different abilities and different strengths and weaknesses. They're also grouped into arcanas which tell you more or less what type of persona it is. For instance, Magician arcanas often have high magic ratings and good spells, while Strength arcanas are more about physical attack. Some of the others like Hierophant or Justice follow their own patterns too, but they're not quite as obvious as those two. You just kind of pick up what each arcana's specialty is as you play around with them. But personas' specific abilities still vary widely, even if they're the same arcana. Some use fire attacks, some ice, some physical, etc. Also, personas affect your character's stats and performance in battle - if you have a low STR persona equipped, your regular attack won't do much damage. And a high EN (endurance) persona is tougher and takes less damage than a lower EN one. The main character has the ability to switch personas in mid-battle, so knowing the vitals of your personas is pretty important if you want to maximize your damage.
You do acquire personas through battle spoils, but they're usually not all that powerful in the beginning. That's where fusion comes in. You combine 2 or more personas to make a new one. These fused persona have the potential to be much more powerful for a couple of reasons. They can inherit the abilities of the original personas (you get to choose which abilities, although it's limited somewhat by type - you usually can't have a fire-weak persona inherit Agi, for example). But what really makes them more powerful are Social Links.
As big a part of the dungeon-grinding in this game is this - you also carry on the life of a high school student, and have interactions with people around the town. Some of these will lead to a social link being formed that corresponds to one of the arcanas. When you have a Social Link of a certain arcana, any persona you create of that arcana gets an EXP boost at creation. It's not much in the beginning, but Social Link levels can go up to 10, and every time it goes higher, the EXP boost increases. Even a 2 or 3 level increase can make a big difference with a newly-created persona, and at Social Link 10 you could probably expect 5 levels.
Thing is, you can't just do all this stuff at one time. Most Social Link interactions cause time to progress in a day, limiting what you can do. So IMO, it's best to focus on a couple of social links at one time - going out and making friends with the whole town isn't going to allow any of them to give you a really high EXP bonus - you simply won't have enough time to balance that AND the dungeon explorations (which also take time). The time management aspect is one of the most interesting things about this game, and it forces you to make choices on how you want to play through the game.
As much as that is, I'm REALLY just scratching the surface here. Couple more just general tips:
- Protect yourself above all else. It's like FFXIII (although this predated it by many years) - your main character dies and it's game over, regardless of the rest of your party. Guarding is pretty effective and keeps you from being knocked down, so don't be afraid to use it if you're in a tough spot. And yes, because of the way this is, dying can be extremely frustrating. It's best to allow as few enemies to attack as possible so you don't get ganged up on.
- Press square if you don't know what an ability does, everything has some unusual names in this series. Especially the stat boosting/decreasing ones - even after playing P3 (which had the same names) I still have to look at the help to know what they do.
- Once you have other party members, they'll fight on their own. For the most part, the AI is good enough in regular fights as long as the characters are strong enough to handle it. But for some fights, particularly bosses, you'll probably want to issue specific commands. That option is in the tactics menu, in battle. Personally I find that the first rescue boss battle is very difficult without the direct commands, and the second is damn near impossible. I think it was designed that way.Last edited by bcruise; 11-24-2012, 11:30 PM.Comment
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Re: Sony PSVITA Discussion
WOW all of that sounds confusing LOL. I will give this a shot and see what happens. I am going to take a week off from work at Christmas. I will get it then.You'll get the full rundown once you get a ways into the game (and there's a load of info you can bring up and look at anytime), but here's the basic idea...
Personas are the things that fight for you in this game - they all have different abilities and different strengths and weaknesses. They're also grouped into arcanas which tell you more or less what type of persona it is. For instance, Magician arcanas often have high magic ratings and good spells, while Strength arcanas are more about physical attack. Some of the others like Hierophant or Justice follow their own patterns too, but they're not quite as obvious as those two. You just kind of pick up what each arcana's specialty is as you play around with them. But personas' specific abilities still vary widely, even if they're the same arcana. Some use fire attacks, some ice, some physical, etc. Also, personas affect your character's stats and performance in battle - if you have a low STR persona equipped, your regular attack won't do much damage. And a high EN (endurance) persona is tougher and takes less damage than a lower EN one. The main character has the ability to switch personas in mid-battle, so knowing the vitals of your personas is pretty important if you want to maximize your damage.
You do acquire personas through battle spoils, but they're usually not all that powerful in the beginning. That's where fusion comes in. You combine 2 or more personas to make a new one. These fused persona have the potential to be much more powerful for a couple of reasons. They can inherit the abilities of the original personas (you get to choose which abilities, although it's limited somewhat by type - you usually can't have a fire-weak persona inherit Agi, for example). But what really makes them more powerful are Social Links.
As big a part of the dungeon-grinding in this game is this - you also carry on the life of a high school student, and have interactions with people around the town. Some of these will lead to a social link being formed that corresponds to one of the arcanas. When you have a Social Link of a certain arcana, any persona you create of that arcana gets an EXP boost at creation. It's not much in the beginning, but Social Link levels can go up to 10, and every time it goes higher, the EXP boost increases. Even a 2 or 3 level increase can make a big difference with a newly-created persona, and at Social Link 10 you could probably expect 5 levels.
Thing is, you can't just do all this stuff at one time. Most Social Link interactions cause time to progress in a day, limiting what you can do. So IMO, it's best to focus on a couple of social links at one time - going out and making friends with the whole town isn't going to allow any of them to give you a really high EXP bonus - you simply won't have enough time to balance that AND the dungeon explorations (which also take time). The time management aspect is one of the most interesting things about this game, and it forces you to make choices on how you want to play through the game.
As much as that is, I'm REALLY just scratching the surface here. Couple more just general tips:
- Protect yourself above all else. It's like FFXIII (although this predated it by many years) - your main character dies and it's game over, regardless of the rest of your party. Guarding is pretty effective and keeps you from being knocked down, so don't be afraid to use it if you're in a tough spot. And yes, because of the way this is, dying can be extremely frustrating. It's best to allow as few enemies to attack as possible so you don't get ganged up on.
- Press square if you don't know what an ability does, everything has some unusual names in this series. Especially the stat boosting/decreasing ones - even after playing P3 (which had the same names) I still have to look at the help to know what they do.
- Once you have other party members, they'll fight on their own. For the most part, the AI is good enough in regular fights as long as the characters are strong enough to handle it. But for some fights, particularly bosses, you'll probably want to issue specific commands. That option is in the tactics menu, in battle. Personally I find that the first rescue boss battle is very difficult without the direct commands, and the second is damn near impossible. I think it was designed that way.
Thanks for the lengthy reply I will refer to it when I play.Comment
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Re: Sony PSVITA Discussion
Everything I mentioned plus much more is available to look at in the game too, once you have open access to a certain "room" (it'll happen early on). Also, the game's manual is 72 pages and probably covers most of this stuff too. Press the PS button (the blue light) while in game and tap on the book with the question mark - that's the manual.Comment
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Re: Sony PSVITA Discussion
I asked BCruise about RPG games for a beginner and he recommended downloading Chrono Trigger (PSOne Classic). Rainbow Moon is a game I've got my eye on; I played the PS3 Demo and enjoyed it, but decided to hold off on buying once I heard the game was coming to the Vita.
Persona sounds very intimidating to me, lol.Currently Playing:
MLB The Show 25 (PS5)Comment
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I just got done playing persona 4 for the first time. Wow, that game really immerses you from the get go. Hard not to get grabbed from the get go. Wandering around that town reminds me a bit of playing shenmue on the dream cast, haha.YNWAComment
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Re: Sony PSVITA Discussion
It's hard to explain things in this game without it sounding like that - it's a very deep game. Everything makes more sense once you play it for yourself - much better than I could explain it. However, this is what I meant when I said it's not the most beginner friendly RPG in the world (not Disgaea levels of newbie-killer, but still...). It's very much a "learn by doing" (and in the upper difficulties, "learn by dying") kind of game.
There is one thing about the Very Easy difficulty I didn't know about until I saw it in the manual - you can retry a battle if you die, instead of having to go back to the start of the floor. In a game where death can come very quickly if you're not careful (or just get horribly unlucky) that's huge. I would also guess that you don't need to get too deep into persona fusions and social links to play the game on very easy - I wonder if you could even use the personas you aquire in battle and nothing else, and still do well. Part of me wants to test that theory, if I want to take a break from my main Hard level game...lol.Comment
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Re: Sony PSVITA Discussion
Well, I tried out Very Easy...to be perfectly honest, anyone who's never seen an RPG before should be able to pick it up on that level. Forget all the fusion stuff, I barely even needed to change personas during battle. And this isn't me bragging or anything - it's literally just regular attack and watch your other party members do the rest. This shows me that the game's a lot more accessible than I thought.
Easy is probably similar in terms of not worrying about fusions and such, but from my PS2 experience on Normal, that's the level where you need to have at least some understanding of it, or you'll struggle.Comment
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The colors in Persona 4, the colorssss.YNWAComment
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Re: Sony PSVITA Discussion
so since buying the 32gb card, would you guys go full digital when buying games?N.Y Mets
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Twitter - @RoyalBoyle78
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Re: Sony PSVITA Discussion
No.
That was my initial plan, but it just didn't work out that way. I guess it's mostly because I took advantage of getting my physical copies for a certain reason. I physically own:
- MLB 12: The Show (bundle deal)
- Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified (B2G1F)
- ModNation Racers: Road Trip ($12.99 sale)
- Mortal Kombat ($9.99 sale)
- LittleBigPlanet (nabbed ten days early)
When not in my Vita, these games actually reside in my wallet.
I digitally own:
- Uncharted: Golden Abyss
- WipEout 2048
- PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale
- Super Stardust Delta
- Motorstorm RC
- Gravity Rush
- ZEN Pinball 2
- Sound Shapes
- Tomba! (PSOne)
I realize that I also have music on this thing, but I've been clearing it up like no other to make room for the PS+ downloads. Now I only have 3.5 GB free. If I went completely digital, I wouldn't have enough room on this thing. I would if I cleared the rest of my music, but we are only nine months into owning this thing. What are we going to do for the next two years if we went completely digital, especially when you download the free PS+ stuff they offer?
I'd say that do what's most convenient for you. Again, there's a reason why I have physical copies that ended up working out better than getting them digitally.Samsung PN60F8500 PDP / Anthem MRX 720 / Klipsch RC-62 II / Klipsch RF-82 II (x2) / Insignia NS-B2111 (x2) / SVS PC13-Ultra / SVS SB-2000 / Sony MDR-7506 Professional / Audio-Technica ATH-R70x / Sony PS3 & PS4 / DirecTV HR44-500 / DarbeeVision DVP-5000 / Panamax M5400-PM / Elgato HD60Comment
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