Persona 3 FES (Low Level, Hard) - Change Relic, Gold Beetles

Published 2023-12-27
Rules for this challenge:
-Goal is to beat the game while minimizing EXP as much as humanly possible (without losing my sanity)
-Hard mode, True Ending, No Nyx Skip, No New Game Plus
-In order to dilute EXP as much as possible, a full party must always be used when possible
-Permanently increasing persona stats via the arcade or card incenses are banned for as long as possible (at least until after the final Tartarus guardian)
-All other mechanics are fair game!

Change Relic is hard. Poison Mist will mess with the A.I. as they like to prioritize their healing on status inflicted characters. Magarula is just a hard hitting move that requires a lot of commitment to bounce back from. There are also no good personas at my current level that resist wind. It's literally just Alp. It's better to wait until you have Mitsuru to stay on the offensive for you while keeping everyone else on the defensive.

Gold Beetles have a "soft weakness" to elec (meaning they take little damage, but have the weakness/knock down flag for that element). They have a pseudo-weakness to wind (no weakness flag, but takes more damage from element). I wasn't a fan of this in Persona 4 because they did this way more often and even in random encounters, plus they gave some enemies almighty resistance which is stupid. For fights like this one though, I don't really mind it as much. It made me think about the turn order and who to assign targets to accordingly. The protagonist should knock down all the enemies first. Have Yukari focus down whatever enemies that get back up before her turn. Her wind attacks will deal the bulk of the damage for this fight. The enemies will use up their turns getting up, Akihiko will knock down the enemies again, and they'll be open for an All-Out Attack with no retaliation. Mitsuru will remain on stand by.

This will likely be my party for the rest of the game. If I default to using just the highest level joining members like other people are often inclined to do, I'd be stuck with Aigis, Koromaru, and Ken. Ken's not bad but can't heal status ailments like Yukari. Buffs don't extend upon recast, so this makes managing buffs more of a chore. It's honestly easier to manage them on the protagonist's turn since they'll begin and end starting on his turn. Koromaru only has fire and dark with the latter being completely useless against bosses.

Persona 3 FES (Low Level) - Change Relic, Gold Beetles

All Comments (2)
  • @UpItIsMe
    I think the reason that the soft-weakness and pseudo weakness works better here than in p4 is in big part because it doesn't overstay its welcome. Other than that since it is a boss fight you have some expectation/allowance for the fight to bend the normal rules of the game a bit and there is some expectation of possibly loosing and having to redo the fight letting you properly discover the mechanic and utilize it as a deliberate part of your strategy. If you have the mechanic appear in random encounters it is more likely to be percieved as a hassle since it slows down the generally fast paced random encounters and therefore it sticks out in a negative way.