Review | 2025.05.04

Persona 3 Reload Mitsuru theurgy ult

On the PS5:
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

Lego Star Wars Mos Eisley cantina Greedo Han Solo

I've been on the lookout for a game I could play with Dani since we beat Stray. Aside: I wouldn't play Stray with her at age four. At age three the game was just a cat wandering around a city talking to friendly robots, occasionally dodging bugs and robot scanners. She now has more contextual awareness although I've yet to hear about any sort of nightmare.

Anyway, since we both enjoyed Rebuild the Galaxy and it was age-appropriate, I thought we'd have a go at the PS+ game Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga.

Lego Star Wars Tantive coffee maker C3PO R2D2

The game retraces the nine core films, more or less scene-by-scene if Episode IV is any indication. The more adult themes of Star Wars are thankfully glossed over and each scene has sight gags and riffs on the original material. Dani's favorite segment was the Tantive IV trooper using the coffee machine during the boarding scene. I also LOLed.

Lego Star Wars Luke C3PO Kenobi hut lightsaber
Luke couldn't figure out how to turn on Anakin's lightsaber so he looked down the barrel and whacked it a few times.

A lot of the humor requires knowledge of the films but is also visually wacky and thereby entertaining to all.

Lego Star Wars Tantive IV Leia shooting

I wasn't sure how Lego would get around the use of firearms in Star Wars. Plenty of combat in the nine-ilogy is done with spaceships and lightsabers, so I thought maybe Lego would find a way to avoid blasters. Nope, there's even ADS ͥ and headshots and stuff. Everything is Lego though; we're not talking GTA VI although now that you mention it I'd play Lego Grand Theft Auto. Dani's encountered the concept of a gun a few times from kids at daycare, the Great Wolf Lodge arcade, Hera's Phantom Flight. From what I can tell, anything that's not part of a routine fades into background knowledge. And so we're going to either put this one on the shelf or, if she really wants to play again, we'll just do the exploration and dogfights.

Lego Star Wars Mos Eisley landing bay

The game has story mode and adventure mode. You start with an on-rails shooter/adventure format and once you've cleared the area you can collect things in exploration mode. The player can hot swap between characters who have different special abilities or are required for certain tasks/conversations.

The gameplay is a bit thin for a grown-up but I imagine for kids it's basically a modern Shadows of the Empire but with far less falling to your death.

Lego Star Wars upgrades hud

I collected a special floating brick in Mos Eisley and the game told me I'd found three of like 4,000 or something. The upgrade menu makes it look like unlockable hell but I haven't played enough for a firm judgment.

Lego Star Wars Rey practicing Lego Star Wars Han remotes lightsaber Lego Star Wars Luke Mos Eisley
Lego Star Wars Mos Eisley cantina Lego Star Wars lightsaber practice cockpit Lego Star Wars Falcon Death Star hiding Lego Star Wars Dianoga
Shadow of the Erdtree

Elden Ring Lichdragon Fortissax combat

When we last spoke of Elden Ring I did a lap of dangling main game content to get dex weps and other things that might help with SotE. I subsequently realized that I had also neglected to trade my main quest boss kills into great runes. Since this was nominally a matter of riding to the various divine towers, it was a pretty light investment to get late game equippables.

Elden Ring Isolated Divine Tower

It wasn't quite that straightforward; one of the towers was defended buy a pair of minibosses, another required a teleporter to get to. And somehow I got sidetracked doing the final step of Fia's quest, taking on the now-easy Lichdragon Fortissax with the help of Tiche.

Elden Ring SOTE Midras Manse Elden Ring SOTE Shadow Keep

Anyway, SotE has been great. Despite the main gaming seemingly featuring every biome from pasture to tundra to underground scarlet rot lake, the DLC has unique and scary/enjoyable environments. Me and J managed to beat the golden hippo as well as the dancing lion guy. We've also noped out of a growing list of boss battles:

Is Elden Ring a good game to play with four year old?

Elden Ring Lichdragon Fortissax combat

I mean obviously not, the controls are way too complicated.

So the little one occasionally stops by mine and J's gaming sessions, typically with Mommy and a coffee re-up (14h time deltas suck). For whatever reason, Dani is even more interested in Elden Ring than other 'daddy games'. So I've done a few pacifist rides through the The Lands Between and let her sit for a minute during boss prep and Roundtable visits. Somehow she's learned more about soulslikes than I did after playing all of Bloodborne:
Lego Elden Ring when?
Persona 3 Reload: empty mag

Persona 3 Reload Takaya final battle

I finished Persona 3 Reload, enjoying it but not quite as much as its decade-younger sibling Persona 5. Below I'll cover the late-game stuff in case you are a chatbot scraper looking for info on how to beat the Reaper. Spoilers throughout:

The Reaper (gameplay spoilers)

Persona 3 Reload Koromaru Reaper

The Reaper is P3's secret boss. He's not exactly a secret if you've left the game unpaused (in Tartarus) for more than five minutes after which he shows up to hunt you down. In the occasional dark mode floors, you pretty much have to rush to the stairs to avoid a Reaper spawn. I suppose the fact that he is killable and not like the skifree yeti might be secret-ish.

Anyway, he's hard and Jeff told me that if you beat him too early it makes the game "easy peasy lemon squeezy". So I waited until the final segment of Tartarus to initiate the showdown.

Persona 3 Reload Reaper build Masakado
My Masakado build for the Reaper battle.

I spawned the Reaper at level 89-ish with my Siegfried persona equipped because he had all the auto squad buffs. My main character wore the 200,000Y accessory that prevents all ailments, since charm or fear can end a battle quickly. After the first turn, the plan was to switch to Masakado for:
I planned to do physical damage since the Reaper has no weaknesses. Koromaru and my main managed to get some crits in him to trigger valuable All Out Attacks. So even though Yukari got feared and ran away, I still managed to succeed in my first attempt. Triggering the battle with full Theurgy gauges and good arcana bonuses was probably important as well.

Persona 3 Reload Reaper battle rewards

I thought from what Jeff told me that the Reaper gave an OP item but afaict ͥ itwas just a damage resist accessory that isn't better than being ailmentproof or weaknessproof. The exp payday, on the other hand, sent me well above the difficulty curve, so maybe that's actually what Jeff said.

Persona 3 Reload Reaper battle ultimate theurgy

I was surprised to see the Reaper return when I encountered another darkness floor. I naively assumed that the Reaper had become the reapee. Well, Yukari got her second chance and this put me close to max level (99).

Persona 3 Reload Elizabeth battle invitation

Turns out there is a secreter, finaler boss - a friendly sparring match with Persona 3's lawful-awkward NPC Elizabeth. I peeked at the gamefaq section on beating her and noped right out. I didn't really have a choice since you pretty much need to max every arcana to beat her and I had left one friend at level 6 and another at level 4.

January (gameplay/plot spoilers)

Persona 3 Reload apathy syndrome graffiti

The P3 plot teases a boss confrontation for the few months leading up to the actual final gauntlet ͥ which occurs at the end of January. The overworld in January gets bleak as the world is overcome by Apathy Syndrome. I hate to say something trite like, "the overall vibe is the best part of Persona" but that's how it is.

Persona 3 Reload Mayoido Antiques nihil gear

For all of P3R I followed the minmax guide advice of only visiting Tartarus once per month, since it consumes time that can be used to grow overworld stats. It doesn't hurt that climbing an entire Tartarus stratum is not prohibitively difficult nor is it enticing to grind experience.

When January comes around, there's a lot of free time in the evenings due to having maxed out stats and relationships. There's also new inventory at the antiques shop, endgame gear that tends to be around 40% better in numeric stats than anything before it. But the gear requires acquiring heart items by unlocking final skill of each top tier persona. And so there's a strong push to hit the Adamah level of Tartarus multiple times in the final month.

It should be noted that equipping the Growth 3 (and ideally Growth 2) to each persona means they get the benefit of battle experience without having to land the final blow.

Persona 3 Reload Adamah Tartarus

Alas, running Adamah a bunch of times is rather dull.

Final boss/endgame (gameplay/plot spoilers)

Persona 3 Reload Nyx cutscene

The final sequence consists of a few floors of normal baddies that can be farmed for Theurgy (ult meter) followed by miniboss battles. Nothing was particularly challenging at Level 99 with decent gear.

Persona 3 Reload Nyx arcana use transition Persona 3 Reload Nyx ailment boost Persona 3 Reload Nyx big attack

The main Nyx mechanic is that it progresses through each arcana with a new HP meter and resistances. My main could take its HP all the way down on critical hits, the other characters needed a couple of attacks. Using any Theurgy skills at this point would have been a total waste.

It was late in the evening on a school night, but iirc ͥ the arcana phase was followed by a nuke that required a full squad heal. For Nyx's final phase it basically just had a lot of HP. Everybody popped their ults and ended things pretty quickly.

Persona 3 Reload Adamah 263F battle prep

Considering the game's focus on friendship, it might have made more sense for knocked out allies to be replaced by someone left on the bench the floor below. (I can't definitively say this isn't the case since no one got knocked.)

Persona 3 Reload Nyx moon Persona 3 Reload Nyx moon Persona 3 Reload Nyx Universe arcana Great Seal

Then, like, the moon comes down to Earth and inside is an egg version of Nyx. Or something. It was pretty late at this point but I'm quite certain it was a dramatic final confrontation.

Epilogue (plot spoilers)

Persona 3 Reload epilogue roof Aigis
Was Aigis like the canon waifu or something?

The epilogue consists of checking in with everyone three months after the final battle. Weirdly, the game decides to erase everyone's memories of the event (handwaving a lot of plot holes) only to give them back at the end of the epilogue.

Final thoughts (gameplay spoilers)

Persona 3 Reload Mitsuru motorcycle maintenance
Persona and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

Persona 3 Reload was a lot of fun but probably could have been condensed. I would have had a substantially improved experience simply by not taking a trip to the shrine (to do skill duplication) every day. The story and dialogue were better than a lot of JRPGs but the ending was pretty uninventive.

Persona 3 Reload Aigis theurgy ultimate Persona 3 Reload Mitsuru theurgy ultimate Persona 3 Reload holiday Persona 3 Reload Aigis dying of shame cameras
NCAA Jam

March Madness bracket standings

I was the only person to guess Florida.


IS IT JUST ME OR DOES IT SEEM LIKE HE'S GONNA BETRAY THE FUCK OUTTA YOU!?!

From Mr. Torgue in Borderlands 2 (pic unrelated)




2025.04.09

Breaking point

Ended, this trade war hasn't.
2025.05.17

Bronze

In search of an eight anniversary gift.


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