Last time, we got our personas mirages, so it’s time to tackle the rest of the dungeon. We can talk to Tsubasa on the way out, but…
Thank you for coming after me, Itsuki… I was so relieved…
Yeah. Let’s just move on.
Our ultimate destination is that purple-ish thing in the background. Again, you can’t really get lost or go backwards, but at least we have some side passages with goodies now.
But before we can get too far, we have one last field mechanic to intro. Now that we’re equipped for battle, enemies will begin spawning semi-randomly throughout the dungeon, and once an enemy notices you, it will charge right at you. You can despawn them by interacting with the environment in some way (opening a treasure box, going down a ledge/up a ladder, etc), but for the most part you’re gonna have to deal with them the old-fashioned way.
Smack 'em in the face with your sword and they’ll collapse on the ground, at which point you can either engage them at will or walk right past them. If you leave them long enough (or walk far enough away from them), they’ll disappear.
This is also the only way to get a preemptive strike on enemies. It’s not guaranteed by any stretch of the imagination, but it does seem more common if you can hit them before they notice you.
First strikes also aren’t a guarantee for getting to lay into the enemies with impunity - here, only Itsuki got a free turn. Again, I believe this is based on the character’s speed (and possibly their relative speed to the enemies), but I’m not 100% sure on that.
At any rate, two blobs go down quite easily and we learn our first skills!
If you’ve ever played SMTIV, the system in TMS is basically identical to Demon Whispering. You have 6 slots a piece for Commands, Session, and Passive skills, and learning the same skill multiple will upgrade it, making it cost less MP to use or increasing the base power of the move. You can also see what the weapon’s next skill is, but you can’t see the whole listing without going into the equip screen.
Tsubasa has something very important here, though. Elec-Lunge is our first session skill, and sessions are the real meat of the battle system. We’ll see how they work in just a sec.
Anyway, if we hang a right at this first junction, we’ll find a couple medicines.
At the next plaza, there’s a couple enemies floating around. Unlike some SMT games, getting in a fight with multiple enemies at once isn’t a thing, so you don’t have to worry about enemy reinforcements at the end of a fight or anything like that.
Back in battle, things have changed a little bit. As you can see, when we hit the blobs with Zio, Tsubasa’s Elec-Lunge is now part of the chain. If we carry out this attack…
Itsuki casts Zio like normal, but Tsubasa joins in with an attack of her own. This is a session, and this is how you will shatter this game over your knee. However, there are some very important rules that you have to remember about sessions:
- Sessions are always started by hitting a weakness or using a super move of some kind (more on those later)
- You must have a relevant session skill to combo with - in other words, if you have Fire-Ice and Fire-Wind, unless you can work a fire attack in there somewhere, that character isn’t contributing anything.
- Each character can only contribute one attack to a session (which includes the inital attack). This means you can’t have a session that goes Itsuki-Tsubasa-Itsuki - he was the one that started the combo in the first place.
- Combo attacks are subject to the same resistance rules as regular attacks. Hitting a null/drain, reflect, or missing entirely will end the session immediately.
- Sessions only include your main party unless they have a specific skill. Bench characters who have said skill will always join a combo after your main party has attacked.
- There is no way to not combo. If an enemy is weak to electricity but reflects lances? Well, too fuckin’ bad. Tsubasa is about to punch herself in the face and there’s no way you can stop her.
- Related to the above, the game automatically puts together your combo chains. I’m not sure if it’s max length or max damage, but either way you have no choice in how they play out. If there’s a combo breaker in the middle of it, tough shit.
There are other mechanics relating to sessions that will come into play later, but for now, that’s really everything you need to know. Unless you’re running into enemies with drain or reflect, there’s really no reason to not do a session whenever possible, and you can rack up ridiculous amounts of damage with it if you know what you’re doing.
Shortly thereafter, Itsuki picks up Lance-Slash, but he can’t do anything with it until Tsubasa gets an actual lance skill. Direct attacks can’t trigger sessions, after all.
Heading south from that large plaza, we find a couple Revival Beads. They’re handy to have around, but there’s an item which does the exact same thing and can be bought for 1500 yen, so they’re not really that useful.
On our way back, Tsubasa picks up Skewer, which means that Itsuki can now make use of Lance-Slash. Once she picks up Sword-Lunge, our small team will have complete combo potential with each other.
Past the plaza, we come across this wall. We can try attacking but it doesn’t do anything, and examining it simply says there’s nothing we can do here right now.
That said, there’s a treasure ball back there so we will eventually be able to get past it. It’s just going to take ~35 hours.
At the top of the next elevator, we get interrupted by Touma again.
[quote]
ITSUKI! are you okay!?
Yeah, somehow. I found Tsubasa, too. We’re all right.
where even are you guys right now?
I have actually no idea.
gaahhh you dumbass
okay look. you guys gotta find the exit. got that? there should be a round building somewhere south of you. the exit’s near there, so get moving!
and BE CAREFUL. you guys better not die![/quote]
Yeah, yeah, we get it. You’d think Itsuki would mention the whole ghost-fusion thing but I guess that would require a bit too much explaining.
Oh no it’s an ambush!
Oh. :geno: Yeah, they don’t last long.
It’s called Performa. Chances are, it was harvested from a human…
Per…forma?
It’s a power that only you humans carry within… For beings like us, it provides sustenance and power.
So that host at the audition… was kidnapping people to steal their Performa…?
Wooow… Look at it sparkle!
Chuckle I sense Performa shining within you, too, Tsubasa.
A power carried by humans…
We’re just about there, you can actually see the exit from the red dome off to the left.
One last new enemy, the Caspar is weak to Elec/Wind/Ice and occasionally throws an Agi at you. Itsuki is weak to fire, but it should be trivial to kill them before they can do any serious damage.
Itsuki picks up Rakukaja, which has a weird combination of classic SMT and Persona functionality. It targets the entire party, but the effects don’t stack if you try to cast it multiple times.
Chakra Drops are one of the more handy items, because you don’t get a full heal when you level up. Outside of healing points (of which there is like…one. In the entire game), the only way to recover your MP is to leave the dungeon, so having a few Chakras on hand is good.
Our ultimate destination is now in sight. That green orb in the background is right next to where we need to go.
Itsuki picks up his final skill as we make the last turn. Strength Boost is one of those skills that we’ll dump as soon as we have a better option, because two points is not a big boost and Itsuki is fairly strength-biased to begin with. Note that the weapon now says “Full Inheritance”, which means there’s nothing else we can wring out of it outside of its qualities as a weapon itself.
One last set of goodies for the road. First Aid Kits are a low level full party heal, similar to Media.
Our final skill for this update is Sword-Lunge on Tsubasa. Again, Tsubasa’s strength isn’t much to write home about, but this does mean that both Itsuki and Tsubasa can combo off of anything the other person throws out. That’s not nothing, this early in the game.
And speaking of combos, note that even though Itsuki has a mere 5 MP, he can still contribute to the session. Part of why sessions are so hilariously broken is that unless a party member physically cannot contribute for some reason (dead, asleep, silenced, etc), their session arts have no cost. No matter how long the session goes, or which art they use, everything after the initial hit is completely free to cast.
A mysterious power envelopes Itsuki’s body…
And just like that, we’re topped off for the boss.
There is an elevator here at the end, but it goes down to another light wall. Again, we’ll be back for these in a loooooong time.
Next time, we fight the boss and finish up the Prologue. See you then!