Valkyria Chronicles II – gameplay advice

I finished the game so it’s time for some gameplay advice, hoping it’s useful for both newcomers and people familiar with the franchise.

In battle:

• Most times, it pays off to have control of the areas, and we achieve this by capturing enemy’s camps. By capturing a camp we don’t only block their reinforcements, we also boost Morale and have a ready-to-deploy base for ourselves. Besides, this game features special camps called gate camps, and if we capture them we can use them to deploy to additional areas.
• Always keep in mind mission objectives and failure conditions. A common failure condition is to lose our main base camp, so we better keep track of nearby areas and have at least an ally nearby protecting it.
• This game distributes the battlefield across areas, so we need to quickly adapt to the current situation by deploying and undeploying the correct soldiers. Examples include deploying lancers to effectively countering tanks.
• Idle, unnecesary people better be removed from the battlefield because we can have at most 6 soldiers (tank included) deployed.
• Use orders effectively and keep in mind they are CP expensive. However they come in handy in tight spots for boosting attack and defense stats, and for healing requests.
• Snipers are actually better and more useful than what we believe they are. And promoting a sniper to Elite Sniper is one of the best things we could do to have the upper hand on many situations, but specially while fighting bosses. Having an Elite Sniper means a sick combo of all accuracy, range, firepower and little risk.

Outside battle:

• Don’t forget to go to the Drill Grounds every now and then. When leveling up, I strongly suggest to give priority to the frontline soldiers: scouts, shocktroopers and lancers.
• Go to the R&D lab frequently and upgrade as most equipment as you can. Try to keep some balance between upgrading the tank and upgrading the soldiers equipment.
• On this game, I believe the tank is so much better than the APC on every mission. Besides, you should know the tank may use only a CP by picking the correct body.
• We may purchase more orders at the Shop, so it’s always a good idea to pay them a visit and see if they have anything useful. (by the way, it is very cool to have Welkin and Alicia here). Purchasing an order costs EXP instead of DCT, so keep that in mind and don’t use all EXP only on leveling up.

SMT IV Apocalypse – Unlocking Kinshicho treasure chest room

This is advice for early game but I’ll explain it’s useful for later parts of the game as well.

You probably noticed there is a locked room with 3 treasure chests just in front of the main character’s bedroom. This room doesn’t require a key but you need to infiltrate from a vent that is next to the bar (see green circle on the map above). It’s possible to climb it as soon as an NPC boy moves after some little progress in the game is made. Once you get there you can unlock that room from inside.

I said this advice is useful for the rest of the game because this cheat also creates a handy shortcut to quickly move from the main area to the bedroom and viceversa.

Persona 3 Reload – Gameplay Advice (Part 2)

Follow-up to my previous entry. https://consolesuniverse.wordpress.com/2024/03/01/persona-3-reload-gameplay-advice-part-1-combat/

Part 2:

• Low on budget, how to easily earn gold? First go to Tartarus an:
  • Farm as most items as you can by destroying the dark crystal-like structures.
  • Use your combat skills to always trigger a Shuffle after combat. When in Shuffle, always pick the money card, if possible.
  • Look for rare shadows and formidable shadows. They drop more EXP and money than our everyday enemy.
  • If you are on the middle-game it’s always a good idea to explore Monad doors and Monad passages, these areas have bosses that reward with more money and EXP, in addition to many treasure chests.
  • If you already explored all the current floors, don’t worry, you may encounter more rare and formidable shadows, as they show up randomly. Use your radar to quicly detect them.
  • Old documents must be delivered to Elizabeth in order to get a big reward ($$$). These old documents are always placed at the current last floor.
  • After visiting Tartarus, sell all the items you don’t need to any store.
• Some Persona fusion tips:
  • Early game: go for Personas that attack with light or dark damage, no one in your team can do that for now so, the more attack variety, the better. Attacking with light or dark magic at the beginning is an easy way to cover must possible enemy weaknesses.
  • Mid and late game: aim for Special Fusions. It’s a lot of work but it always pays off. Personas obtained through Special Fusion usually have better move sets, passives and stats than average Personas.
  • A best practice is to always register all your Personas to the Compendium. You may need them later and besides, summoning costs decrease after filling the Compendium.
  • Boss battles are unpredictable, so you better have a variety of options: prepare at least 1 Persona focused on magic attacks and another one on physical skills. And it’s not a bad idea to have specific-purpose Personas like boosting, debuffing, or even healing.
  • Late game: have at least a Persona that repels, nulls or absorbs a variety of attacks. Try to reduce weaknesses to the minimum and always keep in mind it’s GAME OVER if the main character falls.
  • Late game: at this point you may already maxed your social stats and finished many social links. Then, got to the Arcade games in Paulownia Mall to boost your best Personas’ stats as much times as you want to.
  • Feel free to use your skill cards on your best Personas, but duplicate your best/favorite cards at the Naganaki Shrine (for free and no time passes either).

Tear Ring Saga Yutona Eiyuu Senki – combat advice

I already provided data and shared some perspectives about this game here: https://consolesuniverse.wordpress.com/2024/02/28/tear-ring-saga/

So, this post is fuly focused on combat advice.

– Keep in mind you’ll manage two armies, so make sure to query guides in order to learn how to distribute your units effectively. As a general rule, Runan maps are tougher, and his army has no access to grinding maps. They go directly to the story. Holmes army, on the other hand, may grind ulimited number of times as much time as they want to. And they don’t earn only experience while grinding, they can quickly farm rewards like gold and weapons as well.

– Holmes army fight against monsters more often, which means: keep Renee on his team with her Exorcise staff. And have Sol and Luna swords on Homes army’s weapon inventory.

– Runan has more outdoor maps, so they better have more cavalry and flying units to get the upper hand. Besides, the opposite is also true: there are less indoor maps for Runan, which means: cavalry and flying companions won’t be afffected by indoor debuffs very often.

– The game has a heavy focus on skills. Try to evenly distribute all the skills you get to your core team. Most skills are triggered based on the SKILL stat, so give them to proper units that have high SKILL.

– Shields are very useful yet they are also expensive. Try to beat a map with the minimal shields equipped. If things get complicated, equip just a few gradually. Units with high defense may not need shields at all, or they might be fine with just the basic, Leather Shield.

– Always, always, ALWAYS keep track of your units’ AS and the enemy’s AS. And memorize the formula: in order to get a follow up (two strikes), a unit’s AS >= enemy’s AS + 5. Frontliners are units with decent DEFENSE that have good AS regardless of the weapon. AS is a derivative stat obtained from the SPEED stat and the currently equipped weapon.

Persona 3 Reload – Gameplay Advice (Part 1)

After completing and enjoying Persona 3 Reload, I believe it’s time to provide some useful tips on how to get the upper hand throughout our journey. This advice is valid for all versions of Persona 3 Reload, all difficulties. Let’s begin..

Part 1:
– Early game bosses are tackled more effectively with debuffs rather than buffs. During the first calendar months in the game, our team mates don’t learn buffs for all the party yet. And initial Personas for the main character are not that advanced either. So, tools like Sukukaja (accuraccy/evasion up), Tarukaja (attack up) and Rakukaja (defense up) are individual. The thing is: it takes so much actions and turns just apply single buffs if we want to stack them on everyone. On the other hand, enemy bosses may be effectively and quickly put to a remarkable disadvantage by just using Sukunda, Tarunda and Rakunda (debuffing). And this all can be achieved in one turn, for a total duration of 3 turns.

– Once unlocked, Sylphid Aura is a must use for the rest of the game for boss stages. By requesting this skill to Fukka before a battle, we get Auto-Marakukaja (defense up) and Auto-Masukukaja (acurracy/evasion up) for every active team member. The effect lasts during the first 3 turns. Easy way to start a boss fight right at the beginning right? Mix this aura with a skill like Auto-Matarukaja (attack up) or Matarukaja (cast during the first turn) and you get all your stats boosted for everyone, during the first 3 turns.

– Theurgys are a brand new feature and one of the best mechanics to boost out chances of success during battle. Always keep track of how to fill the theurgy bar for each character, as each of them has different requirements. We may want to charge some or all theurgy bars before tough battles, including enemies like Formidable Shadows, Monad bosses, Floor Gatekeepers and The Reaper itself. Check this full theurgy guide for more detailed data: https://dotesports.com/persona/news/all-theurgy-powers-in-persona-3-reload

– All team members except the main character focus on only some possible elemental or physical attacks. However, if we use attack items, these people may inflict different elemental damage, outside of their usual scope. Meaning: even if they lack the necessary skills to inflict effective damage to a specific enemy, they can still target weaknesses to easily obtain «1 More» until all shadows are taken down.

– Learn how ailments work. But specially, keep in mind frozen and shocked enemies are easy targets for a critical hit, which in turn, means obtaining «1 More» and possibly, an All-Out-Attack. In fact, it’s not a bad idea to keep at least Mitsuru or Akihiko on our team (or both for better results), as she uses ice attacks and he attacks with electricity.

– Yukari is the best healer. Her Persona is specifically designed for healing HP and ailments rather than inflicting damage. If you decide to bench her, then you better prepare healing-focused Personas for your main character. Using recovery items it’s not a bad idea but it’s very limited and expensive.