I need a bit of advice...

[Zacewing]

So, I'm about halfway through the game right now, and I have some stuff I need advice on...

1. I didn't level up Yukari after I got Mitsuru, because I thought Mitsuru got party heals (Media, Mediarama, etc.) but she only gets single target heals. At first, I thought I could just switch her out for Ken when he joins, but he doesn't even GET Diarama until Lv 37, so I don't want to switch Mitsuru out for him, because then I'd have no healer (I tried taking on healing duties myself, but I kept dying). So, these are my options. Should I...

A) Restart from the beginning and use Yukari
B) Switch out Mitsuru/Ken for Yukari and get her caught up with everyone else
C) Just keep using Ken for healing
D) Just keep using Mitsuru for healing.

Also, should I switch out Akihiko for Koromaru? I kinda want to use Koromaru, but I dunno if I should. I wanna keep using Aigis, too, so switching her out is out of the question.

So, I guess what I should be asking is...which of these party setups would be best?

Protagonist, Aigis, Yukari, Akihiko
Protagonist, Aigis, Ken, Akihiko
Protagonist, Aigis, Mitsuru, Akihiko
Protagonist, Aigis, Yukari, Koromaru
Protagonist, Aigis, Ken, Koromaru
Protagonist, Aigis, Mitsuru, Koromaru

[Enzeru]

The party setup I used was:
MC, Ken, Mitsuru, Aigis/Akihiko
But that was more of "I like these characters; I'm gonna use them," you know? But anyway, I thought I remembered Mitsuru having party heals, because as soon as I got Akihiko, I dropped Jun(was that his name?), and the same for Yukari, but with Mitsuru. Are you sure she doesn't get party heals at all...?

[Zacewing]

The party setup I used was:
MC, Ken, Mitsuru, Aigis/Akihiko
But that was more of "I like these characters; I'm gonna use them," you know? But anyway, I thought I remembered Mitsuru having party heals, because as soon as I got Akihiko, I dropped Jun(was that his name?), and the same for Yukari, but with Mitsuru. Are you sure she doesn't get party heals at all...?

Nope, she only gets Dia, Diarama and Diarahan.

[Auden]

i tried to keep everyone at the same levels... though my favorite party was

ju-ju-jumpei
yukatan
mitsuru

though for the reaper i switched jumpei for akihiko

[Zacewing]

So what exactly should I do? -still needs answers to my above questions-

[xeno]

I donno what would be best, but I advise training some until some characters get to where you want them to be.

But I used Minato (MC), Aigis, Ken, and Koramoro.

I hope I helped some.

[Crabman]

Get a healing Persona, and keep Yukari in my team to level her up. That way if you get screwed you could always switch out to a different persona and do a party heal.

My team was Yukari/Mitsuru/Akihiko. Always used them for main fights, although I did keep everyone evenly leveled. Aigis sometimes for the floor bosses.

[Rin]

I'd say that it would be better to use Ken for healing, he can learn party heals, even though he needs higher level than Yukari to do so... But I reccomend him greatly, because later in the game, after everyone learned their "element-break" skills, Yukari and Mitsuru will be VERY ANNOYING, since they'll cast the break whenver they found any enemy which resist/block/reflect wind/ice and it'll cost them 40SP to do so...

For your party members, add Ken and either Koromaru/Mitsuru.
Mitsuru will be helpful against bosses with her mind charge + bufudyne, while Koromaru's magic is not bad too... You can try to bring Akihiko too, but it's just that I thought you'd have less variaety of magic elements if you take along both Akihiko and Ken...

Hope this can answer your questions...:)

[Zacewing]

I think what I might do is play through The Answer first, cause I already know what happens at the end of The Journey, and I've heard The Answer isn't all that great, so I want to save the best for last. :P

And after I finish The Answer, I think I'll restart my playthrough of The Journey with a Max S.Link guide so I can make Orpheus Telos. :P

[Rin]

Uh.. well, it's up to you, really, but I didn't think that The Answer is "not good", it's quite good, actually, but maybe, it's just quite...monotonous... Exploring the Abyss of Time and all... Just beware that the battle difficulty in The Answer is nastier...

[Gen Eric Gui]

Well, keep in mind that Ken is the second strongest party member by virtue of having no elemental weaknesses and by having the easiest to obtain weakness-nulling Heart Item(Ring of Darkness from Thanatos). He's also much more durable than Yukari(In hard mode, one Ziodyne kills her), although he doesn't have her SP pool(Not that restoring SP is a problem in FES).

As for the final party member, Koromaru is a good choice since he's the best(Only character with multiple resistances, Light isn't a common enough spell that his weakness to it poses any real problem, which frees up his Accessory slot for whatever you want, AND he's no slouch in the Magic/Physical damage department), especially since you don't have to worry about healing with both Aigis and Ken being able to take up that role. But Akihiko will be arguably just as helpful due to his ability to take the role of Debuffer, which offsets Aigis as a Buffer quite nicely; just be prepared since his Weakness-nullifier is the hardest to get, and you'll only have access to Zio-type magic damage from your party members, so Minato is going to need to cover a lot of bases.

Though honestly, it's a really bad idea to leave -anyone- behind, as pretty much everybody is going to need to see some action at some point. For instance, if Mitsuru isn't levelled up, the Stasis Giant boss is going to be a real pain, or if Junpei isn't on par(and thus has the MaRakukaja spell since he learns it very early), then Sleeping Table will be a bigger problem then he's worth. And especially since your EXP gain rate drops so significantly after you reach certain benchmark levels, there's really little point to just using the same party all the time.

[BR3WZER]

You could just lvl Yukari up. It's not that hard, just go down about 5-10 floors and grind for a bit. You'll be able to kill everything fast and Yukari will get experience based on her level.

[Zacewing]

I made it through Persona 4 just fine by using the same party all the time, so I figured I could do it in P3, too. Plus, I'm really bad at balancing out my party members levels in RPG's where only the party members that participate in battle gain EXP. (See: Star Ocean, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XII, Digital Devil Saga, etc.)

[Kenji]

Just level Yukari up. The staggered experience system makes that pretty easy. In fact, just take her along with you to where you're currently at in Tartarus and she'll be up to snuff in an hour or less... that's what I did with Orpheus. :P

As for keeping the party balanced, all I did was go to the first floor of the section I was taking on, take note of what enemies I was facing and what skills they used, go back down and arrange my party for maximum offense/defense potential. Nobody ever got left behind for long.

Xenosaga Episode II forced me to learn how to play this way, because if I didn't, those battles got loooooong...:surprise:

[Erasmus]

I just leveled everyone up to max and just put together a random party. Boy, that was fun.

[Zacewing]

Well, another reason why I wanted to restart was so that I could get Orpheus Telos by using a Max S.Link guide.

Also, I was thinking about restarting on Easy Mode cause those Moon Tsukubame things are my crack. D:

[dungeon_man]

Restarting is never the answer! Remember, you are mortal!

Um, just level up Yukari. It's not hard, kill enemies and grab the wands.

[Zacewing]

Who am I kidding, I probably wouldn't even be able to get to a high enough level to fuse Orpheus Telos. I guess I'll just get Yukari caught up with everyone once I'm finished The Answer.

[Rin]

Decided then...?

well, I leveled up all my party members too... It's not that hard after all, just that the range of the levels between Minato and the others will be.. quite far...

[Archmagination2002]

Sorry for posing in this thread, but I am not able to post new threads yet.

Is there a bug in Persona 3 FES when you play it on the PS3?(besides the save one) I have been trying to read the Old Documents and have pressed every single button known to man, but I can't read them!! I remember being able to on my PS2 on just Persona 3.

[vxicepickxv]

Sorry for posing in this thread, but I am not able to post new threads yet.

Is there a bug in Persona 3 FES when you play it on the PS3?(besides the save one) I have been trying to read the Old Documents and have pressed every single button known to man, but I can't read them!! I remember being able to on my PS2 on just Persona 3.

I don't seem to have a problem viewing it. It might be a firmware issue. Just don't forget it's under the system menu for documents.

[Zacewing]

Actually, I think I'll just keep Ken for healing. I'll switch out Akihiko for Ken until Ken learns Diarama, then I'll replace Mitsuru with Akihiko so then my party will be Aigis, Akihiko and Ken.