Persona 3 Portable – Basic Guide for Beginner’s Guide (Spoiler Free)

Persona 3 Portable is arguably the definitive edition of Persona 3, containing the original story as well as a new scenario with a female protagonist and a variety of quality of life features that make it easy to recommend even over FES (in addition to being readily available through Steam, unlike FES). ATLUS didn’t even screw up the port as much as they did for Persona 4 Golden, although it’s still a long way from a competent port, but we’ll go over some things you can do to fix that.

Otherwise, this guide is here to give you an idea of how this game is different from more modern games – especially Persona 5, which had a big newbie boom for the series and franchise – and provide some advice on how you can make your way forward. It’s not intended to be a step by step walkthrough, but advice that should be able to help you at any stage of the game.

If you’re reading this on a non-Steam site, you are reading stolen work.

Note that while I’ve strived minimize spoilers throughout this guide, the nature of Persona 3 Portable is that if you think about the data you’re presented, you’re likely to intuit information from later in the game as a result, so you may get somewhat spoiled on a 25-year-old game by reading this. I’ve done what I can to keep specific spoilers out, at least.

Follow this tutorial: https://gamebanana.com/tuts/15677
This will walk you through setup from start to finish. Persona Essentials, which is covered by this, contains a small amount of quality of life fixes that are already useful. Later on we’ll go over some mods to enhance your Vanilla+ experience, but if you aren’t interested in that, you can go ahead with just this. Just remember to launch the game through Reloaded II instead of through Steam. (You can still get achievements and all doing this!)

https://aqiu384.github.io/megaten-fusion-tool/p3p/personas
Having a fusion calculator is an invaluable tool in any Persona game, and this is no exception. In addition to making Elizabeth’s requests much easier to use, this will help resolve a lot of complicated guesswork that otherwise requires you to memorize the arcana chart. I don’t have Pokemon type charts memorized, let alone something as obscure as this.

SMT and by extension Persona use unique names for their spells, but those names are constructed in a way that tells you what the spell does (except for status). These come in the form of prefixes and suffixes attached to the core term. Spells that afflict the entire target party but would normally be single-target use the prefix “Ma-“.

Fire: Agi
Ice: Bufu
Elec: Zio
Wind: Garu
Light: Hama
Dark: Mudo
Tier 2: -la (except Elec, which is “Zionga”)
Tier 3: -dyne

Agility: Suku
Attack: Taru
Defense: Raku
Increase: -kaja
Decrease: -unda

For example, the spell that increases the agility of the entire party is “Masukukaja”, while the tier 3 aoe fire spell is “Maragidyne” (its single-target counterpart is simply “Agidyne”).

The actual plural term is ‘Personae’ but ‘personas’ is recognised in a casual setting. Since all of the available Personae to fuse are traditionally demons in SMT games, which Persona as a series is spun off from, I might refer to them as ‘demons’ without noticing throughout the guide, especially when talking about fusion.

In addition to their HP and SP, characters have five stats:

• Strength governs the damage output of normal attacks and Physical skills (Strike, Slash, and Pierce). Remember, Physical is split into three elements in this game!
• Magic: determines the damage output of magical attacks. As far as I know, it does not reduce the damage caused by incoming magical attacks.
• Endurance reduces incoming damage of all types.
• Agility decides turn order and improves accuracy and evasion. A missed melee attack can result in the attacker being knocked down. This is also one of the few games in which Almighty moves can miss.
• Luck influences the character’s offensive critical hit rate, and may influence evading/recovering from bad status and instant kill (couldn’t find any concrete info).

For the other party members, this is fixed (they will always have the same stats at the same level, discounting equipment modifiers), but for the protagonist, it changes depending on the Persona they currently have equipped, along with their elemental properties.

Attack Type: Slash (Melee)
Default Persona: Orpheus
Role: Wild Card

Whether you picked Makoto or Hamuko (I’m ancient), their combat role doesn’t change: they’re whatever you need them to be. As a rule, I recommend focusing on magic and magic accessories with the protagonist, as they’ll have the easiest access to whatever element you need.
Something to be mindful of is that while Hamuko uses unique naginatas, Makoto shares his weapon lineup with Mitsuru, which means you might need to double-dip at the fusion shop. Similarly, Hamuko has access to female-specific armor, which can actually be more useful than male-specific armor, especially since it often has SP-up effects. Since the protagonist will go first when you get a sneak attack, they tend to spend the most SP, and their SP is usually what limits your exploration of Tartarus (that, and your money, because of the clock).

Attack Type: Pierce (Ranged)
Persona: Io (Wind)
Role: Healer, Magical Damage
High Stats: Magic, SP
Low Stats: Everything else

Yukari is your premiere healer. Like Morgana, she excels at both healing and wind damage, but her stats are either less or more lopsided: her magic stat is absurdly high (91 at max level), but her other stats won’t ever grow higher than 55. This makes her physical damage output unwieldy thanks to the inaccuracy of bows and her natural agility, and means she’s rather fragile; however, her healing output is better than your other characters, and for the first third of the game she’s the primary source of magical damage other than the protagonist. Late in the game, her multi-target healing means she continues to be a viable partner.

Attack Type: Slash (Melee)
Persona: Hermes (Fire)
Role: Physical Damage, Sustain
High Stats: HP, Strength, Endurance
Low Stats: Magic

A direct contrast to Yukari as one of the starting squad, Junpei is all about physical damage. His magical potential is noticeably low – in addition to his low magical stats, he won’t learn a Boost/Amp skill and never learns the multitarget version of his Fire skills. In exchange, his skill-based physical damage is unrivalled, and later in the game he learns a passive skill, Spring of Life, that restores 8% of his max HP every turn, letting him sustain high-cost physical skills for a long time and making him very functional at dungeon-crawling. His weapons also frequently have stat boosts and very high damage attached to them, so even normal attacks can deal big damage. You’ll particularly notice his benefits when fighting against single, strong targets.

Attack Type: Strike (Melee)
Persona: Polydeuces (Elec)
Role: Mixed Offense, Debuffer
High Stats: Strength, Magic, Agility
Low Stats: HP, Endurance, Luck

Akihiko is a very polarized, glass cannon-type character. Offensively, he’s extremely powerful, having the third-highest Strength (behind Junpei and Shinjiro) and extremely high Magic, and his Zio skills carry the chance of inflicting Shock, which makes physical attacks against the target automatically critical – appropriately for a boxer, he has a ‘one-two punch’ kind of strategy available to him, and his normal attacks, once he learns Fist Master, are the strongest and most accurate in the game. Additionally, Akihiko learns all three debuff spells, letting him provide powerful utility for the party.
The downside is that if he takes a hit, he’ll feel it – his endurance is equal to Yukari’s, and his HP is on the low side as well. His SP pool is also a bit lower than you might like for someone who can really chew it up, so his endurance in extended Tartarus sessions can be a bit rough.

Attack Type: Slash (Melee)
Persona: Penthesilea (Ice)
Role: Magical Damage, Utility
High Stats: Magic,Agility
Low Stats: Everything Else

Mitsuru is more of a dedicated nuke than Yukari, having a similar stat spread (although her HP is noticeably higher than Yukari’s or Akihiko’s), but gaining access to Ice Boost/Amp and Spirit Drain gives her higher damage (outside of incredibly-optimized setups) and better endurance during a Tartarus crawl, which is further improved by gaining access to Mind Charge: using Bufudyne two rounds in a row will deal more damage, but cost significantly more SP than casting Mind Charge on one round and Bufudyne on the next. Her 1H Sword equipment options also give her extra utility as they frequently carry added effects, and with the fusion shop, she can equip Kokuseki Senjin, giving her access to Ice Boost and Ice Amp (which stack) without using up her accessory slot. Her Bufu skills also carry a chance of inflicting Freeze, making critical hits more likely, and with her above-average Luck, she can fish for critical hits on frozen enemies too.
Even better, direct control means you don’t have to worry about her spamming Marin Karin instead of helping you. She learns Diarahan in addition to Marin Karin and Tentarofoo, status magic that attempts to shut down either one enemy or the entire enemy party, and while their rate is low, landing them can be lifesaving.

Attack Type: Piercing (Ranged)
Persona: Palladion
Role: Physical Damage, Support
High Stats: Endurance, Strength
Low Stats: Luck

Like Junpei, Aigis is a physically-focused character, but she has some unique quirks that make her stand out. She learns more partywide physical attacks, and is extremely reliable on defense, resisting and later nullifying Pierce attacks, as well as silently being immune to Poison. Her physical skills ultimately become Strike-attribute, complementing her Piercing normal attack, and she will eventually pick up Diarahan and all three party-wide buff skills, letting her act as a support as well as a damage dealer.
Aigis also has a unique mechanic, Orgia mode. This is activated through the Tactics menu (so only on the Protagonist’s turn), and when activated, Aigis is cleansed of any status ailments and becomes uncontrollable for three turns (including the activation turn), during which she deals significantly more damage and physical skills cost no HP to cast. However, at the start of her fourth turn, she will overheat for three turns, during which she takes no action. After Orgia mode is activated, Aigis will be set back to ‘Act Freely’ rather than whatever she was on before the Orgia Mode tactic was given, and she can’t be set back until she revives from being overheated. Using Orgia mode properly relies on creating burst windows for Aigis to pop off in – ideally, the enemy should be debuffed and Aigis should be buffed, and the enemy should be being crowd controlled if possible.

Attack Type: Slash (Melee)
Persona: Cerberus (Fire, Dark)
Role: Instant Death
High Stats: Agility
Low Stats: Everything Else (ish)

Koromaru’s ‘low stats’ are actually high 50s at max level, which is better than most other characters’ middling stats, and his unique armor type gives him even higher evasion than his already sky-high Agility implies. Koromaru is immune to Fire and Dark attacks, but weak to Light, which can make him risky to use as he can be instantly killed by stray Light attacks. However, he’s absolutely dominant against physical attackers, being nearly impossible to hit and ultimately learning High Counter, potentially reflecting physical damage. He’s also better at magical damage output than Junpei, who he shares an element with, as he gains access to Fire Amp and Maragidyne, plus he’ll pick up Mudoon, Mamudoon, and Mudo Boost, making him able to end fights before they start. Finally, he gets Masukukaja, letting him provide an extra agility buff to the party and, more importantly, himself.
His particular deficit is that his weapons are relatively weak, albeit highly accurate, so his physical attacks aren’t great, but they’re good enough to finish off a weakened enemy, or he can attack a full-health enemy with Mudoon instead to try and save SP for everyone else.

Attack Type: Pierce (Melee)
Persona: Nemesis (Light)
Role: Offensive Support
High Stats: Agility, Magic
Low Stats: Luck, Strength

Ken is a rising star and would probably be unfairly strong if he was the same age as the other characters. Even his low stats are 55 at max level, and his other stats trend higher than that. His big drawback as a party member is his schizophrenic skill selection: he doesn’t learn any multi-target skills other than healing spells, and the rest of his kit is an odd selection of single-target Light, Elec, and Piercing skills (along with Spear Master, increasing his normal attack output). However, with his high agility and magic, Ken can deal big single-target damage, and Elec is an incredibly good attacking element because of its Shock benefit (however, he doesn’t learn Boost or Amp for it), and he has access to Cruel Attack/Vile Assault, which deals double damage to a downed target. Similarly to Akihiko, with whom he shares his element, Ken can be used in almost any setup, but he works as a direct party support and followup character, rather than being a dedicated debuffer.
Something worth noting is that Ken benefits massively from weapon fusion, as several incredibly good spears like Gae Bolg and Gungnir can be created for him there. Gae Bolg is Wind-element instead of Piercing, giving Ken four attributes that he can exploit in battle (more than anyone other than the protagonist), as well as being quite strong for when it becomes available, while Gungnir is an endgame weapon that also grants Elec Boost, helping shore up his damage output.
(His SL with Hamuko is also adorable)

Attack Type: Slashing (Melee)
Persona: Castor
Role: Pure Physical Damage
High Stats: Strength, Endurance
Low Stats: Everything Else

Shinjiro has the highest Strength of any character in the game and a moveset entirely based around it, acting like an even more extreme version of Junpei. He doesn’t develop any elemental skills at all (and has no weaknesses), but has an enormous HP pool along with inherent Regeneration, giving him tremendous sustain and great endurance on Tartarus crawls. His Axe weapons also have absurd damage output (at the cost of low accuracy). Shinjiro has absolutely zero utility value outside of having Eerie Smile to try and inflict Fear, however: he’s entirely focused on killing enemies with sheer, overwhelming offense.
Incidentally, Shinjiro also benefits from the weapon fusion system more than other characters, having several powerful Axes available through fusion, like Mjolnir from Thor.

Social Links in P3 are different than in later games, being significantly less-polished: game benefits are made available through the Fool link, which raises automatically, so aside from unlocking certain SLs and getting Fusion EXP bonuses/unlocking Ultimate Personas, there’s no major mechanical reason to focus on Social Links. This also means that you don’t need to focus so closely on your party members, as they will undergo their awakenings automatically during the story. You can tell the order this will occur by looking at how many skills the characters have left to learn – characters who awaken earlier will finish learning all their skills sooner. (Note that in Portable, skills that weren’t learned before the character’s awakening are not lost – all learnable skills after awakening are moved to levels after the highest level of the initial Persona’s skills.)
Something else to mind is that the male Protagonist can’t hang out with the male party members, as they’re not part of his dating sim lifestyle. Hamuko benefits from being from a port made after Persona 4, so she has a more typical (for later games) Social Link system that includes all the party members.Remember that having a Persona of the matching Arcana in your stock will give you an extra point when making choices during SL events and hangouts. This is not necessary for some Links, which are labelled as “no holdover” Links in the lists below.

Of the major Arcana, “Death” is considered a transition point, and the Arcana that come after it are often considered to be dominant or greater Arcana, compared to the Arcana that come before it. As part of that theme, certain SLs only become available by interacting with a lesser SL:

• Temperance is unlocked by interacting with the Hierophant at Rank 3 or more. You must then interact with the Home Economics room after school, and your Academics must be at least 2.
• Devil is unlocked by interacting with the Hermit at rank 2 (female) or rank 4 (male) or more. You must also have Charm 4 (male) or 2 (female) to begin the SL after receiving information about the Devil.
• Tower is unlocked by interacting with Strength at rank 4 (male) or the Chariot at rank 3 (female). You must also have Courage 4 to begin the SL after receiving information about the Tower.
• Sun is unlocked by interacting with the Hanged Man at rank 3, and Academics must be at least 4. After speaking to the Sun after this, speak to Koromaru at the dorm to receive the item the Sun requested, then bring it back to them to begin the SL.
  Additionally, the male protagonist has two additional locked SLs due to their major Arcanae not being represented by party members he can SL with:
• Star is unlocked by attending the sports meet through the Chariot SL.
• Moon is unlocked by interacting with the Magician. You’ll also need Charm 3, an Odd Morsel, and to answer three questions correctly (“Pheromone Coffee”, “Green”, and “Hagakure Bowl”).
  Further, both protagonists have a requirement to unlock Strength:
• For the female protagonist, you require the Dog Food item, acquired by beginning the Priestess SL.
• For the male protagonist, you must offer to walk Strength home during rank 2 or 3 of the Chariot SL.

You don’t have to level up these links, as they occur automatically (with one exception):

• Fool
• Death
• Judgment
• Fortune (female only, must talk to Fortune at every opportunity and hang out with them)

Some Links have no ‘holdovers’ – no non-advancing events that take up time or require a given number of points to get to the next rank.

• Fortune (female only, must talk to Fortune at every opportunity and hang out with them)
• Devil
• Aeon
• Moon (female only)
• Sun

What follows is a list of availability and requirements for each SL for the male and female protagonists respectively. Some of this information has already been mentioned in this segment, but this way you only have to look at one place to get everything you need.

• Fool: Automatically started and advanced.
• Magician: Started automatically on April 23rd.
• Priestess: Available from June 15, requires Courage 6. (Romanceable)
• Empress: Available from November 21, requires Academics 6. (Romanceable)
• Emperor: Started automatically on April 27th.
• Hierophant: Available from April 25. Talk to Hierophant until they mention a persimmon tree, then head to Gekkoukan’s 1F Corridor to obtain a Persimmon Leaf. Bring it to the Hierophant to begin the SL.
• Lovers: Available from July 24. Requires Charm 6. (Romanceable)
• Chariot: Available from April 23rd by joining either the Fencing (Kendo) Club or Swim Team.
• Justice: Available to speak to after May 3rd, but beginning the SL requires speaking to Justice three times on separate days and giving the correct responses (“I want to talk…”, “I’m male”, and “Hello.” followed by “Let’s walk home together”), so the earliest it can be started is May 23rd. (Romanceable)
• Hermit: Available from April 29th by playing the MMORPG Junpei gives you on that day (on the laptop in your room). Only available on Sundays and Holidays during Daytime, but note that this will also use up the Evening slot.
• Fortune: Available from June 17th by joining the Arts, Music, or Photography Club.
• Strength: Available by offering to walk Strength home during rank 2 or 3 of the Chariot SL, so the earliest it can be started is April 28. (Romanceable)
• Hanged Man: Available from May 6th. Requires the Mad Bull drink from the Dorm 2F vending machine, as well as the Weird Takoyaki from Octopia at Iwatodai Strip Mall.
• Death: Automatically started and advanced.
• Temperance: Available from May 29th, but you must have interacted with them during Hierophant Rank 3. If you have at least Academics 2, interact with the Home Economics room to begin the SL Note that if you complete the third Full Moon without beginning the SL, it will be permanently lost.
• Devil: Retrieve information about the Devil on June 4 from the Hermit (Rank 4) and have Charm 4, then pay them 20,000 yen, 10,000 yen, and 10,000 yen over three days. This SL has no holdovers.
• Tower: Retrieve information about the Tower by speaking to Strength (Rank 4). Requires Courage 4, as well as performing a small task that involves a quick memory test (the answers are “Bloody Mary”, “Margarita”, “Screwdriver”, “Oolong Tea”).
• Star: Available from August 3rd, after meeting the Star during the sports meet on August 2nd through the Chariot.
• Moon: Retrieve information about the Moon from the Magician. You also require Charm 3, an Odd Morsel in inventory, and answer three questions correctly (“Pheromone Coffee”, “Green”, “Hagakure Bowl”).
• Sun: Meet Sun during Hanged Man Rank 3, and have Academics 4. Speak to the Sun and they’ll tell you about something they’re missing; talk to Koromaru at the dorm after they join you on August 8 to retrieve the item, and take it back to Sun to begin the SL. This SL has no holdovers.
• Judgement: Started and advanced automatically.
• Aeon: Available from January 8th. This SL has no holdovers.

• Fool: Acquired and advanced automatically.
• Magician: Automatically started on April 23rd.
• Priestess: Available from June 15th. Requires Courage 2. Attending to this SL or hanging out with them at school will enable you to make Handmade Sweets, a category of gift items that can be given to people on hangouts to gain extra SL points.
• Empress: Available from November 21st. Requires Academics 6.
• Emperor: Automatically started on April 27th.
• Hierophant: Available from April 25th. Talk to Hierophant until they mention a persimmon tree, then head to Gekkoukan’s 1F Corridor to obtain a Persimmon Leaf. Bring it to the Hierophant to begin the SL.
• Lovers: Available from April 28th.
• Chariot: Available from April 24th by joining either the tennis club or the volleyball club; started automatically on May 27th if you put it off.
• Justice: Available from September 1st. Requires Courage 6. (Romanceable)
• Hermit: Automatically started on May 8th after you’re forced to join either the health committee or library committee. I recommend library, as it makes Hermit appear in the corridor outside your classroom when they are available.
• Fortune: Automatically started on November 9th, but must be actively pursued (take every opportunity to speak with Fortune and hang out with them, or the SL will be terminated). Has no holdovers. (Romanceable)
• Strength: Available from August 15th. Requires the Dog Food, acquired by beginning the Priestess SL.
• Hanged Man: Available from May 6th. Requires the Mad Bull drink from the Dorm 2F vending machine, as well as the Weird Takoyaki from Octopia at Iwatodai Strip Mall.
• Death: Acquired and advanced automatically.
• Temperance: Available from May 29th, but you must have interacted with them during Hierophant Rank 3. If you have at least Academics 2, interact with the Home Economics room to begin the SL Note that if you complete the third Full Moon without beginning the SL, it will be permanently lost. Participating in this SL will enable you to make Handmade Goods, a category of gift items that can be given to people on hangouts to gain extra SL points.
• Devil: Retrieve information about the Devil on June 4 from the Hermit (Rank 2) and have Charm 2, then pay them 20,000 yen, 10,000 yen, and 10,000 yen over three days. This SL has no holdovers.
• Tower: Retrieve information about the Tower by speaking to the Chariot (Rank 2). Requires Courage 4, as well as performing a small task that involves a quick memory test (the answers are “Bloody Mary”, “Margarita”, “Screwdriver”, “Oolong Tea”).
• Star: Available after the second Full Moon. Requires Charm 4. (Romanceable)
• Moon: Available from September 7th. This Link has no holdovers. After reaching Rank 9, you must retrieve the pocketwatch by talking to Kurosawa at the Paulownia Mall Police Station. Note that if you complete the Full Moon operation on October 4th without beginning this Link, it will be permanently lost.
• Sun: Meet Sun during Hanged Man Rank 3, and have Academics 4. Speak to the Sun and they’ll tell you about something they’re missing; talk to Koromaru at the dorm after they join you on August 8 to retrieve the item, and take it back to Sun to begin the SL. This SL has no holdovers.
• Judgement: Acquired and advanced automatically.
• Aeon: Available from January 8th. This SL has no holdovers.

This is one of the best ways of boosting your stats, giving huge bumps to your social stats and small bumps to your currently-equipped Persona’s stats, depending on the game you choose to play. You can play in both the daytime (on weekends/after school) and evening. The schedule here is lifted from the wiki[megamitensei.fandom.com], so it may not be accurate for FES and/or Portable.
*Apparently it was renamed to Game Parade in the 2023 re-release but I didn’t notice.

• Print Club: Charm+4. Monday and Thursday.
• Horror House: Courage+4. Tuesday and Friday.
• Quiz Game: Academics+4 (this is double the benefit of studying in your room on a weekday, and the equivalent of doing so on a Sunday, but only takes up one timeslot). Wednesday and Saturday.
• Punching Bag: Strength+3. Monday, Thursday, Sunday.
• Mole Whackers: Agility+3. Tuesday, Friday, Sunday.
• Lucky Fortune: Magic+3. Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday.

You can pick up part-time work at Cafe Chagall (Mon-Wed Evenings), Be Blue V (Mon-Fri After School), and the Movie Theatre (any day, Daytime/After School). These give less focused benefits, but provide a small paycheck.

• Cafe Chagall: Gives Charm and Courage +2 each, pays 3500 yen.
• Be Blue V: Gives Charm and Academics +2 each, pays 4500 yen.
• Screen Shot Movie Theatre: Gives Courage and Academics =2 each, pays 5000 yen.

If you’re Tired or Sick, you can visit the Nurse’s Office during After School blocks. Accepting the medicine will give you a Courage bump, while rejecting it will give you a healing consumable.
Do note that studying while you’re sick or tired will cause you to waste the time block and get no benefit – if you have nothing else to do, go to bed early.
Also, Be Blue V is a liar and will usually raise your condition to Good; it only raises your condition to “Great” from Tired on rare occasions.
Going to bed early will randomly raise your condition from Good to Great, but choosing to doze off in class when your condition is Good will always raise your condition to Great. This is a relatively frequent event and often overlaps with a New Moon, so keep it in mind to get the most out of Tartarus.

Tartarus may be ‘unstable’, which your navigator will warn you about if you speak to them on a night when you can go to Tartarus. There can also be other beneficial effects, like a discount on the Clock, but that is tracked separately. However, Tartarus will always be unstable on a New Moon, making this one of the best times to go, if you can manage to get your schedule to line up. Tartarus instability has a variety of benefits, as it causes ‘accidents’ to become more likely:

• Party members start separated and act as if they were set to “Split Up”. You can give the “Regroup” command to bring people back together. On high floors this is one of the few genuinely dangerous accidents that can occur.
• No Shadows present at all, and lots of treasure chests will appear. The time it takes for the Reaper to spawn is greatly decreased.
• “A large number of Shadows!” Only Gold Shadows will appear. You can use quicksave+reloading to farm for this in this version of the game, which is covered in this guide. The time for the Reaper to spawn in is decreased, and all Shuffle Time cards will be of a higher rank and cursed (except for Personae, which are never cursed).
• “All the Shadows are very powerful!” Only Red Shadows will appear. This is also useful if you’re trying to farm an item for Elizabeth’s quests, and can be farmed in the same way as the Gold Shadows floor. Experience gain is increased and the time for the Reaper to spawn in is decreased, same Shuffle Time logic as the Gold Shadows floor.
• Large number of Shadows (different message from the Gold Shadows floor). This uses the same spawn logic as a normal floor, but will spawn Shadows much more aggressively. EXP gained will increase and the time for the Reaper to spawn in is decreased.
• “>You feel like you have new ideas about battle…” EXP gain increased.
• “>You feel like the enemies are unusually careless…” Item drop rate increased.
• “It’s pitch black!” Heavy black fog, and the map is disabled. This is a good spot for the right-hand rule (see below).
• “I’ve got a clear view!” The floor map is revealed in full.

Except for separation and pitch black, basically all of these are beneficial, so aiming to crawl Tartarus when it’s unstable is a great choice.

This is a simple method for clearing any maze: simply follow the wall to your right. (In real life, this is sometimes described as putting your right hand on the wall and keeping it there.) Due to the way dungeon generation in P3P works, this will always allow you to find the stairs eventually.

The Clock at the base of Tartarus allows you to heal your party in exchange for money. This includes their SP and is extremely busted. Think of any money you earn in Tartarus as being HP and SP that are ready to be gained. While the price is quite expensive, especially later in the game, it makes it easy to clear entire blocks of Tartarus in a single night – particularly since Portable changed how the Tired status works and it is now only applied after you return from Tartarus, letting you fight as much as you like in one night.

The weird green thing at the base of Tartarus lets you teleport to specific floors that also share another instance of it – this is every floor that the Floor Guardians are on. However, navigating to the top of the stairs at the base of Tartarus will instead allow you to begin from the highest floor you have ever reached, so when you’re ready to start a new block, make sure you use this option. This also means that using a mini-teleporter to return to the entrance if you’re low on HP and SP is not a big deal – just top up at the clock and use the stairs to return to that floor.

Periodically, Elizabeth will call you to let you know that a human or three have strayed into Tartarus. If they’re not collected within approximately three weeks, they’ll become Lost. This number, as of Portable, actually includes people who are part of Social Links, and if you fail to rescue them, that Link will be permanently frozen. This is a good time to raise your party levels.

Unlike in P5, Triangle Fusion is a regular form of fusion, but the results are highly complex, so much so that many calculators will not show them. Triangle Fusion can be a good way to dump any Personae you’ve picked up that you have no intention of using, or if you just can’t find a good normal fusion. Incidentally, as far as I know, triangle fusions can’t be accidents, but I’ve only ever had two accidents across playing every version of Persona 3, so that’s highly anecdotal evidence. (Special fusions can still never have accidents.)

This is a quick list of some rare skills, what they do, and who you can get them from and at what level. (Some of these are less “rare” and more “you should keep these in mind because they’re very useful”.)

• Cool Breeze: Restores 8% of max HP and SP after battle. Eligor (37), Nandi (41), Ose (47), Kikuri-Hime (55). Skill Card: Ose (50). This can be picked up pretty early off Eligor and makes Tartarus crawling much more bearable.
• Evil Smile: 35% Fear AoE. Mokoi (Initial), Vetala (28), Incubus (Initial), Mot (Initial), Nebiros (Initial), Abaddon (Initial). Skill Card: Mokoi (20). The reason this is valuable is because it sets up Ghastly Wail, which 100% kills a target afflicted with Fear for a combined cost of 25 MP, which is likely to be more efficient than Mamudoon/Hamaon and works on targets immune to instant death elements.
• Re Patra: Immediately stands up a downed ally, also cures Dizzy. Nekomata (7), Jack Frost, Hua Po, Kusi Mitama (all initial). While this is a very basic utility spell, a downed ally has no evasion and if Dizzy, will miss their turn; depending on what you need to do, being able to spend a turn to stand them up can be a life-saving property, and there is no item that can do this, unlike every other status in the game.
• Dekunda: Removes all -kunda effects from all allies. Narcissus (24), Genbu (32), Samael (41), Saki Mitama (43), Ananta (Initial). Skill Card: Narcissus (25). You can’t just buy Dekunda-in-a-jar items for money in this game.
• Dekaja: Removes all -kaja effects from all enemies. Ghoul (21), Take-Minakata (26), Vetala (26), Yamata-no-Orochi (28), Sarasvati (31), Koumokuten (Initial). Skill Card: Take-Minakata (27). Same as Dekunda.
• Rebellion: Raises crit rate of all combatants by 10% for 3 turns. Berith (17), Ares (22), Legion (Initial), Titan (Initial), Vetala (Initial), Oumitsunu (Initial). Crit rate is rarely available to boost and the action economy is generally in the party’s favour, especially against hard targets with few weaknesses, who tend to only come in formations of 1.
• Revolution: Raises crit rate of all combatants by 20% for 3 turns. Power (30), Jikokuten (31), Eligor (Initial), Kali (59), Nidhoggr (71). Skill Card: Kali (60). Same as Rebellion but better, and comes with a Skill Card.
• Power Charge: Next physical attack deals x1.9 damage. Setanta (29), Cu Chulainn (43), Narasihma (48), Ganesha (Initial), Siegfried (Initial), Scathach (69), Masakado, Mara (80). Skill Card: Setanta (34), Narasihma (50). This is less powerful than Mind Charge up front, but can be very powerful with multi-hitting phys skills and crit rate boosts, letting you aim for 4-digit damage.
• Mind Charge: Next magic attack deals x1.9 damage. Dionysus (Initial), Titania (Initial), Atropos (57), Vishnu (80), Helel (Initial). Skill Card: Atropos (59). Technically, you will do more damage by simply casting a damage spell two turns in a row. However, Mind Charge only costs 15 SP, making it much more SP-efficient for only a very small loss of damage. This is especially useful in the last phase of the final boss, who takes half damage from all attributes except Almighty, allowing you to use Mind Charge-Megido line spells to deal huge damage at a more enduring rate than just using a Megido-line spell every turn.
• Fear Boost: +25% Fear success rate. Mokoi (Initial), Loa (25), Nebiros (54). This is part of the Evil Smile-Ghastly Wail setup, letting you reliably wipe out entire encounters at a better success rate than using instant death magic.
• Growth 3: Gives 100% experience to the Persona even when it is not equipped at the end of battle, effectively duplicating EXP for each Persona with Growth 3. Suzaku (55), Daisoujou (Initial), Jatayu (Initial), Horus (Initial), Yurlungur (67), Saturnus (80). Skill Card: Jatayu (59). This isn’t a skill you want on your endgame Persona but it’s fantastic to have a source of when you’re levelling.
• Invigorate 3: Regenerate 7 SP per turn. Norn (67), Scathach (72), Kohryu (68), Satan (82),
  Shiva (86), Chi You (Initial), Messiah (94). Skill Card: Bought at the fusion shop for Amethyst x7. This is a late-game skill but makes the final pushes through Tartarus much more bearable, especially since the protagonist tends to constantly chew SP.
• Divine Grace: Doubles HP recovery for skills cast by the user. Saki Mitama (45), Titania (52). Skill Card: rescue reward. This skill turns Me/Diarama into a full heal for a fraction of the price of Me/Diarahan.
• Arms Master: Halves HP cost of Physical skills. Siegfried (65), Bishamonten (67), Masakado (79), Chi You (92). Skill Card: Chi You (94). This skill is arguably worse in Portable because Portable added a big discount on the HP cost of Physical skills already, but it’s still fantastic on any physical Persona.
• Spell Master: Halves all SP costs. Odin (65), Cybele (75), Asura (91), Lucifer (93). Skill Card: Lucifer (97). This, however, is a huge deal, making many spells just plain cheap to cast. In particular, this takes Megidola and Megidolaon down to the price of a tier 4 elemental spell and Megidolaon only about 33% more expensive than one, making an almighty-specialist (who doesn’t need Boost/Amp skills) a genuine build.
• Apt Pupil: Doubles user’s critical hit rate. Okuninushi (49), Hokuto Seikun (53), Kali (Initial), Loki (Initial), Seiten Taisei (Initial). Skill Card: Okuninushi (50). This is a huge boost for any physical Persona, especially if you also run it with Rebellion/Revolution and high-crit skills like Deathbound and Heaven’s Blade, Pralaya, or God’s Hand.
• Sharp Student: Halves user’s chance of being critically-hit. Ara Mitama (12), Archangel (14), Tam Lin (14), Zouchouten (18), Setanta (Initial), Flauros (35), Orobas (Initial). Skill Card: Zouchouten (19). Another great skill to use with Rebellion/Revolution, as it ameliorates the downsides. Also just useful on the protagonist in general so you don’t randomly get crit and OHKO’d.

Amp skills increase the power of their associated element by 50% and stack with Boost skills (25%). Boost is relatively easy to find but Amp isn’t, so I’ll list where you can get those here. Extremely optimized Personae may use both, but generally Amp is the only one that is “necessary” for normal play. I’ll also list the Hama Boost and Mudo Boost skills (instant kill chance x1.5) here, as they’re just as “necessary” for Personae centred around those elements.

• Fire: Surt (59), Kikuri-Hime (59), Kumbhanda (59), Bishamonten (62), Hell Biker (62), Uriel (65), Seth (68), Saturnus (Initial). Skill Card: Kumbhanda (63).
• Wind: Atropos (60), Ganesha (63), Norn (Initial), Suparna (72). Skill Card: Ganesha (65).
• Ice: Titania (54), Yurlungur (66), Skadi (Initial). Skill Card: Titania (55).
• Elec: Thor (59), Odin (60). Skill Card: Odin (66).
• Hama Boost: Dominion (46), Throne (Initial), Daisoujou (59), Gabriel (Initial), Sandalphon (Initial). Skill Card: Dominion (48).
• Mudo Boost: Loa (36), Mot (49), Alice (62), Baal Zebul (73), Mother Harlot (76), Skill Card: Mot (59), Alice (63).

These absorb damage from the attribute they mention, making them arguably the best form of attribute-covering (Repel is also an option, but things that cast Attribute X are often resistant to it as well). In particular, Absorb skills all have Skill Cards, which is not true for Repel and makes it much easier to spread them around. I’ll also list Repel Light and Repel Dark here, as they also have Skill Cards, unlike their Null counterparts. Note that I’ve listed Null Slash instead of Absorb Slash because Absorb Slash is only available from Helel at level 92, and if you’re level 92 you’re either planning to fight Elizabeth, in which case this is not really something useful to you, or you should just go and beat the game already and will completely run over the final boss.

• Strike: Abaddon (74), Chi You (75). Skill Card: Abaddon (75).
• Pierce: Nidhoggr (74), Messiah (95). Skill Card: Nidhoggr (76).
• Null Slash: Chernobog (Initial), Abaddon (72).
• Fire: Hell Biker (66), Skadi (84). Skill Card: Skadi (88).
• Wind: Lilith (67), Ananta (81). Skill Card: Ananta (83).
• Absorb Ice: Mara (84), Saturnus (84). Skill Card: Saturnus (85).
• Null Ice: Anubis (62), Seth (71). (I thought the levels on Absorb Ice were a bit high so this is included as an alternate, lower-level option.)
• Elec: Norn (69), Kartikeya (75). Skill Card: Kartikeya (77).
• Null Dark: Daisoujou (58), Laksmi (61).
• Null Light: Succubus (48), Kaiwan (54).

Some Personae have skills that are unique to them and can’t be passed down through fusion (but it can be acquired through a Skill Card). This is a list – there’s not too many.

• Heaven’s Blade – Michael: Level 77, targets 1 enemy, Slash attribute, 500 power, 25% Crit. Costs 13% max HP. Incredibly strong attack that justifies fusing Michael all on its own. Note that unlike in Persona 5, the final boss isn’t immune to crits, it just won’t be knocked down by them.
• Weary Thrust: Kohryu (Initial), Seiten Taisei (70), Abaddon (Initial), Ananta (76). Skill Card: Seiten Taisei (72). Targets 1 enemy, Strike attribute, 405 power, 10% crit, costs 13% max HP, deals 50% bonus damage when user’s condition is Tired. One of the few uninheritable skills that is not truly unique to a specific Persona.
• Maralagidyne – Mara: Initial, targets all enemies, Fire attribute, 370 power, costs 32 SP. Skill Card: Mara (86). This is actually not a very good attack (only 50 power over Maragidyne and costs 25% more SP), but has a hilarious name. In Boost+Amp setups, however, the extra 50 power is extremely meaningful, making this far stronger than Maragidyne.
• Samsara – Daisoujou: Initial, targets all enemies, Light attribute, 45% instant death, costs 35 SP. This is disgusting with Hama Boost, shooting up to 90% instant death and being guaranteed against enemies that are weak to Light.
• Die For Me! – Alice: Level 59, targets all enemies, Dark attribute, 45% instant death, costs 35 SP. Same as Samsara but Dark, and good for all the same reasons. It would not be unreasonable to keep Daisoujou and Alice in your stock specifically for wiping out large formations of Light/Dark-weak enemies.
• Morning Star – Helel: Level 91, targets all enemies, Almighty attribute, 800 power, costs 80 SP. This is 150 more power than Megidolaon for 5 less SP. The catch is that it’s attached to Helel; you could have beaten the game in the time it took to fuse them.
• Black Viper – Satan: Level 86, targets 1 enemy, Almighty attribute, 950 power, costs 60 SP. This is the strongest attack in the game that does not deal fixed damage, and 60 SP is an incredibly reasonable cost for that. But, much like Morning Star, it’s attached to Satan. You could have beaten the game already. (You can pass Spell Master from Lucifer to halve the cost.)
• Magic Skill Up – Messiah: Level 98, Passive ability, increases magic damage by 25%. In case having a Level 98 Persona that resists most elements wasn’t enough for you.
• Weapons Master: Thor (60), Melchizedek (60), Siegfried (66), Thanatos (68), Seiten Taisei (71), Cybele (73). Skill Card: Rescue Reward. Passive ability, increases weapon attack damage by 25% (applies to normal attack and contributes to All-Out Attack). This skill can’t be inherited, but is extremely strong on any physical Persona, turning your normal attack into a seriously dangerous choice of action and even buffing the damage output of All-Out Attacks.

This is honestly a pretty good port as far as ATLUS PC ports go (no godawful motion blur like P4G for example), but they definitely weren’t exactly looking to spend a lot of money or time on it and it shows. I ended up using a bunch of mods on my latest playthrough that were mostly focused on quality of life improvements, creating a proper Vanilla Plus experience, so I’ll share those here.

• HD Audio SFX[gamebanana.com]: Updates the crappy PSP quality audio with audio ripped from Persona 3 FES instead. Used in-battle.
• High Quality Music Pack – Portable Edition[gamebanana.com]: Updates the crappy PSP quality audio with audio losslessly ripped from the soundtrack CD.
• Protagonist Music Blend[gamebanana.com]: Randomly chooses either the male or female soundtrack for most situations, so you don’t only get to hear about half of the soundtrack. In the future I’ll probably replace this with the Battle Music Pack[gamebanana.com], which adds even more variety, but since it uses music not present in the original game, I stuck with the Music Blend mod for a proper Vanilla Plus experience.
• Useful Descriptions[gamebanana.com]: Gives actual quantitative information on what skills and items do. Saves looking at the wiki or guessing when comparing skills.
• Fix Slow Messages[gamebanana.com]: Resolves a loooot of system messages that render text incredibly slowly and block inputs. This is VERY obnoxious, and this mod fixes it.
• Colorful Cut-Ins[gamebanana.com]: Adds some pop and color to the critical attack (“Persona Eyes”) cut-ins, which were pretty bland previously. I used the “Alt Kotone” version.
• Colorful AoA Cut-Ins[gamebanana.com]: Does the same thing for the All-Out Attack and Co-Op Attack cut-ins. Once again, I used the “Alt Kotone” version.
• Persona 5 Skill Icons[gamebanana.com]: Makes the menu a lot more readable. I actually used the “P3P Style” ones but I’d probably recommend the “Persona 5 Style” ones that have the neon-on-black setup instead; it clashes with the menu but is much more readable at a glance.
• Manual Skill Inheritance[gamebanana.com]: co-opts the manual skill inheritance system from Persona 4 Golden. This uses the same pool of skills the Persona would normally be able to inherit from, it just saves you potentially literally hours of pressing OK-cancel until you get a god roll on skill inheritance. While this is not strictly cheating so much as a qol shortcut, it does objectively make the game easier because you aren’t incentivised by reality to take a “good enough” skill inheritance role, so you might want to bump the difficulty up if it’s not your first time.
• Guaranteed Item Drops[gamebanana.com]: by default, makes it so enemies always drop items. However, it can be configured so that only quest items are guaranteed drops – most other items aren’t really worth farming, but quest item farming can be absolutely atrocious, especially for the Medals that Elizabeth wants from farming Gold Shadows. I recommend this, since “always drops items” does make the game much easier, but “always drops quest items” just makes farming quest items less of a hassle. (This only applies while the quest is active.)
• Sharp Pixel Backgrounds[gamebanana.com]: Fixes the catastrophic loss of quality and detail that the upscaled backgrounds have by default. I recommend checking the actual page rather than just downloading this through Reloaded II because this is simply the option I prefer, and the mod page itself lists alternatives that you might enjoy looking at more.
• Protagonist Bustups Use P25th Anniversary Artwork[gamebanana.com]: Makes the protagonist artwork (especially Hamuko) look much nicer, although as a downside they do look mildly out of place in comparison to the other character bustups. However, since you will spend 99.9% of the game looking at them, I think that’s a fair trade…

As an extra, I’ll also include the mod load order that I’m using. This includes mods I didn’t recommend because they’re to my personal taste rather than things I would suggest to everyone, but it should give you an idea of how you can set things up (and might explain differences if you have a load order without them). Remember that things that you want to have priority need to go later in the load order. Some of these ‘mods’ are actually back-end things that are used by the mods you downloaded; Reloaded II will alert you to them if you download a mod through Reloaded II that has them as a dependency.

Note that the last three are utilities and will gravitate themselves to the bottom of your load order no matter where you put them.