Persona Qsday: Week 3 (Contains Persona Q Spoilers!) · 8:36am Sep 29th, 2015
We're back with week three of my Persona Q coverage!
Remember, only plot spoilers from P3/P4 will be tagged! Character names from both games and plot details specific to Persona Q will NOT be tagged. Proceed at your own risk.
When last we left off, Yu and his friends were exploring the strange labyrinth connected to the unexplained rift world they wound up in. Having fully explored two floors of the labyrinth, they've followed a giant pink rabbit to the third floor...
YOU IN WONDERLAND
Chapter 3
Before moving on with the adventure, it's time to talk Personas for a bit.
So far, as is usually the case early in a Persona game, my available stock of sub-Personas is weak and scattershot. After acquiring the Compendium, I snagged the two free DLC Personas (Orpheus Telos and Kaguya), which I can summon for free at any time, but which I won't be summoning for a while yet. Saving them for the second or third dungeon at the earliest.
I may or may not do separate Compendium posts (or just set up a Compendium on my own site and link to it), but the short version is, after clearing two floors, snagging two free DLC Personas, and fusing two new Personas, this is what I have to work with going into Ch.3:
Slime, Orpheus Telos, Agathion, Ame-no-Uzume, Anzu, Pixie, Nata Taishi, Angel, Azumi, Sandman, Koropokkur, Apsaras, Ukobach, Sarasvati, Kaguya, Onmoraki
Also, I didn't know until after I got the Compendium that the Navigator can equip a sub-Persona. OOPS. I could've had Rise levelling up a Persona all this time! I had the perfect one on hand for her, too...
Anyway, before moving on with the third floor, just for grins, I decided to take on an FOE.
Hahahahaha.
The good news is, I didn't get wiped out.
The bad news is, I might as well have. By the time I had the good sense to use Sutakora Foot, well...kind of left myself in a bad situation.
Fortunately, I didn't lose any progress, so I just quit the game and we'll pretend that embarrassment never happened.
Going back in fresh, I went to Ch.2 to check the floor completion chest. My completion is still 99% for the floor, but I was able to open it with a Play Coin, and my reward:
A skill card for Recarm! Which was definitely needed. I used it on Yu's Persona, Izanagi.
Moving on with chapter three...
The third floor of Wonderland is a maze of one-way clock passages. A ways in, the party encounters an FOE that's painting white roses red, just like in the story. The roses are a puzzle; you have to wash the paint off the roses to make the FOEs stop to paint them again. These things pop up all over the floor and it's maddening.
Regrouping, I fused Alp, Oberon, and Orobas before proceeding.
Further into Ch.3, I found the damn rabbit again. This time, it's at the heart of a particularly frustrating "herd the thing" puzzle. In the middle of trying to solve this puzzle, I got into a battle against two Heat Balances. Heat Balances are minor nuisances in the main games. In Persona Q, they're fucking evil, and they Game Overed me.
I did at least learn from my defeat: the Game Over screen lets you save your map progress even though you lose your levels and shit. Good to know.
Back into the game, I got to the rabbit again and figured out the puzzle to herd it back to the crossroads. Then I ran into more Heat Balances and had to high-tail it out of there. In the Velvet Room, I fused Valkyrie for Rise with a shitload of Navi skills, then went back in.
While trying to find a key for a locked door, the party comes across what appears to be a dead end. However, Rise detects a door...a very tiny door.
Naoto theorizes that since the labyrinth seems to be following the story of Alice in Wonderland, there might be a potion nearby that would shrink the drinker.
Yosuke: "Yeah right! Who'd drink something that suspicious?"
Teddie would. And did, while the others were talking. And then...
he...
...shrinks.
Kanji picks him up, going gaga over Mini-Teddie.
Kanji: "I think I'm gonna die of sugar shock!"
Teddie: "Hey! Don't toy with me!"
Rei is excited by the prospect of a shrinking potion.
Rei: "I wanna try some! Mad Bull gives you wins!"
Zen knocks it out of her hand before she can drink. It lands right in Kanji's mouth, and...
...Kanji...
...shrinks.
Chie and Yukiko pick them up and play with them like dolls. Yikes. Even Naoto gets in on this silliness.
With the girls completely zoned out, Yu takes it upon himself to take a drink too.
Down in tiny land...
Teddie: (looking up Yukiko's skirt) "Heehee, what a beautiful sight!"
(Yukiko notices and blushes furiously, then goes for a KAIJU STOMP!)
Yukiko: *as Teddie scurries away in fear* "Sorry, guess I missed."
...the shrunken guys QUICKLY go through the tiny door.
What happens in the tiny room is too incredibly gay to comment on. Literally. Gay homosexual things happen in the tiny room. But at least the guys get the key to the door.
Further progress was made, but the party's SP started to run dangerously low, so I went back to heal and re-equip. Margaret had a bunch of new stuff ready. Also, I jettisoned Teddie and Chie from the party for the remainder of this floor, because they were sort of becoming a liability...
I'd have put Yukiko back in, but Naoto turns out to be essential on this floor.
This floor is truly massive and exhausting. After following the white rabbit all the way to the back, I found myself in a room with three FOEs, two flower vases, and no room for error.
I erred.
In an absolutely STUNNING lapse of common sense, I fought the FOE I blundered into instead of using Sutakora Foot to get the HELL out of there. By the time I realized escape was probably my best option, Yu was dead and I was out of Revival Beads.
I actually did manage to chip away about 95% of its HP before it wiped me out.
But a defeat is still a defeat, and I lost quite a bit of progress to this particular defeat. 
So unfortunately, this week's trip down the rabbit hole ends on a bit of a down note, as I failed to completely explore Ch.3 of Wonderland. But that's just the way it goes sometimes.
Take it as a word to the wise: this game is hard.
BIZARRE BATTLE QUOTE TIME!
(When encountering a Calm Pesce)
Rei: "Ooh, another fish enemy! Niiiice and fresh!"
Chie: "SCREW fish! I want RED MEAT!"(When encountering a Heat Balance)
Rei: "Look, the scales again! Wobbly!"
Teddie:"Ooh, I'm SCALED! Get it? Scaled?"(When encountering a Sleeping Table)
Chie: "You're a TABLE! Why couldn't you have a meat dish on you?!"(When encountering an Agitating Hablerie)
Naoto: "Ugh, those lips again..."
Kanji: "Hey, punk! Your lips look chapped!"(When hit with Sleep status)
Teddie: "I finally...heehehee...scored...zzz..."
Naoto: "The...the culprit is...is me?"
Yosuke: "It's always...customer appreciation day...at Junes..."(On finding a Power Spot on the field screen)
Rei: "Found a P-spot!"
NEXT TIME: We're STILL on the third floor?! The exhausting labyrinth!
I have the feeling that this game doesn't take itself too seriously.
I find it kinda sad how all of Chie's battle quotes are related to meat, why would people Flanderize her?
3429258 Persona Q is full of in-jokes. I'm sure the P3 side of the game is JUST as silly.
It's not so much flanderization as it is lampshading character quirks. Besides, not ALL of Chie's battle quotes are related to meat. It's just that I'm only cataloguing the really weird ones. She has exactly as many related to martial arts as she does to meat.
Also, I haven't mentioned it here, but any time you have Kanji and Naoto in the party together, they have dialogue together from time to time.
Is this good?