Current Events > Palace 5 is the hardest story boss in Persona. What the fuck.

(+) Yeah! (+)

These are final boss -tier constraints. If we were literally in heaven fighting god's waves of angels with 30 minutes until the rapture, it would make sense.

I'm pleasantly surprised but also furious. I have max rank baton pass on everyone, I'm coordinating accessories to take Joker to max and annihilate the wave with Concentrate + weakness or Megidola. But once it gets to the fat green guys, if I make one mistake than Joker can get wiped by the Sacrifice Order. I've spent a stupid amount of time here.

Part of the problem is I'm too stubborn to grind right now or use Strength's boon to buy a Persona above my level. I'm sure 41 is lower than the average for this area.

Yeah, that fight is the biggest reason why I think that palace is the worst in the game. Well, that and the boring airlock puzzles.

Hmm...
I never had any problems with any of the bosses in persona 5.

Shin Megami Tensei 4 apocalypse on the other hand though...
Wtf, that game is supposedly easier than SMT4 and I had trouble with boss fights that had numerous phases/multiple boss fights.

I dropped the game during this boss.

not because he was especially difficult, but because I was already having issues with P5, and I had to admit to myself that I wasn't having any fun.

once you understand its gimmick it's one of the easiest bosses in the game

Homeless_Waifu posted...

Shin Megami Tensei 4 apocalypse on the other hand though...

pretty easy with maybe sukuna-hikona being an earlygame stomper
the numerous phases can be annoying but mp is so easy to get and if you set up level ups you can fully restore yourself between fights. and, well, it's smt so there isn't much challenge to begin with

4 feels especially easy for this series and if your mc is strong you can kill bosses in less than four turns as early as minotaur

smt is just one big knowledge check. if you're experienced at the games you really shouldn't be struggling much. you basically never have to deviate from how you always approach things so the series never really feels like it evolves or challenges you outside of dumb garbage like "we can't balance reflects so we'll overkill you if you dare to abuse a tactic" or "we can't balance buffs properly so we'll punish you for maxing them out but you just just use one less buff and the ai doesn't care".

the series gives you tons of ways to deal tons of damage (charges, press turn, reflects, optimal fusion, partner assists) and buffs/debuffs that make press turn even more abusable that it feels like the series really needs to pull something blatantly unfair for the player to really struggle, whether it's a damage formula that favors level so you're pressured to fuse more or bosses that react negatively to strategies that would otherwise be free wins (reflects in any game past nocturne will make the ai go batshit a lot of the time). if you put the time into using what the games give you, you can really see just how broken press turn inherently is

Srk700 posted...

Yeah, that fight is the biggest reason why I think that palace is the worst in the game. Well, that and the boring airlock puzzles.

Well, it was generally considered the worst one even in vanilla P5.

It was almost as if they were thinking "How can we make Palace 5 even worse?"

Yeah, not gonna lie despite coming off of 2 base persona 5 runs thus some experience with the battles I also lost about 4 times in a row to royal's version of that fight before I finally beat it.

I think I recorded my win, lemme see if I can dig it up.

If thats the one I think it is, I had to change the difficulty to Merciless for that fight.

Illuminoius posted...

once you understand its gimmick it's one of the easiest bosses in the game

This

It's badly designed.

Ok, finally found it after going through my unsorted mess, so now I remember what it was all about. Having a really good white rider and using gun skills while going for status effects to go for technical hits instead of elemental weaknesses. A lot of marakunda to keep their defense down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVC5H_aCYvM

I don't recall the boss being that hard, but I also read that they changed it a lot going from vanilla to Royal, and not for the better.

Yeah, I kept running into a problem on that boss fight, same wave (big green guys) too-- I'd either kill 1 enemy & the others would run away or I'd kill 3 & the final one would run off. Annoying as fuck.

Solar_Crimson posted...

I don't recall the boss being that hard, but I also read that they changed it a lot going from vanilla to Royal, and not for the better.

The vanilla version of this fight is nowhere near the same/comparable to the royal version.

IIRC there's something wacky about that boss where it's actually harder on easier difficulties.

Illuminoius posted...

once you understand its gimmick it's one of the easiest bosses in the game

understanding the gimmick and being able to beat the boss are separate things. I had trouble knocking down the final green bots because Haru didn't do enough damage and I was lacking curse/psy damage on Joker.

I ended up having to restart the day to do persona fusions just so I could actually kill the green bots at once, because if you leave even a single one standing, they flee and respawn.

Punished_Blinx posted...

IIRC there's something wacky about that boss where it's actually harder on easier difficulties.

It's because Merciless makes it so attacking weaknesses (and I think Technical attacks as well) do 3x the amount of damage that it does on the other difficulties, and that goes for both you and the enemies. Most of the bots aren't that hard (and IIRC they only do physical attacks), just they're kind of tanky (specifically the last few waves when the boss buffs their defense or weakens you with hunger) and they run away if you don't kill them within 2 turns (making you fight that wave all over again if they run). On Merciless their tankiness isn't really much of a factor.

I never had an issue with it but I did have experience with planning for the most random bullshit by that point in Persona games, so I had coverage for every single one of them both with Joker and inventory items where possible. Plus I had several auto buff effects and so on.

But yeah, if you don't have the right stats and skills you can soft lock in vanilla and it's pretty bad.

Is that the robot palace? 'Cause I hate that one.

Yeah, increase the difficulty to make it easier.

It's dumb but it works.

Homeless_Waifu posted...

Hmm...
I never had any problems with any of the bosses in persona 5.

Shin Megami Tensei 4 apocalypse on the other hand though...
Wtf, that game is supposedly easier than SMT4 and I had trouble with boss fights that had numerous phases/multiple boss fights.

I loved the final boss of smt4:apocalypse

I definitely struggled with it at first, but I actually think it's the best boss fight in the game. Once you get the hang of how you need to deploy Baton Passes etc. then it almost plays like a puzzle where the different game mechanics are the pieces.

I'll be honest, up until that fight I'd pretty much approached all the previous bosses by just charging in and blitzing my best attacks without thinking about tactics etc., just brute forcing my way through. This bastard forces you to learn the ins-and-outs of the battle system more, and it makes it much more satisfying. For me, at least.

If it's any consolation, it's pretty much back to business as usual after this fight.

TomClark posted...

Once you get the hang of how you need to deploy Baton Passes etc. then it almost plays like a puzzle where the different game mechanics are the pieces.

I do appreciate it as an SMT fan, but since the rest of the game really doesn't demand this level of rigor, it catches you with your pants down. To justify it the game would've needed a Trumpeter equivalent earlier on.

i thats the space boss then not ojnl yis it hardest but also the suction warp is the hardest dungeon mehcanic imo