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Though newer titles in the Persona series have individual dungeons, is different in the sense that it has only one: Tartarus. Serving as the game’s central dungeon, you’ll spend your year in Iwatodai slowly but surely making your way to the top of the tower, which is where you’ll have your final battle against the game’s mওain antagonist after a lo🐓ng, hard-fought battle.
But with the concept unique to P3P, newcomers may be curious how it functions as opposꦐed to traditional dungeons, and we’ve got the answer! For help with Tartarus in P3P, TheGamer’s got you covered.
With Tartarus such a central mechanic to the story's progression, this guide contains spoilers for Persona 3 Portable.
What Is Tartarus?
While other Persona titles see you entering various, highly stylized dungeons throughout, P3P keeps you in a central location throughout the game – Tartarus.
Erupting from Gekkoukan High during the Dark Hour, Tartarus is a looming tower where plenty of average folks from around Iwatodai have been going missing by the time you arrive. They hear voices summoning them into Tartarus, where they’re either lost or devoured by shadows on entry.
What's At The Entrance?
When you first get to Tartarus on any given night, you'll always begin from the first floor, which is the entrance to Tartarus.
Here, you'll be able to do a handful of different things before going to explore the dungeon, like:
- Assemble a team by speaking to the character you'd like to bring with you. You can have three teammates accompany you at max, but you can choose to leave with fewer as well.
- Save your game or heal the team (for money) by interacting with the clock beside the stairs.
- Visit the Velvet Room to check on requests, use your Compendium, or fuse Personas before or after your night's adventures.
- Access the Monad Depths once they've become unlocked.
- Access the Paradigm Door to endure several tougher challenges with the ultimate goal of eventually battling Margaret, the Velvet Room Assistant from P4G.
How To Progress Through Tartarus
Tartarus is broken down into six blocks, with story progress-based blockades to stop you from going too far all at once. There will always be a blockade at the end of the block, which is how you know ♊you&r🦩squo;ve reached the end.
Unlike traditional dungeons to which you may be accustomed if you’re coming into P3P from P5R, the floor layouts in Tartarus are almost completely randomized.
There are a few floors with set layouts, which is where story takes place, but for the most part, spawning onto a new floor will yield a new randomly generated lဣayout🌳 for it.
When you enter a new floor of Tartarus, your goal is to find the stairs that lead up to the next floor. You’ll repeat this process time and again until coming to a floor where there&rs꧒quo;s story, a mini-boss battle, or a blockade before the neꦓxt block.
If your teammates are strong enough to hold their own against the shadows in that block, you can ascend through Tartarus quickly by asking the team to split up.
They'll call out to you when they've found the stairs to the next floor (or a teleporter that leads back to the entrance), and you can choose to leave the floor right from that screen if you're ready to move on.
However, if someone is currently in battle or fainted when you leave the floor, you will move on without them. They spawn back at the entrance again the next time you're there.
But it's not just exits your teammates can find. Throughout the dungeon, you’ll not only find hundreds of different kinds of shadows (which quickly escalate in difficulty as you climb further), but plenty of good loot like money, weapons, armor, and healing items as well, hidden in one of two types of chests.
Regular Chests Versus Rare Chests
On almost every floor of Tartarus, you’ll find at least a few treasure chests. These look like silveꦜr briefcases and contꦆain a rather wide variety of pretty standard items, like what we’ve listed above.
However, you’ll also occasionally stumble on golden crates as well, which contain much rarer items like Magic or Attack Mirrors, different powerful weapons and armor that you’d not be able to get otherwise, or even Homunculi, which can save you from light or dark insta-kill spells.
Regardless of which kind of chest it is, it’s always worth it to open chests. Even if you’re not using what’s inside, you’re able to sell spare items to Officer Kurosawa at the police station. He pays outright in yen, making him a great way to earn money when not in Tartarus.
Tartarus is your primary form of money-making in this game, betw🥃een chests and loot, so be sure you&rsquꦕo;re collecting everything you can!
What Is Shuffle Time?
After battles end a certain way (with knockdowns, weakness-exploiting moves, or All-Out Attacks), you’ll have the opportunity to participate in Shuffle Time.
This handful of possible cards will be shuffled in one of a few ways that see you track which card you want as the deck is shuffled before being allowed to choose one card.
These cards offer several different rewards, based on what you’ve chosen. The power of these cards increases the higher you go in Tartarus, ranging from 1-10 in terms of their power. Higher numbers yield higher rewards.
Shuffle Time Cards And What They Give You
|
Symbol |
Prize |
|
Green wand with leaves |
More experience for winning the fight |
|
Yellow coins |
Yen |
|
Red swords |
Weapons |
|
Blue chalices |
Restores HP |
|
Any of the above that also shows a black, smoky skull and crossbones |
The prize shown, but th💮e arrival of The Reaper is sped up for your current floor |
|
A Persona |
The Persona shown on the card * |
|
White cracks |
Nothing |
* If you've already got the Persona in your stock that's shown on a card you draw in Shuffle Time, it will disappear, and you will not get a reward, so choose carefully.
Until you’re in the endmost part of the endgame where money, new Personas, and more are no longer a worry (or if you’re worried about the number of death cards and aren’t ready to take on The Reaper), always take the chance to participate in Shuffle Time.
How Many Floors Is Tartarus?
On the whole, Tartarus contains 264 regular floors. The entrance is technically the first floor, but each of the other 263 floors will alm🦹ost certainly pose a real threat.
To keep things organized for sake of the story, Tartarus is broken up into six main blocks with one auxiliary bonus block.
Thebel: 2-16F
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Thebel block is your very first, and it’s where you’ll be receiving the bulk of your in-game instructions from Mitsuru when you first go into Tartarus.
Thebel is primary a learning block, with low-level shadows that’s meant to orient you to the game style of P3P. Its Shuffle Time Personas are staple ingredients for high-level fusions, and it’s where you&rsဣquo;ll get the overall lay of the land for everything ahead.
Arqa: 17-64F
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Arqa block unlocks after your very first boss battle, when you’ve begun to get a stronger grasp on the gameplay.
When you enter Arqa for the first time, you’ll have one or two new teammates to add to your battle configuration. And with enemies🍃 growing more difficult, these higher-level teammates with moves you’ve not had access to yet will definitely come in handy.
Arqa is also the first time you’ll find a blockade midway through the block. This will become fairly commonplace, but these serve to pause your progress until after the n𝓡ext major story plot-point, so you’re not too over-leveled or far ahead of schedule.
Yabbashah (65-114F)
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Yabbashah block is the first time you’ll have access to every possible member of SEES, so we recommend tinkering with your party configuration in here.
The shadows in Yabbashah are maybe the most varied for this exact reason – to give you a way to test out new team members as you inch toward the end of the game.
Not only is it a good way to test new teammates, but it’s a similarly good opportunity to do a good amount of leveling before the story gꦏrows more complicated in the next block of Tartarus.
Tziah (115-164F)
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Tziah block may be a bit of a challenge to get through in a timely manner. While it unlocks on 9/10 after the Full Moon Operation against Arcana Hermit, story events consume a lot of your evening free time in September.
Between new social links (some of which have intense deadlines), finishing your 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:social stats, and ꧅story progression, it migh𝓀t be tough to find time for Tartarus in September.
However, Tziah still has 50 floors and four Guardians you’ll need to w൩ork through, so d🗹on’t wait too long to check it out.
Harabah (165-214F)
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Harabah block is your focus for longer than any other block of Tartarus. After it unlocks on 11/5 shortly after your final Full Moon Operation, your next block won’t open until th🎃e New Year, so you have pl🍎enty of time.
Possibly to counter this long expanse of time, Harabah has no barrier, s🥀o yo🦂u can progress through it at the rate that feels most comfortable to you.
However, with the next section of Tartarus the ultimate and final one, use the strong enemies here and the time you have before the endgame to train hard in Harabah to ensure you’re ready for the final boss.
Adamah (215-263F)
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Adamah block of Tartarus is very intricately tied to the progression of the endgame.
Adamah doesn’t unlock until 1/1 in the game, after you’ve made your choice about how to approach the arrival🌳 of Nyx on 12/31.
While the section is, in terms of battles and loot, identical to the blocks below it, you’ll pause every few floors to rank up your Judgment social link with the Nyx Annihilation Team.
Your rank with this new social link will progress as you climb Adamah, and this is the only way to rank up the Judgment social link.
The final battle will take place on 1/31 on the very top floor of Adamah, but you’ll need to reach the final floor before 1/31 in order to get there on the day.
The Monad Depths
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Monad Depths is a totally optional bonus block of Tartaru𝔉s that sits apart from the rest &ndas🐓h; literally.
In order to manually unlock the Monad Depths, you must first take on and defeat The Reaper on a normal floor of Tartarus. This is an extremely tough battle if you don’t have an exploit for it, so for some more help finishing the famously difficult fight with The Reaper, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:check out our guide for his fight.
While one of your 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Velvet Room Requests is active, The Reaper will drop a Bloody Button when he g💃oes down. Bring this back to your Velvet Room Attendant to complete the request and unlock Monad.
The Monad Depths are accessed by the large white door to the right of the stairs into Tartarus once they’ve been unlocked.
But there’s a reason the barrier to entry is so high - these ten floors packed with super-tough enemies. They’re the highest-level shadows that aren’t guardians or boss battles, so proceed with caution.
How Long Should You Stay In Tartarus?
What Does Condition Impact?
Each time you enter Tartarus, you’ll first need to account for you and your teammates’ Conditions. These can be either Great, Good, Tired, or Sick, and each has a different eff🧸ect on your performance inside Tartarus.
Teammates in Great condition deal vastly more damage and can take more hits before their performance goes down. Meanwhile, a Sick teamဣmate deals little damage, faints easily, and may even refuse to join 🧜the night’s expedition altogether.
You can check your teammates Conditions by either speaking to your navigator in the Dorm Lounge before going to Tartarus for the night, or from the Status submenu in your main menu. Condition plays a big role in how well your team does in Tartarus that day, so be sure to keep an eye on it.
Whatever Condition you enter Tartarus in will decrease as you push on through Tartarus. Teammates seem to grow weary faster than your protagonist, and you can switch out Tired teammates if your heart is set on continuing.
There are also a handful of ways to influence Conditions in P3P. For more info, check out our 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Guide to Conditions.
Can You Do All Of Tartarus In One Day?
While it's technically possible to complete Tartarus in one day, with the game not stopping you from doing so in any way, we cannot recommend against it enough.
With 264 floors to get through and several dozen mini-boss battles impeding your progress along the way, it's unlikely you'd reach the final floor before your protagonist and team alike have been killed or grown exhausted.
Not only that, but Tartarus is where you grind for EXP. If you skip this pivotal part of a Persona game, you will likely not succeed on your Full Moon Operations against vastly more powerful shadows. Without any work on your team's levels, you'll be completely unprepared for major boss fights.
It would be much easier to do on a NG+ save where your player level and Persona compendium has carried over, but on your first playthrough of P3P, do not save Tartarus for last.
What Are Guardians?
Since Tartarus doesn’t function as a normal dungeon, your mini-boss battles in P3P are against Guardians of Tartarus.
These stronger-than-the-others shadows spawn on set floors of Tartarus and exist to impede your progress, since you cannot move on without defeating them.
On each of the floors, there’s a teleporter that will serve as an elevator of sorts to help you jump between floors in Tartarus. After activating these teleporters, you can fast travel from any other floor with a teleporter, inc𝐆luding 🦩the entrance.
The Guardians will always be waiting for you midway through the floor, physically blocking your way in such a fashion that🥂 you litera꧋lly cannot get around them.
Our P3P directory features a full collection of guides on each Guardian, each with tips, tricks, suggested party setups, and recommended Personas for the figꦆht, so be sure to check them out if you need some help!
Before leaving the floor after the fight, look around for treasure chests. They may be slightly off the path to the stairs, but your prizes will almost always contain HP or SP-replenishing items to make up for the dent the 🔯fight put into yours.
Townsfolk Go Missing Inside Tartarus
Throughout the ten months you play in P3P, people from around Iwatodai go missing in Tartarus, and, as Persona users, it’s up to you and SEES to rescue them.
A handful will go missing in each block, and when it happens, you’ll receive a phone call from your Velvet Room attendant telling you someone has gone missing. They’ll remind you inside the Velvet Room by telling you they “sense someone.” After this, they’ll offer you a small range of floors where you’ll find the missing person.
For the most part, these people are random citizens, but two people who go missing are your social links. If you fail to rescue them in time, that character’s social link will lock, meaning you cannot progress it further without loading an older save and rescuing the missing peꦫrson.
However, everyone you rescue will leave you a reward for saving them. To collect, head to the police station at Paulownia Mall. Officer Kuros🍸awa will make a comment and then hand over whatไever the rescued person has left for you.
For all the details on how to save the missing and where to find them all, check out our 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Missing Persons Guide.