BlackTorito

On Merciless personas have a higher level thus you’ll get a lot of points for less money, plus you might save a few points since some personas needed for fusion are already at a high level there. The only downside is you need lvl 90 at least to be comfortable enough, Lucifer would be also desired to have.

Sorry for the late reply, I need to reformulate that, since I was refering to farm bond XP before going into NG+ Otherwise is best to start on Merciless just in case the script doesnt work for you (I had issues with lag input and connection loss).

Based on what I experienced, its probably better to farm Metatron a bit to get Lucifer, I went directly to Merciless and had a rough time until I got Lucifer and a decent level. I had a lot of PPoints to spare to complete the compendium, but on Merciless you’ll get more PPoints from the Personas. The PPoints you get are based on their level, you’ll need a lot of money to summon personas and delete them to quickly rack points. The best ones before getting into Merciless are for example Lilith, Bugs, Cerberus, etc which you have to level them up first to 65-70 for fusion, then they grant roughly 100k for 30-40k money. Latter on Merciless you’ll find better deals.

Yesterday I spent the day grinding and doing some research on the matter, since getting stuck on Sendai Dire Shadow was boring to me, I decided to push the game on Merciless and see the numbers myself, so I'll share what I found with you to simplify the choose of grind for anyone that comes later to the party. First of all, I got many ideas from the discussion thread. The originally Metraton route is discarded here, as it's already proven that is tedious and slower, the game is meant to be completed on Merciless originally, and it is best to farm there. You'll definitely need a good build and a maxed out persona, I went with the Lucifer with Diamond Dust route, since freezing is pretty useful and the Snake Shadow is week to Ice. Before getting into the numbers I'll say there are two methods to this grind, the method A and B. The first one means using a script on remote play (aka efficient, brain-less and pain-less grind), check this guy's post, fair warning, if you are going for the script route, better try it right in Osaka or have a separate save there before going into NG+ since I'll spoil this right now, Billiken Statue in Osaka is the fastest. However, if you couldn't set it up like me, or just find playing the game on Merciless better the route B is for you. NOTE: This numbers are based on a maxed out "Increased Bond XP" perk. It's also worth to mention that the Dire Shadows and Battle XP do not show the increased % applied on the end screen, therefore, you must apply approximatelly a +40% to each battle (f. e., Snake Dire gives 56.400 XP but with the +% is roughly ~86.000 XP, for Fratricidal Destroyer is ~140.000 out from 100.000). A. Remote Play Script This route means programming an script while doing one of the activities that gives free bond XP on mostly each city: Sendai (Fortune Reading): ~100 XP [Curse] / 1.125 [Blessing] / 3.000 [Great Blessing] = 1.408,33 Median Sapporo (4 Leaf-Clover): 750 [None Found] / 3.750 [Found] = 2.250 Median Okinawa (Sign Pray): 1.500 [Normal] / 4.500 [Great] * 0,75 = 3.750 Median (it seems the "great" pray is more usual) Osaka (Billiken Statue): 2.250 [Nothing] / 3.750 [Satisfied] / 7.500 [Amazing] = 4.500 Median Conclusion: as raw numbers matter here, the fastest route is to not go into NG+ and do the script in Osaka to maximize your bond XP. If you already started it, you might as well enjoy the journey and push to Osaka on Merciless (it will take 5-6 hours between preparations, etc..) along the route you might as well end up with a 80+ Bond Level before reaching Osaka. B. Dire Shadows This route means to farm the powerful Dire Shadows over and over again. To maximize the times here, you'll first need to do a few dirty rounds to get you level to 99, maximize your persona stat's etc., so you won't reach peak potential until a few levels later. The times I show here are based on the build I went with, an Ice Lucifer, fuse with a higher enough Black Frost to gain the Ice abilities: Lvl. 99 (Lucifer) w/ Ice Necklace (Joker) = Increased damage of Ice attacks. Spell Master (from Alice level 92) Ice Amp Freeze Boost Ice Boost Diamond Dust Morning Star (this is pretty great for everything that is not weak to Ice) As for the numbers, remember to apply a +40% roughly, I didn't put Bugs (Shibuya) Dire Shadow because basically the Snake is faster and gives more XP, I did want to push and see if latter Dire Shadows are worth enough to farm: Sendai Shadow = 56.400 XP (2 minutes or even less after a maxed out Lucifer/Joker by spamming Diamond Dust and All Outs). - Video Sapporo Shadow = 68.200 XP (around 3 minutes) Okinawa Shadow = 69.200 XP (3 minutes 40 seconds) Kyoto Shadow = 72.400 XP (3 minutes and 45 seconds, and it was weak to Ice) Osaka (Fratricidal Destroyer Request) = 100.000 XP (around 5 minutes or more without a Holy build) Conclusion: the increasing XP on Dire Shadow seems irrelevant, its pretty low when compared to the Snake ratio which you can basically destroy brain-less in 2 minutes with a maxed out build, if you don't want to push the game more, the best ratio seems there. However, The Fratricidal Destroyer might be interesting for those looking for a challenge or that want to push the game for fun, you have to reach Osaka to receive the request from Lavenza and you fight him in Sendai. The battle is more intense than with the Snake, I went with freezing him and Morning Star but even then, you'll get out of SP, it's really tanky. It would be worth to research with a Holy Build if the timing can be lowered and thus improving the XP ratio, for the time being though, the Sendai Shadow is the fastest way and the less painful. Hope you find it useful to decide on which route to take, and of course, let me tell you, if you play Merciless for fun, and even complete the playthrough you'll probably naturally reach 99 or close to it naturally (I was 84 at Osaka with only farming a few times the Snake to maximize Lucifer, since Merciless is really painful without a maxed persona).

What is the point on caring about stats that rely on who “sleeps less” or “have more free-time”. I could plat a game with 20 hours less of gameplay and still be slower because someone stuck playing all day/all night. Still, I can see the appealing on the first achiever, but I wouldn’t care much with a game its already been platted on PS4 a long time ago. That stat is only appealing when nobody has a clue about some trophies when new games launches, even then, there is people getting their press copies weeks ahead and full strat books so... it’s not common to see that kind of game.

Shame, already platted them, besides VR which I don’t have. Seems you participate through the PSN app after acquiring 15 trophies.

Congrats to everyone, I didn’t expect at all that quadruple tie on 3rd GOTY. I think the best thing from this year’s awards is the quality badge for every nominee to recognize their hardwork. I won’t say this is my last year writting guides, since you never know, but I’ll definitely stop due to lack of free time. I hope every guide I’ve made up to this point was helpful in any way to the community and, if possible, inspired other writters. I didn’t vote this year since I didn’t had time to properly review all the guides, but I definitely took a peek on some and there is definitely stuff that blew my mind, there is a lot of talent and passion out there, so keep it up.

Definitely, what’s the point of giving “visibility” when people are going to vote on their favourites or the ones they used, not like they are going to glanze at all those guides (not blaming here). And even then, some guides were lost there. So much effort wasted by the Staff in my opinion (well except for the fact that the nominees get a quality badge, that’s good) Not to mention the fact that some guides repeat on categories most of them the future Walkthrough goty’s, I think that wasn’t a thing last year, so even less opportunities for less popular guides.

I’d say depends on the game, and the staff spare time at the moment of review. Also right now is not the best moment due to holidays, and potentially to them being bussy with the Guide of the Year Announcements.

Why the grey font? Can’t barely read it.

I know, but it looked fuzzy even with that OFF.

Seems so, looks better for me, and they enabled HDR for PS4

They seem to have fixed the blurriness and implemented HDR on PS4. I’ll still wait a few more patches though.

It looks absolutely unbereable on PS4, and so does it seems on PS5. It looks weird and fuzzy as hell, its not about top graphics, its just a real issue. Everything is blurred away on the distance as well, I can’t see people’s faces until I am straight onto them. Not talking about the three first “minor” bugs I got just on the first 10 minutes. This is just a plain disaster, can’t believe this game was due almost one year ago.

There are settings to fix the deadzone, but is weird you have stick drift already on a new ps5 controller