Tips for Exploring Tartarus in Persona 3 Reload

Persona 3 Reload, like the original game, has one central dungeon, a massive tower known as Tartarus. It’s a tough task conquering this tower, but here are some tips to help you get started on your climb up Tartarus in Persona 3 Reload.

Don’t Feel the Need to Fully Explore Every Floor

Some floors on Tartarus are relatively large, with plenty of nooks and crannies. While you can explore every inch of each floor you explore, sometimes, there’s no need to. Upon arrival at a floor, a quick cutscene will play if there’s a major treasure on the floor. If so, then you should probably hunt it down since the reward inside will probably be a rare piece of equipment, a valuable healing item, or an item you can sell for a high price. If no cutscene plays, then it’s up to you whether you want to explore a floor or not.

On the one hand, there are plenty of enemies around for you to gain experience points from and acquire new Personas. That being said, the higher you go, the more difficult the enemies will become, and they’ll start to drain your limited resources. In that scenario, it may be several floors until you can find a way back to the bottom, so you’ll have to do a lot of running from battle and hope you’ll survive. So, if you feel like you’re at a good enough level, have enough Personas, or have the major treasure of the floor (if there is one), consider climbing those stairs to the next floor whenever you see them.

Conserve Your SP

If there’s one resource you’ll want to conserve more than any other, it’s SP. SP is incredibly valuable in all Persona games, and Persona 3 Reload is no different. SP will allow you to cast all of your elemental spells and use healing magic, both of which are valuable as you climb higher and higher. Plus, items that recover SP are rare and hard to come by. Starting off, you’ll probably have a low amount of SP, and your main character will probably be the one casting most, if not all, of the magic. When your SP starts to dip below half, you should probably consider switching mostly to physical attacks if possible. That way, you can make sure that if/when a tough enemy pops up, you’ll be able to exploit their weaknesses and not risk fighting them without any magic. Never, and I mean never, go into a boss fight with low SP. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Related: How to Get Onimaru Kunitsuna in Persona 3 Reload

Don’t Be Afraid to Leave & Come Back Later

At certain points in Tartarus, you’ll be able to use a teleporter to return to the first floor and regroup. There are two types of teleporters, one before bosses and one you’ll find randomly on floors. Unless absolutely necessary, don’t use the ones you’ll find randomly on floors. While those can help you make a quick escape if you need it, they’re one way, so you’ll have to restart from the last checkpoint in the tower, which is usually the teleporter before a major boss. The boss teleporters are two-way, so you can return to them after you regroup on the first floor. And you’ll definitely want to do that, as you’ll be able to save on the first floor.

Regardless, if you’re hurting by the time you return to the first floor, don’t be afraid to leave Tartarus. You can leave for the night and return whenever you want, but if you do leave, just be aware that unless you left via the two-way teleporter before a boss, your progress will reset, and you’ll have to climb back up the floors you previously explored.

Visit the Velvet Room Before Bosses

Personas are valuable allies in Persona 3 Reload, and while you’ll be able to collect them inside of Tartarus by defeating Shadows, a very valuable way to earn tougher Personas is to create them in the Velvet Room. Before you fight a boss, visit the Velvet Room on the first floor and fuse whatever Personas you have to create stronger allies. These Personas will almost certainly have better stats than the ones you found exploring Tartarus, and depending on how far you are in certain Social Links, you’ll get an EXP bonus that will have them learn better spells that could make the difference in a tight situation.

Make Sure Your Personas Cover All Weaknesses

Regardless of which Personas you take with you into Tartarus, be sure that you have a variety of them that have a variety of spells. This extends to your party members as well. If you have Yukari on your team, you probably don’t need to bring other Personas that have Garu spells. Of course, if you do, then you can spread the SP costs of these spells between the main character and Yukari, but don’t go in rocking a team of Personas that exclusively use one type of spell. Diversify your Personas so you have some that use magic, some that heal, some that excel in physical attacks, and some that can provide status buffs and debuffs.

And those are some tips for exploring Tartarus in Persona 3 Reload.

Persona 3 Reload is available on PlayStation, PC, and Xbox.