Sei

It can be tricky balancing Social Links, level-grinding, and resting (because you will have to). I recommend working on the level grinding as much as possible, because the last boss, from what I can tell, requires a Lv. 90 or higher party to beat - which is part of why I stopped playing. I don't think I have enough time left to make it.

Originally Posted by Kieran

It can be tricky balancing Social Links, level-grinding, and resting (because you will have to). I recommend working on the level grinding as much as possible, because the last boss, from what I can tell, requires a Lv. 90 or higher party to beat - which is part of why I stopped playing. I don't think I have enough time left to make it.

Lv. 90 is complete overkill, even for the final boss. It should be more around the lower-mid 70's, but anyways the game is more about strategy than just levels. The key is to keep a wide variety of personas, so that you can manage any situation effectively. Also, make sure to complete the challenges given to you by a certain person as soon as you can, as they provide easy money, weapons, and most importantly, items needed to create the fusion components for some of the strongest personas in the game.

My recommendation: when it's night, go into Tartarus immediately, and go as far as you can manage. Spend as few nights as you can in Tartarus so that you can get nice social links and stuff.

In Portable, unlike FES, you can grind indefinitely in a single day without getting tired until the next. Abuse this.

Also unlike FES, you can buy three Yawn-Be-Gones in the school shop every Saturday. Abuse this.

You get substantially more experience the less party members you use at once. Abuse this.

Skill cards let you teach Personas moves they shouldn't have. Abuse them.

Stat boost cards can be gotten from the Antique shop and can let you become more powerful than you should be. Abuse them.

The arcade and movie theater give the best parameter boosts, but they are expensive. Grind lots of money in Tartarus and abuse them.

You're also going to want to have a Persona of the matching Arcana for most Social Links.

As Irothtin mentioned, for me the biggest improvement to Portable is that now there are more things in the game to let you grind Tartarus as needed without screwing you out of the other cool parts of the game, like Social Links. Learn about and take advantage of these.

You're not going to 100% it on your first run, and this will piss you off. Not without a guide at least. Anyway, early on try and get a persona with Bufu, Agi, Zio, and Garu. It's really fucking useful. Don't worry too much about Hama/Mudo, they can be useful but eh. If you fight a gold hand, don't waste time with spells or whatever, just bum rush it with triangle. Oh, and try and do every sidequest you can.

CAST BUFU

If you leave the party on auto, I hope you enjoy MARIN FUCKING KARIN

...I'm going to be grabbing this within the next few months, along with any other PSP Persona game I can get my grubby little mitts on.