Here's a brief entry about the remaining optional bosses, which I never encountered on this playthrough.
The Reaper is fairly elusive compared to the previous game. Here are the steps you need to do.
- Be on a New Game+ if you have the original. You can skip the step in Golden, but you'll likely find yourself faced with the Reaper long before you can even hope to defeat him.
- Open 20 treasure chests consecutively. The number tends to vary, and I've heard conflicting reports as to whether golden treasure chests count, but when you've gotten the right number, you'll hear moaning and rattling of chains.
- Without getting into a battle, find a regular treasure chest. If there isn't one left on the floor, you're out of luck.
- Open the treasure chest. If you get the treasure immediately, you'll have to start over. If not, you'll be presented with a choice.
- The game's narration will warn you about "an intensely terrifying presence." Choose to open the chest, and do so again when your navigator- Teddie or Rise- warns you not to do so.
On a more recent playthrough on Very Hard, I was able to find him.
- OPTIONAL BOSS: The ReaperParty: Yu(84), Yosuke(83), Chie(83) Yukiko(84), Rise(84)Personas: Yoshitsune (90)
He his hard and uses many One-Hit Kill spells, like Mahamaon and Mamudoon. If you're high level and bring many Homunculi, he isn't that difficult- on this attempt, he wasted most of his turns by using various Break spells to remove various resistances, and only used instant-kill spells toward the end (Mahamaon, which Rise blocked). After two charged Hassou Tobis, I was able to finish him off a round later.
After you win, you get a weapon for someone in your active party that doesn't have one already (the Sword of Totsuka is usually found first). If all your party members have their weapons, you get armor next, and if you have that, you'll get the Omnipotent Orb.
Now for Margaret. To recap, here's the requirements for facing her.
- Be on a New Game+. There's no ifs, ands, or buts here, and unlike the Reaper, this also applies in Golden.
- Complete the Empress Social Link before December 24.
- Defeat all six optional bosses.
- Get the True Ending.
- After getting the Orb of Sight, go back inside the Velvet Room BEFORE confronting Izanami.
If you do all that, Margaret will challenge you, and invite you to the top of Heaven.
After going up to the top of Heaven for a third time, Margaret awaits you, recalling how "that girl" challenged her guest to a duel, but notes that while she thought the girl foolish, she's now doing the same thing. Unlike with Elizabeth,you have three of your party members this time, and you'll likely need them.
Here's my party for when I did her on another playthrough
- OPTIONAL BOSS: MargaretParty: Yu(99), Yosuke(99), Chie(99), Yukikko(99)Personas: Yoshitsune(99)
For the first 10-15% of her life, Margaret mostly spams moderately powerful physical attacks. It's nothing too impressive, but it takes up time to empty her health bar.
After you finish the first phase, Margaret alternates between using four powerful single-target elemental attacks against those weak to them (with a different Persona for each), and if she hits a weakness, she'll follow up with a multi-target version. If no one's weak against them, she'll skip to the multi-target version, and she may skip the multi-target version under some circumstances (For me, she never uses the multi-target Electricity skill, even if she hits Yosuke, possibly because Yoshitsune repels electricity). Repelling doesn't do any good, since when Margaret uses those abilities, she absorbs them until the next move.
After using all four moves, she'll use Mind Charge and then Megidolaon, before repeating the cycle (oddly enough, she uses the very low-level persona Oberon to do this). You'll need to guard, since you can't hurt her during this time.
After 50 turns(25 in Golden, considering that Margaret goes twice), Margaret uses a Megidolaon that, while not Mind Charged, does 9999 damage, resulting in a Total Party Kill without one of the following, used in the following order.
- Rise's ability to protect everyone
- The ability Enduring Soul
- The Partial Award from Nanako.
- Rise's ability to resurrect you
- Enabling continues during battle.
After losing 9,000 out of 15,000 HP (for reference, Izanagi-no-Okami has 8,500 HP), Margaret uses Morning Star (which is surprisingly weak despite supposedly being more powerful than Megidolaon, possibly because she doesn't use Mind Charge) and immediately restores herself to full health. Annoyingly enough, you have to drain the first 15% or so of her life with her resisting everything.
Late in the battle, Margaret uses a Power Charge+Hassou Tobi combo instead. On higher difficulties, it essentially kills party members who aren't essentially topped off, guarding and given defense-increasing buffs. Luckily, though, Yoshitsune is immune to physical attacks, allowing Yu to act (but since Margaret is also immune to physical attacks just before and after Hassou Tobi, he can't hurt her)
In Golden, Margaret is much harder, due to having two turns per round, which essentially halves the time limit and makes it harder to prepare for her charged moves.
All in all, you'll have to be patient, have high levels and good gear, and respond well to Margaret's attacks. Generally, while it's tempting to increase party members' damage output, the best bet is an "(Element) Suppressor" (or better yet, "Eye of (Element)") to prevent Margaret from exploiting party members' weaknesses and getting extra turns. Hassou Tobi will do most of the damage to her, since Margaret is not immune to physical except for charging attacks.
After the battle, Margaret tells you that Elizabeth (whom she mentions by name in the battle but doesn't here) is trying to save her guest from his fate through The Power of Friendship, and while Margaret had once thought this impossible, she won't try to bring her back anymore- in fact, if anything like that happens to you, she'll do the same. She gives you a Spiral Bookmark and says that now that you defeated her, you'll be prepared for anything, a good way of saying that Izanami is nowhere near as challenging as this battle.
That's it for my liveblog. I've finished the story and while I considered doing the other versions of the Sun and Strength Social Links, I decided not to, due to lack of interest. If you read this far, thank you, and I hope you enjoy my other liveblogs on here.
