Back with another Tier List, and it’s Persona Q this time! Today we’re going to look at everybody’s favourite mash up of Persona 3, Persona 4 and Etrian Odyssey, and determine which characters belong in which tier! This is of course somewhat subjective and filled with personal opinions, but we’ve tried to be as objective as possible and judge them on their effectiveness in battle alone. Of course we all secretly love Yosuke and his never ending energy, or Teddie and his off-beat comedy, but it’s all for nought if they’re terrible when it comes to throwing down in an encounter, right?
S TIER
- Aigis – Front Row
- Naoto – Back Row
- Persona 4 Protagonist – Front Row
- Persona 3 Protagonist – Back Row
- Akihiko – Front Row
Anyone familiar with our recently published Top 5 Characters list for Persona Q won’t be surprised by the contents of S-Tier. These are the absolute cream of the crop, the best of the best. You can slot these into any party and they’ll immediately improve them, or alternatively slot them into a full team alongside each other and have by far the best party available. Such is the power of these characters that we’d almost consider that starting the game with more than 50% of these in your party tunes the difficulty down by one level.
Whether it’s Aigis and her incredible defensive abilities or Naoto and her full battle wiping spells, these lot will make your life so much better as you trudge through the games many dungeon floors. Of course, some might argue that using these alone makes the game a little too easy, but when it comes to Etrian style dungeon crawlers we’re inclined to take every advantage we can. The only real argument against these characters is that they’re slightly more one note than others, but when that note is so powerful it’s impossible to ignore. If we really strain our eyes and try to find a weakness it would be that Naoto isn’t fantastic in boss battles, but the fact that she just deleted countless random battles on the way tends to completely outweigh this.
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A TIER
- Chie – Front Row
- Fuuka – Support
- Yukiko – Back Row
- Mitsuru – Back Row
- Shinjiro – Front Row
- Junpei – Front Row
- Kanji – Front Row
The A-Tier of characters are a bit of a mixed bag if we’re honest. In some cases you might argue that they could switch places with a few S-Tier: Yukiko, for example, might be able to support your team almost as well as the P3MC. Kanji too might do just as well as Akihiko, Chie too has a good deal of plus points. For us however, they’re just a little step behind – their statistics and abilities just don’t quite reach the heights of those in S-Tier.
Mitsuru has an excellent magic stat for example, but little else going for her. Equally Chie can dish out some incredible damage, but her ability to take any hits is just a little too compromised. No matter the character we pick from this particular tier there is a concession that is required, be it dissapointing accuracy, health pool or skill selection. They will each still perform well in their given roles, and you can complete the game with any number of them in your party, but they just don’t quite reach the peaks that the others might.
The only real contentious point is likely to be Fuuka. We couldn’t bring ourselves to put her in the top tier, after all she doesn’t have the direct influence on battles that the others do, but it is worth noting that she is the better of the two Navigators in the majority of situations. It’s sometimes a little controversial to value heals in the hyper-elite Etrian fandom, but we have no truck with this and thoroughly encourage you to take advantage of the fantastic health over time Navi skills that Fuuka brings to the table, no matter how much you like to remember Rise…
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B TIER
- Rise – Support
- Yosuke – Front Row
- Teddie – Front Row
- Yukari – Back Row
- Koromaru – Front Row
- Ken – Back Row
The B-Tier takes a little more explaining. They aren’t trash bag characters, they’re really not. You could make these work if you really want to. The problem is that they all come with glaring weaknesses that you’ll need to either patch up or work around if you really want to get them going, and these are much noticeable than those in the A Tier. Being huge fans of the entire Persona series, 3 and 4 in particular, it’s harder than you might think to put characters in a ‘bottom’ tier, but after countless play through of both routes, these just don’t quite stack up.
Ken for example can complete almost everything that Naoto can, but we found him crippled by a terribly low SP total – sure this can be patched up later on in the game, but until then you’re going to be held back. Teddie too can make a good tank, similar to Aigis, but you’ll need to switch his Luck around with his Endurance by using an accessory – again something you don’t get until later on in the game. Even Yukari, a seminal Persona 3 favourite and perfectly reasonable healer, becomes outclassed by the ability of the Sub Persona system to give powerful heals to whoever you want.
At the end of the day Persona Q is adaptable enough to be completed with each and every character, but you should be aware that picking one of these will likely put you at a bit of a disadvantage – still completely doable, just a little more work required. Difficulty levels will amplify this issue of course, but if you’re a certain type of gamer that really enjoys a challenge, and perhaps thinks that this is an ‘Etrian Lite’ game, then we’d encourage you to pick your entire team from this tier and see how well you perform. Go on, we’ll wait.
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