Persona 3 Reload somehow wasn't long enough for this JRPG diehard, who made it "last as long as possible" with a grind to level 99: "I regret only a few things"

In an effort to extend Persona 3 Reload for as long as humanly possible, one player has ground out the remake's combat until their stats were totally maxed, just like the good-old days.

In a self-professed "desperate bid" to make Persona 3 Reload last as long as possible, one player took the grind through Tartarus to the next level. Just below, you can see superfan who's managed to push their health and SP stats to 999 over the course of 20 hours of continuous combat.

In a desperate bid to make P3R last as long as possible, I spent about 20 hours grinding my MC to 999HP/SP on NG. I regret only a few things. from r/PERSoNA

Surprisingly, spending 20 hours to max out both respective stats actually isn't all that unreasonable. For a little context, I'm around 45 hours into Persona 3 Reload, and my health and SP stats are both under 400 while and I'm just level 60, not even two-thirds of the overall level of this player after their 20 hours of Tartarus grinding.

In a very weird twist, this is actually in keeping with the original Persona 3 on the PS2. If you hit level 99 back in the day, your health and SP stats would automatically be boosted to 999 immediately, regardless of what they previously were. "That's basically why I did it, it just doesn't feel like P3 if I'm not walking up to the final boss with a full cap," the player writes in the comments.

Elsewhere in the comments of their Reddit post, the player explains that they were "out of stuff to do at night" in December in Persona 3 Reload's calendar. With nothing else to do, they dove into Tartarus every night, repeatedly using the same few Arcana cards in combat to raise both their max HP and SP attributes. Since these buffs are permanent, it's a fairly economical way of grinding.

"I threw on some SP buffing items to cheat my way to 999 here but theoretically I think you could hit the cap without items if you very patiently dedicated like 55 Tartarus runs to just doing this," the player theorizes. Responding, another player claims they were able to hit the maximum health value in the middle of January, which earns a "respect" from the post author.

Hitting level 99 in 20 hours is actually pretty efficient, and bagging all of the major Arcana cards required for boosting the two stats in roughly half an hour each time (if you're going by the average time) is pretty speedy going. This really puts Mitsuru, Akihiko, and Shinji getting stuck in the first Tartarus block for multiple months to shame. 

Here's why Persona 3 Reload's new Link Episodes are just what the long-serving JRPG needed.