Full Moon Operations are a major series turn of events in the Persona 3 series. Full Moon Operations occur every month during every full moon. In these events, one or two unusually powerful Shadows will appear somewhere in Tatsumi Port Island, attempting to cause destruction to an area important to the island’s civilians.
During the day of a Full Moon Operation, the protagonist can not do anything during the daytime or the evening and must stat in the dorm to prepare whenever possible. The Velvet Room is inaccessible during every Full Moon Operation. Likely in order to prevent a softlock from occurring, the player is not allowed to save the game during a Full Moon Operation. The exception to this is the operation on January 31st, as it instead locks the player in Tartarus until they reach the top. Clearing a Full Moon Operation unlocks new floors on Tartarus for exploration, but the protagonist will become fatigued on the days following a Full Moon Operation and cannot explore these new floors instantly whenever they are available.
In some Full Moon Operations, certain party members will be either forced to accompany the protagonist or unavailable in combat, due to story events.
In Reload, the player might save during a Full Moon operation.
The Full Moon Operation on July 7 is the first official one which S.E.E.S. conducted and planned for, as nobody pointed out the connection between full moons and the appearance of Arcana Shadows until June 8th. On May 9, the Arcana Priestess attacked the monorail completely unexpectedly and most of S.E.E.S. had to be woken up. Meanwhile, the team was completely blindsided by the appearances of Full Moon Shadows on April 9th and June 8th, although they were still combat-ready in the latter case due to their separate operation to rescue Fuuka Yamagishi from Tartarus. Regardless, S.E.E.S. still ends up encountering and eventually fighting against these Shadows by chance on every time that they appear.
Full Moon Battles[]
Date | Enemy's Name | Arcana | Location | Standard Level |
---|---|---|---|---|
April 9 | Magician[1] | Magician | Iwatodai Dormitory Rooftop | N/A |
May 9[2] | Priestess | Priestess | Monorail | 8 |
June 8[3] | Empress | Empress | Entrance to Tartarus | 15 |
Emperor | Emperor | |||
July 7[4] | Hierophant | Hierophant | Shirakawa Boulevard | 21 |
Lovers | Lovers | |||
August 6 | Chariot | Chariot | Underground Bunker | 32 |
Justice | Justice | |||
September 5[5] | Hermit | Hermit | Paulownia Mall, Club Escapade | 40 |
October 4[6] | Fortune | Fortune | Iwatodai Station | 46 |
Strength | Strength | |||
November 3 | Jin Shirato | Hermit | Moonlight Bridge | 53 |
Takaya Sakaki | Fortune | |||
Hanged Man | Hanged Man | 54 | ||
January 31 | Jin Shirato | Hermit | Tartarus | 74 |
Takaya Sakaki | Fortune | 75 | ||
Nyx Avatar | Fool - Death | Top of Tartarus | 76 |
Notes[]
- The full moons on December 2 and December 31 are not meant for battle. However, they both still contain major story events as the former is when Ryoji reveals his true form, and the latter has the protagonist forced to decide on an offer which determines the fate of the world, possibly resulting in a bad ending.
- The protagonist is free during the day on January 31 despite there being a Full Moon Operation on that day, as the January 31 Full Moon Operation is more akin to a typical Tartarus visit.
- On Full Moon Operations, the protagonist will default to the "Good" status regardless of their previous condition, likely as another softlock-prevention measure. This does not apply to Reload as it does not have the fatigue system.
Trivia[]
- The Arcana Magician is the only Full Moon Shadow that the player does not engage in battle with (although there is briefly a scripted battle sequence against it in place of an animated cutscene in Portable), as it is instead killed in a cutscene by Death.
- The Operation on May 9th is the only one to have a time limit. In previous versions of the game, all battles leading up to and with the Arcana Priestess occur under a time limit of 8 minutes total. In Reload, only the Arcana Priestess battle has a time limit, which starts at 30 minutes but is halved each time the boss reaches a certain HP threshold.
- Although full moons usually occur only once a month, 2 or the full moons in Persona 3’s calendar are in December. This is known as a blue moon, and despite the significance of these dates in the game and the euphemism “once in a blue moon,” referring to extremely rare events, blue moons are not particularly uncommon events in real-life.
- ↑ Not directly fought in battle.
- ↑ Junpei is initially unavailable during this operation, but will join later.
- ↑ Yukari is unavailable in combat throughout this operation, while the protagonist is forced to fight alongside Junpei and Akihiko against the Arcana Emperor and Arcana Empress.
- ↑ The protagonist is forced to fight alongside Yukari throughout this operation.
- ↑ Junpei is unavailable throughout this operation.
- ↑ Ken and Shinjiro are unavailable throughout this operation. Shinjiro will also be permanently removed from the party after the battle.