Ultimate Persona

An Ultimate Persona (or Advanced Persona) is a Persona formed when an individual takes up a resolution in his or her heart. The Persona is usually one of the strongest Personas the user can summon.

Appearances

 * Megami Ibunroku Persona
 * Persona 2: Innocent Sin
 * Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
 * Persona 3 / FES / Portable
 * Persona 4 / Golden
 * Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth

Megami Ibunroku Persona
The Ultimate Personas are fused by adding certain Totems to fusions that result in a Persona whose arcana is the same as the Ultimate Persona's arcana, and can only be equipped by the character they belong to. The totems are gained towards the end of the game, though the exact method depends on the route.

In the SEBEC quest, if the protagonist performs good deeds throughout the quest, when he meets with his other self in the Alaya Cavern, the other self will reward him with the totems.

In the Snow Queen route, the protagonist has to trade Ambrosia gained from defeating the Tower bosses with Raiho during the final dungeon. If the harder towers are completed before the easier ones, more Ambrosia will be given.

Innocent Sin
Most of the Ultimate Personas are gained after defeating Joker in the Caracol if the party found the corresponding mask at Mt. Iwato (the Red Eagle Mask for Apollo, the Yellow Owl Mask for Hades, the Pink Azas Mask for Venus and the Blue Swan Mask for Artemis).

Apollo, Venus and Hades are all weak to Darkness initially. The weakness will be removed and replaced with immunity against Darkness once the player has equipped the correlated persona to finish the battle against their reverse counterparts in Leo Temple, Taurus Temple and Scorpio Temple respectively.

Yukino retains Durga as her Ultimate Persona, which is obtained if she comes to terms with Shunsuke Fujii's death and stays with Tatsuya's party at the Caracol. Jun Kurosu's Ultimate Persona is Chronos, obtained by mutating Hermes once it reaches maximum rank and has gone through the Aquarius Temple's boss fight with him equipped.

Eternal Punishment
Except for Tatsuya who has already obtained his Ultimate Persona, Apollo, from the beginning of the story, all other characters' Ultimate Personas require the player to obtain the Material Cards from Mt. Iwato and then summon them in the Velvet Room manually. This gives player the freedom to apply a magic card and stat boost card during the summoning. The Ultimate Personas in Eternal Punishment are slightly less powerful and useful skill-wise than in Innocent Sin, but consume less SP.

Persona 3
The Ultimate Personas are evolved forms of the initial Personas gained throughout the story, based on their operator's character development. Following a story-specific prompt, each character individually experiences a personal resolution, which brings about the metamorphosis of his or her initial Persona into his or her Ultimate Persona. The Ultimate Personas are listed below in order of metamorphosis.

Shinjiro Aragaki, Koromaru, and Metis do not gain Ultimate Personas.

Persona 4
The Awakened Persona, like in Persona 3, are evolved forms of the initial Personas, though the party member's Social Link must be maxed out.


 * The Protagonist gains his own Ultimate Persona, Izanagi-no-Okami, automatically during the final battle in the True Ending, but it cannot be used in normal gameplay until a certain fusion is performed on a New Game Plus file.
 * This is the only instance of an obtainable Persona not being available to the player on a fresh New Game save outside of a scripted battle.

Golden
Persona 4 Golden offers new Ultimate Personas for every character (except for the Protagonist, who still gains Izanagi-no-Okami during the final battle in the True Ending, which can only be used in normal gameplay upon fusion in New Game Plus). Unlocking these Personas grants the respective Persona a unique ultimate skill. To unlock these Ultimate Personas, the player must first max out the corresponding teammate's social link, and then speak with them for another Social Link meeting at any point after 1/10 to evolve their Persona further.

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
All Ultimate Personas from Persona 3 and Persona 4 are revisited in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth. When both protagonists reach a Level 55, Margaret will make a request to have a fight with only the two of them. When emerging victorious, Margaret notes that a change has occurred within the both of them, with Orpheus transfiguring into Messiah, and Izanagi transfiguring into Izanagi-no-Okami. Margaret states that due to the power of the two wild cards coming together and facing a battle to the death, the protagonists will obtain even greater power, and because the wild card has extended to their companions, their Personas will be able to evolve as well if their level is at a certain point (Level 55 or higher). Shinjiro and Koromaru ask Margaret if it is possible for their Personas to remain the same so that they can never forget what they have done, or failed to do; Margaret tells them that if they focus on keeping their same Persona, it should be possible for them to stay the same while they gain new power.

Each Ultimate Persona has a special skill, unique to it, obtained upon evolution.