Colors Flying High - Let's Play Persona 5 Royal

This honestly feels like a Deathnote situation where yeah, they could narrow it down to them; but ultimately they can’t PROVE anything.

Best I’ve got is that their suits and marching make them look like little solider mans. Also while looking for information I learned that there are some endangered species of penguins that are looked after by people with snipe rifles just, picking off predators when they get to close.

For the past seven years Canada has run a national dart tournament. My local team got runner up once! It helps improve beer sales by a lot because it’s something to do that is still very “lazy” for lack of a better term.

“Get your score down to zero” is the base rule set for Darts as like, a game, by the way. The fact that they’re going over this and then NOT having it be at least a minigame is… very strange.

The good news is the manga is back as of 2014, apparently. But yeah I don’t imagine we’ll get more of the anime…

We’ve actually got some answers for Elizabeth and Margaret. But I guess since they’re adults they can just leave to have adventures, whereas the twins are children and will need to live in the sea of souls for awhile longer…

EDIT: Oh hey the Persona 5 Dynasty Warriors game just got announced for a western release.

I don’t want to keep making fun of Kusumi being wrong about what kind of story she’s in, but if the game’s going to keep laying on this thick, what am I supposed to do?

Also are the eyepatches just for show? How do Caroline and Justine use 3D glasses?

Yeah, what’s even weirder is that there is a thing we’ll see later on that has an actual minigame in it - in fact it was one of the biggest sources of frustration for me in the base game even though I had no real reason to do it: in the base game’s 100% route you were basically doing it for a trophy and nothing more.

Yeah, I saw that. What surprised me is that they’re doing a Steam release without releasing P5 or Royal first, since I know there’s definitely a subset of people for whom Strikers will be their first exposure to Persona 5.

Strikers also has this weird continuity thing where it’s a sequel to Persona 5, but not to Royal, so I can see people playing Strikers and then being like “Wait, where the hell was Kasumi” when they eventually get around to playing Royal.

As far as I know, yes. However, these outings were something that was added for Royal, and the writers for Royal were different than the writers for the base game - Hashino had nothing to do with Royal, as an example.

There’s actually a couple of weird plot errors like that in Royal. When you first start calling Kawakami she tells you use to the public phone at Leblanc so that you don’t leave behind evidence in cell phone logs… yet she calls Joker on his cell phone (ostensibly from the maid service) every time they meet. My guess is that the writers for Royal didn’t have access to whatever continuity tracker the original writing team was using.

By the way, I forgot to post this, but I commissioned an Ann and Shiho piece off Roshela just because I could, honestly.

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Ah, so cute.

Also until you brought it up I hadn’t even considered the fact that Kawakami is calling us that way. It completely slipped my mind because those conversations have an extreme “doesn’t matter or exist” layer to them… welp. That’s clearly weird.

So, a small correction here. As it turns out, there IS a darts minigame that has its own upgrades and stuff - it’s apparently done entirely with the motion controls on the Dualshock 4… you just don’t actually play it the first time you do it. What’s strange is that there is no minigame for pool.

There’s… I think a few free days at the end of November, so I’ll probably try to fit some darts in then.

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Click Here for Update 28

timrodresized: It’s 6/10, and time for another long day of cutscenes and plot dumps.

Akechi: “Hello, everyone!”

Akechi: “Even I’ve found it to be quite a surprise. It is a bit embarrassing though…”

Akechi: “Ah, yes. That would be the scandal involving the master artist Madarame.”

Akechi: “If they truly are heroes of justice, I sincerely hope they exist.”

timrodresized: I don’t think there’s a cure for how much of a tool he is.

Akechi: “But hypothetically speaking, if these Phantom Thieves are real…”

timrodresized: I am very surprised no one has done a remake of this scene where it’s Joker being interviewed and he just goes “But hypothetically speaking, if these horny people are real… (cut in) I believe they should be sent to horny jail.”

Akechi: “What the artist Madarame did truly was an unforgivable crime. However, they are taking the law into their own hands by judging him. It is far from justice. More importantly, you should never forcefully change a person’s heart.”

Akechi: “I have to say though, I would be embarrassed if it turns out these Phantom Thieves don’t exist. If that were the case, I’d summarize it into a report as a school project.”

timrodresized: It’s weird to me that it took the writers this long to have a character put forth the idea that there are no Phantom Thieves and that they’re basically just a blackmail group.

Ryuji: “Of course they do!”

timrodresized: When I was recording for this update, I saw the sign and was like “Wait… that doesn’t make sense, it only says 17” but then I realized it’s probably a sample size of 50 people (it starts near 50) and it’s counting the number of people who responded positively - 17 is 34% of 50.

timrodresized: What’s funny is that they took the effort so this would make sense, but overlooked things like Kawakami calling Joker on his cell phone from the maid service after she told him specifically not to do that so it doesn’t leave evidence behind.

Akechi: “I’m a bit surprised. That’s higher than I was expecting. I’d love to hear some more detailed opinions on the Phantom Thieves’ actions.”

Akechi: “Hahaha.”

timrodresized: He says this even though we picked just about the weakest option there is. Also… did he just wink at Joker? He does realize no one wants to date a cop, right?

Akechi: “In that case, there’s one more question I’d like to ask… If someone close to you, for example, you friend next to you… if his heart suddenly changed… wouldn’t you think it was the work of the Phantom Thieves?”

timrodresized: I don’t really get what like… the angle is for people who are into the whole Joker/Akechi ship. I’m not gay myself, but like, why? He seems like he’d be the absolute dullest person to date.

Akechi: “The matter of how they change people’s hearts. If they honestly possess that ability… it could be used for more than extracting confessions. It could be that what seem to be ordinary crimes are actually being perpetrated by these methods…”

Akechi: “Oh, please don’t misunderstand. This is all purely hypothetical… it is only if people who can use such a power truly exist. Either way though, this cannot be ignored.”

Akechi: “The existence of the Phantom Thieves would be nothing but a threat to our everyday lives. To be honest, I’m already working alongside the police to help sort out this matter.”

Ryuji: “He made it sound like we’re the baddies. I don’t like it.”

Ann: “But that stuff about the police… do you think it’s for real?”

Morgana: “He can say whatever he wants. The justice of it all is something we can decide for ourselves.”

Ryuji: “Oh sorry, I gotta go take a leak. Can you guys wait here? I’ll be right back.”

Ann: “Oh my god… I’m gonna keep going, okay?”

Akechi: “To paraphrase Hegel, advancement cannot occur without both thesis and antithesis…”

timrodresized: Joker looks him right in the eyes and goes “I have a boyfriend, and I don’t date cops.”

Akechi: “Few people around me are so willing to speak their minds as freely as you did earlier. Adults are only interested in using the young, while they simply do as the adults say.”

Akechi: “There are too many irresponsible people in these modern times. I can understand why you’d support the Phantom Thieves. It’s possible that this group is just as you believe and they are truly acting with good intentions.”

Akechi: “Since they have special talents, I assume their hearts must be burning with a sense of justice and duty. But that justice is merely a facade concealing their lack of true strength.”

timrodresized: Oh god I know what this is. He’s trying to make Joker his “project”.

Akechi: “That’s why I believe, if a truly powerful opponent were to corner them, they would flee without a second thought.”

Akechi: “Oh…? You really are intriguing. I bet you’d make for a worthwhile debate partner on the subject. If it’s all right with you, would you continue sharing your thoughts with me?”

Akechi: “Thank you, that’s great news. I sense something in you that’s quite different from other people. I guess you can call it my detective’s intuition? Haha, kidding, of course.”

timrodresized: Unfortunately, we’re forced into a confidant with him.

timrodresized: I am very, very surprised that no one at any point has made a late-80s/early 90s cop movie called LA Justice.

Akechi: “…And, registered. Well, I hope to see you again sometime soon.”

Morgana: “A detective’s intuition, huh? We shouldn’t underestimate that. On the other hand, there’s an awful lot we could learn from him. If he contacts you, try hanging out with him.”

Ryuji: “I can’t stand that high an’ mighty attitude! Just breathin’ the same air as him makes me sick. C’mon, Akira. Let’s go.”

Morgana: “That detective Akechi seems to have a lot of influence on the media. It’d be dangerous to get too close to him, but he may actually prove useful in some situations.”

timrodresized: I got a notification that the Thieves Den updated, so I went and checked on it. Nothing much new, just more Morgana being horny for Ann even in Joker’s head.

timrodresized: Anyway, tonight we’re calling Kawakami again. Get ready for another confidant event…

timrodresized: While this seems like a permafuck, it’s not. Sometimes, and we’ll see this more frequently as we progress with some of the later non-party-member confidants, you simply have to spend time without getting a rank-up.

timrodresized: Royal cuts down significantly on this by adding the phone calls - though why they did that instead of just adding more points to the regular events, I don’t know.

timrodresized: In these cases, we get a generic scene like this.

Morgana: “Looks like people still don’t think we’re real…”

Ryuji: “Let’s see him do it, then! If someone else could help ‘em, we wouldn’t be doin’ stuff as the Phantom Thieves to start with!”

Ann: “You’re being way too loud.”

timrodresized: I kind of wish the game would stop beating me over the head with the fact that Ryuji isn’t exactly tight-lipped about the whole John Persona thing.

Ryuji: “Who cares? Everybody’s talkin’ about this stuff anyways. It’d just be more suspicious if we keep whispering.”

Ryuji: “Hey, you really just gonna keep eatin’ and eatin’ and eatin’ those things all by yourself!? Gimme some!”

Ann: “Sorry, just ate the last one.”

Morgana: “You guys are too laid back. The police are getting involved now, you know.”

Ann: “So you think it’s true? We’ll be okay if we keep doing this… right?”

Ryuji: “We can’t let the cops scare us outta bein’ phantom thieves.”

Ann: “But… what about that weird guy from Madarame’s Palace? Isn’t there a lot we don’t know?”

timrodresized: There’s an audible camera shutter sound.

Ryuji: “The hell!?”

Ryuji: “Are you snoopin’ on us again? We said before, we don’t know nothin’.”

Makoto: “Why do you think I’m here to question you? Could it be that you’re hiding something? My ears are always open to the troubles of my peers, you know.”

Ann: “You’re really that hungry for a good letter of recommendation? Of course you are. Nobody would take on your annoying job if they weren’t.”

timrodresized: It means you’re a badly-written character and only get as much screen time as you do because you’re Hashino’s favorite character.

timrodresized: Seriously though, it makes sense that Yusuke could be controlled as easily as he was by Madarame - if he didn’t comply, he’d be out on the streets.

timrodresized: With Makoto, there’s… I guess a vague threat of “I’m going to blacklist you from college” and “I’m going to end your sister’s career”, but she’s supposed to be “the smart girl” and you’d think she’d realize that these are basically empty threats.

Ann: “…You’re student council president, right? Wouldn’t you have known about Kamoshida?”

Makoto: “Of course not! He honestly was a good teacher until that day…”

timrodresized: Translation: She ABSOLUTELY knew.

Ann: “Oh, but you always take the teacher’s side. That’s what a good council president does, right?”

timrodresized: Keep in mind that Makoto is supposed to be the main love interest in the base game, when she’s doing shit like accusing a girl who was almost sexually assaulted in place of her friend of not doing enough.

Makoto: “There’s no need to shout.”

Ryuji: “If those Phantom Thieves are out there helpin’ people… I’d root for 'em, no questions asked. They’ve gotta be more dependable than some people I know.”

Makoto: “… Just make sure to show up to your classes, all right?”

Ann: “I’d be ashamed to let it end now…”

Ryuji: “Hell yeah. It’s about time we find our next target too.”

Yusuke: " ‘A criminal group with unknown goals that does whatever it wants in the name of justice.’ Huh…"

Ryuji: “It’s prolly 'cause of Akechi… TV’s got some crazy sway.”

Yusuke: “He’s free to deny our actions, but being cursed by his influence is another thing entirely.”

Ann: “Just when we were starting to get people to believe in us too…”

Ryuji: “All we gotta do is take down another hot shot, yeah?”

Yusuke: “… Well, do you have any ideas who this next ‘hot shot’ could be?”

Ryuji: “I ain’t got a thing yet… dammit, this is real irritatin’… by the way, what’s up with that luggage?”

Ryuji: “What’re you gonna do then? You can’t go back to that shack, right?”

Yusuke: “I was planning on staying at Takamaki-san’s - I mean, Ann’s house.”

timrodresized: I think we all know whose house he actually wants to stay at.

Yusuke: “I’ve even prepared a thank-you gift. I hope it’s to your parents’ liking.”

Ann: “WHAT!? There’s no way that’s gonna happen!”

timrodresized: Of course not. This is a carefully-crafted gambit.

Yusuke: “Impossible…”

Ryuji: “You’re the impossible one!”

Ann: “That’s not the issue here! Seriously though, what’re we gonna do with him?”

timrodresized: “Here” of course, meaning at Leblanc and not being a kind of shitty way of telling Yusuke to be homeless (which is what sleeping at a manga cafe would imply).

Morgana: “Well, seeing as Yusuke is an important member of our team… I’ll lend a hand! Come stay at our place! It’s dirty, but at least you’ll have somewhere to sleep!”

timrodresized: Morgana is doing this because he knows that Joker is now the anime dog-boy who finally caught the car and now has no idea what to do.

Ann: “Don’t you two live in a cafe? I’ve been wondering about that for a while. Yongen’s not too far, is it?”

Morgana: “Nope! And the cafe’s only a minute walk from the station!”

timrodresized: This should be “minute’s” and I’m amazed that this is only the second typo in almost 25 hours. Not like a certain other game I’m LPing.

Ann: “How about we go there now? We can have a party to celebrate Madarame’s change of heart!”

Ryuji: “Ooh, good idea! We can make it a welcome party for Yusuke too!”

Ann: “All right, it’s decided!”

Morgana: “It’ll be up to you to convince the chief.”

Ryuji: “This place looks so outdated… I can’t say I hate it though.”

Yusuke: “People refer to that as ‘retro’.”

Sojiro: “Hm? Who’re they?”

timrodresized: How long has it been since we’ve last spoken to Sojiro for any reason?

Ann: “Hello!”

Sojiro: “A girl too…?”

Ann: “Akira has really helped us a lot lately.”

Sojiro: “Heh, I bet you’re the ones doing all the helping.”

Ann: “No, really, he’s been great.”

Sojiro: “Huh… sit down. This round’ll be on the house. You’re helping though.”

Ann: “Oh yeah, I remember now! I think I’ve seen Leblanc mentioned in a magazine before…”

Sojiro: “That was a long time ago.”

Ryuji: “For real? Gimme a taste.”

Ryuji: “It’s so bitter! This has gotta be cruel and unusual punishment!”

Sojiro: “Eh, I didn’t drink coffee when I was a kid either.”

timrodresized: I still don’t drink coffee.

Sojiro: “These’re your friends, yeah? Go on and take them up to your room. No need to stay down here.”

Ann: “Ooh, I wanna see!”

Sojiro: “It’s only an attic.”

timrodresized: Joker looks Yusuke right in the eyes and says “Yes, an attic. The kind of attic that has no closets.”

Ryuji: “Man, that bitter taste just won’t leave my mouth…”

Yusuke: “Thank you very much for the drink.”

Ryuji: “Up these stairs? Oh, and thanks for the soda!”

Ann: “Ann. Ann Takamaki.”

Sojiro: “Ann-chan, huh… that’s a nice name. You got a boyfriend?”

timrodresized: The LP of the base game on the archive insists this is Sojiro being “creepy”, but it’s pretty clear he’s trying to determine if she’s dating (or will be dating) Joker.

Ann: “Nope. Never have, either.”

timrodresized: I think we all know at this point that the only romantic interest she has is Shiho.

Ryuji: "Hey, you gotta get up here! This place’s freakin’ insane!’

Sojiro: “Go on.”

Ann: “Oh, right! Thank you for the coffee!”

timrodresized: You know, I’m starting to realize that none of the writers (or probably the art people either) ever had a cat. That bag would be covered in cat hair, even on the outside.

Yusuke: “It seems quite ordinary to me.”

Ryuji: “For real?”

Ryuji: “See? Ain’t this crazy?”

Ann: “It’s cleaner than I thought it would be.”

Ryuji: “What!?”

Morgana: “Well, sit wherever you’d like.”

Yusuke: “Even those who previously believed in us have been influenced by the comments made on TV.”

Ryuji: “This is all that effin’ Akechi’s fault!”

Yusuke: “Keep it down. We don’t want anyone hearing us.”

Ann: “At this rate, we’re just going to worry everyone instead of give them courage…”

Morgana: “We need to find a way to make our rightfulness known to society. It’s time we think about our next move. You were planning on discussing that today, right?”

Yusuke: “Yes. First, we need to search for a candidate.”

Ryuji: “It’s not like we’re just gonna stumble upon some important target though. You guys don’t know anyone, do you?”

Ann: “I don’t…”

Yusuke: “Me neither…”

Ryuji: “Whaddya think, Leader?”

Ryuji: “I’ve been lookin’. There hasn’t been anything good out there lately though.”

Ann: “Plus, it’s not like anyone ever talks about the big targets on there.”

Ryuji: “Dammit… we’re never gonna prove Akechi wrong at this rate!”

timrodresized: Loud stomach groaning noises.

Ann: “And you spent all your money on that box of sweets!?”

Ryuji: “Dude, how much did you have?”

Ann: “Anyway, we’ll just have to sit tight until we can find another target. So… how about that welcome party?”

Ryuji: “Someone’s excited.”

Ann: “Can’t we make hot pot on it?”

Morgana: “That sounds great! I’ve heard that eating hot pot together brings people closer!”

timrodresized: Nah, that’d be chicken parm, the number one dish among couples.

Ryuji: “Anything with meat’s fine by me!”

Yusuke: “I only ask that we finish it off with porridge. Extra parsley, of course.”

Ann: “So, what do you say?”

timrodresized: Joker has to set his future boyfriend straight when it comes to post-hotpot dining.

Yusuke: “Whaaaat!?”

Ryuji: " ‘What’, my ass! You don’t have any cash! C’mon, let’s go buy ingredients."

Yusuke: “Well, I’ll need gingko nuts, wonton wrappers, and…”

Ann: “We’ll take care of the shopping. Could you borrow a pot from downstairs while we’re out? We can split the cost later.”

timrodresized: Somehow I forgot to capture Sojiro’s line here.

Sojiro: “As you should be. Food always tastes better with friends. Her name was Ann, right? She’s a nice girl.”

Sojiro: “She said your friend doesn’t have anywhere to go. Asked if I could take him in for a bit. I guess she thought it’d be too pitiful for you to ask, since you’re already freeloading.”

Sojiro: “Hmm… where did I put that pot? Try looking around.”

Sojiro: “Ah, you found it. It’s almost time for the others to get back from their shopping trip, so I’ll leave you be. I’ll be down here for a while though… just be careful with the fire, okay?”

timrodresized: This cutscene-within-a-cutscene replays the segment from the TV station that we’ve already seen, so I’m going to skip most of it.

timrodresized: It tastes bland because the last time Makoto used spices you spent hours interrogating her over who had taught her to use them.

Sae: “But I’m relieved. A lot’s happened, but it seems your grades haven’t dropped.”

Makoto: “School’s been going fine. I’m more worried about you, Sis. Are you tired? You’re probably lacking sodium.”

timrodresized: Oh, I’d say she’s plenty salty, all right.

Sae: “Do I seem so?”

Makoto: “…Is it a crime to manipulate someone’s heart?”

Sae: “…Depending on the means, yes. He’s absolutely right.”

Makoto: “Even if it makes someone admit their evil deeds and helps make them pay for their crimes?”

Sae: “Why the sudden interest?”

timrodresized: Who taught you to be interested in things!? You couldn’t have formed likes and dislikes on your own! Answer me, dammit!

Makoto: “It’s nothing…”

Sae: “Do you believe that these ‘allies of justice’ exist?”

Makoto: “…Of course not.”

Sae: “You don’t need to think about such unnecessary things. …You understand what I’m trying to say, right?”

timrodresized: That you’re a badly-written, gender-reversed clone of Katsuya in Eternal Punishment, only without any endearing personality traits and a tendency for asking stupid fucking questions?

Makoto: “Study hard and go to a prestigious college…”

Sae: “Moving up in the world is difficult as a woman. Yet, you can’t do much if you don’t have the authority. I’ll use every method necessary to make it happen.”

timrodresized: Like waterboarding.

Sae: “All you need to do is remain focused on what must be done for your future’s sake.”

Makoto: “…Sorry.”

Sae: “…Oh, that case.”

Makoto: “…What must be done… justice…”

Morgana: “That was delicious, Lady Ann. I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful bride some-”

timrodresized: I was going through the screenshots I took, and for some reason Ryuji just kind of falls over and clips his head through the work desk. He’s upright again in the next screenshot.

Morgana: “What’s wrong, Yusuke?”

Yusuke: “…We haven’t finished our meal. What about the porridge, or even udon?”

Ryuji: “Just leave it for next time, man…”

Morgana: “She’s asleep already!?”

Ryuji: “It’d be weird if she wasn’t tired. We should let her sleep.”

Yusuke: “By the way, Ryuji… how do you know Ann?”

Ryuji: “Huh? Oh, we went to middle school together.”

Morgana: “What was Lady Ann like back then?”

timrodresized: She was gay. Very, very gay.

Ryuji: “Not so different from now. Once we got to high school, we ended up in different classes and stopped talkin’. I don’t think she had many friends.”

timrodresized: So… she’s Lisa Silverman?

Yusuke: “I see… so, what about you two?”

Ryuji: “Us?”

Yusuke: “You know every detail of my past at this point. It’s only fair you tell me every detail of yours.”

Ryuji: “So you got nothin’ to lose, huh? All right, I’ll tell you. It’s just a normal story about a rotten kid though. My dad left when I was young… ever since then it’s just been me and my mom.”

Ryuji: “I was actually tryin’ to get a track scholarship so I could make things easier for her. In the end, I just screwed it all up. Turns out I’m a pretty bad son, huh?”

Ryuji: “Back when I was a first-year, my mom got called out to school for me raisin’ my hand at Kamoshida. All the teachers kept houndin’ her for what I did, but she just stayed quiet through it all…”

Yusuke: “So that’s what happened… they say at school that everyone is equal, but in reality that’s a gross oversimplification… I understand how you feel.”

Ryuji: “Well, when it comes to gettin’ labeled, nobody’s got it worse than Akira.”

Yusuke: “Is this about his past?”

Morgana: “Now that I think about it, we never have heard the details.”

timrodresized: This guy’s basically a Yakuza villain.

timrodresized: I don’t like that they basically retcon the entire thing from Joker pushing this guy to it actually being that he just kinda fell over.

timrodresized: Here’s my real problem with this scene though. In things like the Yakuza games, this kind of thing works because Yakuza takes place in a fantasy world where every single cop is receiving millions of yen a day from the yakuza.

timrodresized: That this entire scene is kind of badly written?

Ryuji: “Goddammit! You got an assault on your record just for that?”

Yusuke: “The woman sounds quite horrible as well. She’s stayed quiet this whole time…”

timrodresized: He’s a blatant ripoff of a character from Eternal Punishment, so probably wherever Satomi Tadashi left the script for EP.

Morgana: “You can’t remember, huh? Well, it was at night, and I’m sure you were in shock after getting arrested. I understand all too well the pain of not being able to remember important details of your life.”

Yusuke: “The victim’s personal information is always kept secret. Identifying that man will prove difficult… besides, the courts already made their ruling, didn’t they?”

Yusuke: “Even if we manage to get revenge, Akira’s past record won’t go away.”

timrodresized: Seriously I want to know who was in charge of doing animation for Ryuji for this cutscene. Did they accidentally mocap a piece of spaghetti or something?

timrodresized: I’m just imagining a mocap tech bursting into an office somewhere. “Shit! Boss! I accidentally mocapped spaghetti!” “Again?”

Morgana: “And those in power don’t do anything to help the situation.”

Yusuke: “Can’t we fix this though? Nobody would even know… we just need to show the world what true justice is. We’ll make them come to their senses.”

Ryuji: “You’re right, Yusuke! That’s gotta be what our powers’re for!”

timrodresized: Someday, I want to make an RPG with a status effect just called “spaghetti” where it replaces the mocap feed with one taken from a pile of spaghetti being dropped on a plate.

Morgana: “Sounds good to me. The flashier our missions are, the cooler we end up looking!”

Yusuke: “You’ve all taught me so much.”

Ryuji: “Oh, sorry… did we wake you up?”

Ann: “Nah, not really. I’ve been up for a while now.”

timrodresized: I swear that Lisa says this exact line in Innocent Sin at one point… and she kinda does, except she’s talking about Maya. It’s in Update 3 of the Innocent Sin LP - I’m not going to copy it here because this update is long enough as-is.

Ann: “Do you think it’s because our backgrounds are so similar?”

Ryuji: “Well, it sure ain’t 'cause of anything good.”

Morgana: “Similar, huh… I’m the only one who doesn’t fit in…”

Ryuji: “Hm?”

Morgana: “I don’t have a past to look back on… no memories…”

Ryuji: “Whaddya mean? We could search the whole world and we wouldn’t find a bigger misfit than you. And the reason we’re goin’ to Mementos is to get your memories back, right?”

Yusuke: “I’m sure your past will be just as troubled as ours.”

Ryuji: “No doubt.”

Morgana: “Hmph, we’ll see about that!”

timrodresized: Yeah, I remember when he was a bear and also named Teddie.

Morgana: “Look, I’m helping you guys out for my own sake. Don’t get me wrong! If you don’t get stronger, investigating Mementos won’t be anything but a pipe dream!”

Ryuji: “That sure was a quick turnaround. One second you’re depressed, the next you’re actin’ all tough…”

Ann: “All joking aside… let’s take this seriously. We should go as far with it as we can… I want to punish those corrupt adults and give courage to people in trouble… only we can do that!”

Ryuji: “Ha! You can say that again!”

Yusuke: “Being a member of the Phantom Thieves will surely help me grow, both as an artist and as a person.”

Morgana: “Of course. You’re under my tutelage, after all. There’s nothing we can’t accomplish!”

Ann: “Well… I hope we can keep this up. We should be all right with you as our leader.”

timrodresized: This is easily the longest day we’ve had in a long time, and while we’re close to it being over… not quite.

Ann: “Oh, that reminds me! The owner said you’re free to crash here, Yusuke.”

Ryuji: “That’s… very kind of him.”

Ryuji: “You convinced him, didn’t you? You go, Miss Older-Dude-Charmer!”

Ann: “What kind of nickname is that!?”

Yusuke: “Hm, I won’t be able to sleep unless I take a bath…”

Morgana: “There’s a bathhouse nearby, so you can go there. I won’t be able to join you though.”

timrodresized: If there’s no shower at Leblanc, does this mean Joker has to use the bathhouse to bathe? That just seems… I dunno, inconvenient.

Ryuji: “Ooh, that sounds great! I wanna come too! How 'bout you, Ann?”

Ann: “You guys go on ahead. I should get going. Well, good night, Morgana!”

timrodresized: No, don’t…

timrodresized: Encourage him. Dammit.

timrodresized: The old guy in the background just continually cranks the hot water, to the point where the valve should’ve broken before this conversation is over.

Yusuke: “It’s a bit hot though…”

Ryuji: “Old guys like it hot, for some reason… I’m sure he’ll stop eventually. You know, I’ve been wonderin’ for a while now… but what do you think about Ann? As a girl, I mean.”

timrodresized: Noncommittal gay response.

Ryuji: “No, that’s not what I meant… c’mon, can’t you act a little more like a guy our age? Doesn’t she at least look better than a celebrity?”

Ryuji: “Please don’t. Seriously…”

Yusuke: “That aside, we need to hurry and find our next target.”

timrodresized: How many times have they repeated this exact fucking line in just this cutscene alone? WE KNOW ALREADY! FUCK!

Ryuji: “About that though… is targetin’ famous people enough? Seein’ people’s reactions these days has been makin’ me think twice about what we do…”

Yusuke: “…True. Pursuing only what’s best in the short term may end up becoming fruitless for us. We need a strategy to appeal to the public…”

timrodresized: One problem I have with the characters in this game is there’s a lot of moments where they stop feeling like actual people, and this is one of them.

Ryuji: “Oh? Whaddya got in mind?”

Yusuke: “Do I look like someone who could come up with such a thing?”

Ryuji: “Hmm… Hmm… Still…”

Ryuji: “…Ughhhhh! It’s frickin’ hot!”

Ryuji: “…I can’t stand it anymore! Anyways, let’s meet up again early next week. I’ll contact everyone!”

timrodresized: We can’t do anything tonight, since it’s an all-day cutscene.

timrodresized: Apart from listen to Morgana be horny for Ann.

timrodresized: Next time: more confidants. More overly-long cutscenes. More of me wondering if this is a game or a movie.

Oh, right.

I pre-ordered a copy of P5 Scramble as soon as I could. I probably should’ve done this on PS4 instead as there are some minor save extras - namely you get the original version of Last Surprise and Take Over for having P5 and P5 Royal save data… except for all I know, they’re going to force a PS4 update to play it and I’m not updating my PS4.

This was absolutely a mistake, as the game is being released at a full $60 price point and is just as much of a cash-grab as Royal is.

I will be streaming this on launch day, and will likely stream my way through it, since it’s a Musou/RPG and would probably make for a bad LP.

Wait what? Do they actually make it so the dude just tripped over his own feet and fell on his own? I hope none of the fangirls after John Persona’s mysterious bad boy past learn about it.

Wonder how much art Yusuke will get done now in the same room as John Persona and Morgana watching bootleg dubs of American movies and shows.

Yeah, they do. It’s one of those things I’m not sure how I feel about. I kind of liked the idea of Joker hitting him, and it feels a little over the top that they really needed to make it so that Joker was completely blameless.

Aah, Justice. La Justice. A card representing Right and Good and Law and all that fun stuff, which perfectly fits Goro from what it seems. We don’t know much about him just yet, but I have a feeling this fits him quite well; our Zenigata, our Javert, our foolish cop who truly believes he is on the side of Justice Itself. Fitting for us to have a confidant that represents the right side winning… or the bias and corruption of the law if reversed.

Art wise, I feel like I don’t need to say much. Beyond the Shadow eyes, Justice’s scale is literally weighed down by money overpowering the heart. Like what the fuck else do I need to say? That’s kinda blatant!

Eeh, I’m not sure how empty the threat of “I will personally tell the college of your choice not to accept you” actually is. Like that feels like a reasonable thing that could happen.

I don’t think that is what they are getting at here. This is Joker saying that he “tripped and fell down the stairs” after beating the shit out of a guy. If he’s gonna lie about what happened, he will too.

The scene later makes it clear he didn’t do anything which… yeah, sucks, a lot, especially since the initial framing made it seem like something WAY worse than an “argument” was happening, and Joker was doing the right thing. It’s an example of this game de-fanging itself at every opportunity, which sucks!

What exactly do you quantify as cash-grab? I don’t know all the deets on this game but from what I’ve heard it’s pretty good.

It’s not that the game is bad - it’s more the fact that they’re still selling it for $60 even though it’s been out in Japan for a full year, is for last-gen consoles (no PS5 release) and we’re only getting it after it’s been thoroughly spoiled by Japanese streamers. It’s the same kind of BS Nintendo has been pulling for years.

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timrodresized: On the night of 06/11, we get another Igor cutscene. These are basically just glorified “Hey you got a new ability” scenes. Incidentally, this is more or less exactly how I felt after that last update.

Igor: “In other words, they all have been unfairly labeled by society and are standing up against such fates.”

timrodresized: To the point where almost every character in this game has an identical backstory.

Igor: “Have you noticed? They seem to have influenced you.”

timrodresized: I suppose we can now put Igor into the “Like Sonic” category of Sega characters. As opposed to the “Unlike Sonic/Doesn’t Chuckle” category.

timrodresized: “Picaresque”, by the way, refers to a Spanish literary genre that’s apparently about showing the lives of common people through the daily adventures of a roguish hero.

timrodresized: Atlus misuses this word a lot in that the DLC that adds the older primary party member Personas adds “Picaro” after their name for no apparent reason - “Orpheus Picaro”, “Izanagi Picaro”, etc.

Igor: “Those will become the strength behind your rehabilitation… I look forward to it. I shall grant you an ability befitting of your newfound growth. Consider it a gift. May you continue devoting yourself to further rehabilitation.”

timrodresized: The reason I didn’t just skip right to the new ability (which will make it much easier to keep all the Personas around we’ll need for confidants) is that there’s a lot of “nothing” dialogue like this in the game.

timrodresized: This is one of the reasons I got turned off to the plot when I played the base game. Sega as a whole has a lot of problems with this: the Yakuza games do the same thing.

Akechi: “May I talk to you for a moment?”

Makoto: “Is it about the Phantom Thieves… Akechi-kun?”

Akechi: “…You’re quite perceptive. I was wondering if there were any points in common between Kamoshida and Madarame’s cases. There have been victims, after all. The Phantom Thieves need to be pursued.”

timrodresized: Okay, Hashino? We ALREADY FUCKING KNOW THIS! There was a giant fucking cutscene two days ago! We don’t need to hear more about it, especially when it does nothing to advance the plot!

Makoto: “You criticize the Phantom Thieves, yet you don’t doubt their actual existence.”

Akechi: “Oh, you saw that show on TV.”

timrodresized: Yes, TWICE in fact! TWICE! Shut the fuck up already and let’s get to actual fucking gameplay!

Akechi: “Common sense can get in the way at times when pursuing the truth. Many details become logical if I think on the premise that they do exist.”

Makoto: “Is this… because my sister told you to do so?”

Akechi: “It was just a coincidence.”

timrodresized: The worst part is, this is basically one of the Adachi cutscenes in Persona 4, and it’s pretty clear they’re going for the “assistant cop as adversary” thing again, because Hashino is a hack.

Makoto: “Why do I get the feeling that you’re enjoying this?”

Akechi: “…You may be right.”

Makoto: “Huh?”

Makoto: “You have such high self-esteem. So the Phantom Thieves are evil, and you are just?”

Akechi: “Compared to people who manipulate others’ hearts as they see fit, I believe I’m on the side of justice.”

timrodresized: There’s a line from Psycho Killer by The Talking Heads that goes: “You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything / When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed / Say something once? Why say it again?

timrodresized: What I’m saying is that someone should’ve written that on a whiteboard in the writing room for this game, and then tasered anyone who repeats dialogue like this.

timrodresized: Someone also should have done that for the Allansons, except instead of the taser going off every time they repeat dialogue, it’s just constantly going off. All the time.

Akechi: “Besides, I’m only using my natural-born talents for the sake of serving the world. Don’t you think the same about yourself too?”

Akechi: “…Looks like it’s starting soon. See you later. Give Sae-san my regards.”

Sojiro: “You could stay here until you find a place, you know. I can’t promise it’d be comfortable here though.”

Yusuke: “Thank you, but I’ll return to the dorms. I realized something after talking with everyone last night. Perhaps it’s due to my upbringing, but I don’t know anything of the world, let alone other people.”

Yusuke: “If I’m to depict people in my art, I need to learn more about them; I must interact with them more.”

Yusuke: “I’ll return to the dorms… and start over by talking with the people closest to me.”

timrodresized: So what you’re saying is… you always kept it safe inside, where no one ever had a chance to penetrate or break in? That some have tried, but you slammed the (closet) door so tight that they could never get in? That you kept a chain upon your door that would shake the shame of gay into a blind submission?

timrodresized: And now you’re gonna give it all you got, start to knock, shout for Joker to open the lock? Just gotta knock a little harder, break through the door?

Sojiro: “I see. Good on you for realizing that yourself.”

Yusuke: “There’s no need to exaggerate. May I come again sometime to enjoy your coffee?”

Sojiro: “My doors are always open.”

Yusuke: “Akira’s been through a lot too, from what I’ve heard… are you related to him?”

Sojiro: “Huh? Oh… how would I describe it… we’re just acquaintances. Not family or anything.”

Yusuke: “I may be overstepping my bounds, but why did you decide to take him in?”

Sojiro: “My reason, huh… probably because… he reminds me of my old self.”

Yusuke: “That’s all?”

Sojiro: “Your art instructor - um, ‘former’ art instructor… he must’ve felt something for you too, besides just stealing your talents.”

Yusuke: “Truth be told… I cannot hate him from the depths of my heart either. I should probably get going…”

Yusuke: “Even if I kept it at the dorms, it’d only be met with skepticism. I doubt it would want that. Adding a hint of color to an otherwise ordinary day… I’m sure my mother would’ve done the same.”

timrodresized: I hate that we had to suffer through a shitload of nothing dialogue to get to actual plot/character development.

Sojiro: “…I see. I’ll hold on to it for you then.”

Yusuke: “Thank you for the coffee.”

timrodresized: Inside, Joker is disappointed, yet relieved that he no longer has to deal with the metaphorical car.

Sojiro: “That kid ended up going back to his dorms.”

Sojiro: “And this painting is amazing. Not only is the mother stunning, but the expression on her face… the regulars will probably freak out when they see it in here.”

Sojiro: “Still… I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere. It’s a bit different from how I remember it, though… well, if you’re up for the day, go on and get dressed. I opened shop hours ago, so go take the cat out somewhere.”

Morgana: “So, Yusuke went home, huh? Oh well, I guess that’s best.”

timrodresized: This Mementos request unlocks from working at the convenience store three times.

timrodresized: And as if that wasn’t already enough incoming IMs, there’s even more.

Morgana: “Plus it would be bad if the chief knew you were out in the middle of the night.”

Morgana: “There’s no way… who would go after a shop like this?”

timrodresized: Well, that’s over.

timrodresized: Can’t forget to grip and sip.

timrodresized: We also need to head to the sports store in the Underground Mall and buy some stuff for pool.

timrodresized: The first is the “Expert Billiards” book, and the second is the Jump Cue. This totals 51,500 yen of expenditures, and is why we grinded so much money in Madarame’s dungeon.

timrodresized: Ann’s confidant has this weird thing I kind of forgot about where a lot of it is about her visiting Shiho in the hospital… which can still happen like, six or seven months into the game.

Ann: “Oh, but I probably can’t take a crepe into the hospital, huh…”

timrodresized: Fun story about this, my grandfather had to go to the hospital once (nothing major) and he filled his pockets with pound cake so he’d have something to eat after he woke up from the procedure. I figure if you can smuggle in two pockets full of pound cake you can probably smuggle in a crepe.

Ann: “I… really want one though… do you think maybe Shiho would want one too?”

Ann: “R-right… it might be half off, but I should try to control myself… Shiho might have rehab today too. They probably wouldn’t even let her eat it.”

Ann: “Oh yeah, I forgot to mention - Shiho started her physical rehab. She pushed it up ahead of schedule. I think it’s because I told her about how I want to get stronger.”

Ann: “She said she was gonna start working hard too… I haven’t actually seen any of her rehab sessions yet though…”

Ann: “Uhhh, that’s not good!”

Ann: “Sorry, something just came up! That was from my agency. One of the models didn’t show for a magazine shoot they’re doing. They’re looking to wrap up soon, so I’m gonna head over now to fill in.”

Ann: “…It’s pretty close though. Wanna come with? Actually, let’s just go! I’ll race you there!”

timrodresized: Joker can never attend a photoshoot for fear that he’ll end up on the cover of a magazine and become a teen heart-throb.

Mika: “After I saw you in last year’s show, I just… sniff… Oh, I think I’m gonna cry…”

Ann: “U-Um… it really wasn’t a big deal. That fashion show was tiny…”

Mika: “By the way, I’m Mika. And please, no honorifics. I might be older, but you have loads more experience, Ann-senpai.”

Ann: “All right, M-Mika… haha, it feels a little weird saying it like that…”

Ann: “Oh, and you don’t need to use ‘senpai’ with me. A-Anyway, uh… it’s nice to meet you?”

Mika: “Likewise, Ann-chan. giggle You’re so nice. Hey, can you teach me how to be a better model? You know, your everyday routines, stretches…”

Ann: “Routines? You mean like… singing in the shower…?”

Mika: “O-oh, is that all you do? Then, what kinda stuff do you eat? I’ve been looking all over for a place to import some organic green almonds… plus I’m getting suuuper tired of eating quinoa. Do I need to like, boil it in hard water or something?”

timrodresized: Gotta activate the almonds.

Ann: “Um, almonds? I only ever eat those when they’re covered in chocolate… and hard water? Isn’t it kinda tough to boil ice?”

Mika: “… Do you weigh yourself?”

Ann: “Oh, of course! Once a year for the health examinations at school.”

timrodresized: She’s made of a substance more dense than a black hole.

Mika: “So… you’re gonna keep it all a secret from me, huh?”

Ann: “Th-That’s not it! I just don’t really think about that stuff…! It has nothing to do with not trusting you. It’s more that modeling is a hobby for me.”

timrodresized: Has anyone seen Yuriko since Persona 1? Do we know that she actually died (again) in Thanatos Tower and didn’t escape somehow?

Ann: “W-Wait, I…”

Mika: “I love this magazine! Everyone tries so hard to make sure their product is the best…!”

Mika: “But… you guys work so much harder than me… and I’m still the one getting comforted… sniff

Ann: “H-Hold on…”

Ann: “H-Hey, I didn’t…”

Mika: “Don’t worry. I… I can do it alone! I read the concept docs on my way here… sniff

Mika: “Y-You’re so mean, Ann-chan! Do you really hate me that much!?”

timrodresized: So wait, they really think Ann showed up to a photo shoot just to… not do it? Who even does that?

Ann: “But…”

Ann: “Yeah… but maybe it’s because deep down, I’m not actually that invested in modeling… she sees straight through that.”

Ann: “Anyway, I totally ruined the shoot… but still, wasn’t Mika’s fake crying pretty incredible?”

Ann: “Oh, maybe that’s what I’m missing…! I-I dunno though, I think I’m pretty good at fake crying myself. I know the perfect technique.”

Ann: “Either way, I think I’ll be able to use that ability to our advantage in the Metaverse! I’ll turn my failure today into positive energy going forward!”

timrodresized: This is easily THE most useless ability in the game. In order for this to ever come up, you’d have to be in a very specific situation, where:

  • 1: You got ambushed by an enemy and Kasumi’s ability to turn ambushes into not-ambushes doesn’t trigger.

  • 2: An enemy managed to use a weakness attack before you do and uses that to take someone hostage.

  • 3: You aren’t connected to the internet and can’t just use the Thieves Guild “automatically un-hostage me” button which works every single time, up to 3 times per dungeon visit.

  • 4: You’re willing to give up money instead of just letting the enemy kill your party member and reviving them, which doesn’t cost money.

timrodresized: Considering the last time this happened was in Kamoshida’s dungeon before I got the ability to use stealth… yeah, no this isn’t ever going to happen again unless there’s some scripted shit in the stuff Royal added in.

Ann: “Speaking of the Metaverse… I’m gonna try super hard in my work with the Phantom Thieves too! But for now, I should go stop by and see Shiho at the hospital. Thanks for today! Bye!”

timrodresized: Before we go on with our evening plans, we can stop and talk to this guy in the back alley in Kichijoji.

timrodresized: This guy’s name is Sakai, and he’s basically Snuggly the Crow (from Dark Souls 1) in human form.

timrodresized: On certain calendar dates, Sakai will show up here and offer to trade items. Usually, he wants stuff that’s only available to buy on certain days - like the imported protein we picked up a few days ago.

timrodresized: I should mention that most of his trades are kinda pointless… except for one which is a near-requirement for 100% and would more or less be a permafuck if you don’t get it. I will point out which one that is when we get to it.

timrodresized: The Decorative Whip is surprisingly strong for this point in the game, even though by the next dungeon we’re never going to be using physical attacks or guns again, unless something is weak to one of those.

timrodresized: Oh christ that’s disgusting.

timrodresized: I’m not sure which is worse, this or the reindeer in The Snow Queen.

timrodresized: Tonight, we’re doing Yoshida again. We have a very good reason to do this before the third dungeon - you’ll see why.

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “To make your decisions based simply on loss and gain is to act like a heartless machine. The reason so few people care about their fellow man is because so few have the energy to do so.”

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “We politicians have fallen short of our goal to change society. We need your support more than ever!”

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “Again, what I’d like to say is-”

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “You made a great comeback, though. You’re truly an inspiration.”

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “Oh, there’s no need for false praise to impress the boy here.”

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “…And what might that mean?”

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “Without honesty and good arguments, there can be no political justice!”

timrodresized: This is like the time I met Ralph Nader and all I wanted to do was get out of the room as quickly as possible. He’s not a bad guy, just… yeah.

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “I intend to teach him everything I know. That’s what we agreed on.”

timrodresized: Yes. Since we still can’t effectively confusion-farm for money, this ability is a godsend. From what I remember of my base game run, this ability was how I was able to afford Tae’s accessories.

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “We’re still not on speaking terms.”

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “Very well.”

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “Why did he have to mention that? Ah, my apologies. That’s all for today. Good job…”

timrodresized: Oh boy, more nothing dialog.

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “What a mess… past mistakes can really come back to bite you. It’s hard to feel like you’ve ever truly escaped them. Some people can fight their way back up, like Matsushita… but many end up suffering under the weight of labels.”

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “Even after twenty years, I’m still nothing more than No-Good Tora… but I will not give up! It’s true that I lost a lot, but… I did learn a great many things along the way.”

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “Somewhere in the middle of it all, my old stubbornness was tempered into conviction. My one redeeming quality. That is why… I want you to use your experiences to forge your own conviction.”

P5_portrait_of_Toranosuke_Yoshida: “Yes. You’re still young, after all. You have a great deal more learning and growing to do. …Ah, I ended up talking longer than I expected. Well, until next time.”

Akechi: “Oh, right. I guess Shujin was in this direction too… still, I wouldn’t have expected to run into you at this time. Perhaps it really is fate…”

Akechi: “How are you doing?”

Akechi: “Haha. Relaxed as always, I see. I’ve been getting interviewed a lot lately, so I’ve been wondering how to answer such questions…”

Akechi: “I see now that there’s no need to be so roundabout with my responses. Talking with you helps me realize many things. If it isn’t too much trouble, may I speak with you again sometime?”

timrodresized: He’s like fucking Anime Jimmy Neutron. Anyway, there’s a glorified tutorial about Sakai coming up which I’m skipping.

Hiruta: “It’s the only month of the year with no holidays, and it’s filled with rain - truly a season of hell. I’m exaggerating, you say? Haha. You’re all just ignorant. After all, what’s falling from the sky is acid rain that can melt metal.”

timrodresized: A bit of clarification on this. For a long time (since the early 1970s) Japan has had a massive problem with acid rain. Part of the problem was that Japanese companies were putting out a lot of air pollution - but even once they cut down on emissions, the problem persisted. Why?

timrodresized: The answer is actually a sensitive political issue, largely because of China’s involvement. China was (and still is) the largest producer of sulfur emissions in the world, even after taking steps to reduce them.

timrodresized: Sulfur emissions from China get into the atmosphere and then cause acid rain to fall on Japan, meaning that to a large degree, Japan is dependent on its neighbors reducing their emissions to stop acid rain. The Japanese government has spent a ton of money in China trying to do that. As I understand it, South Korea is also an element, but to a lesser degree than China is.

timrodresized: That’s not to say the Chinese are the only ones doing it - from the 1980s to 1990, one of the biggest issues between the United States and Canada was sulfur emissions from the US causing acid rain in Canada. I didn’t know until I started looking it up, but the Northeastern US used to be a hotspot for acid rain - the environment is largely recovering from that now.

Hiruta: “Kurusu-kun. Let’s test your knowledge and imagination. When washing your hair with dissolved copper, your hair color changes. …What color do you think it turns?”

timrodresized: If you’re curious about what it looks like, you can find a picture here.

timrodresized: I should note that this question is kinda bullshit, because the only people that experience the green discoloration are typically blondes and people with bleached hair. In people with darker hair, you typically can’t see it.

timrodresized: Oh, right. The place you’re mostl likely to have that happen (provided the copper pipes in your house aren’t fucked) is either if you have hard water and fill your pool with it without filtering out the minerals, or if you use copper as an algaecide.

Hiruta: “That is correct. By the way, magnesium turns your hair white, and rust will turn your hair red. However, acid rain can’t melt gold or silver. If you want to dye your hair gold, use bronze coins.”

Hiruta: “Thinking you could save money by skipping a visit to the hair salon? …It seems you still don’t understand the horrors of acid rain.”

Hiruta: “London once had acid rain on the level of stomach acid. More than four thousand people died.”

timrodresized: Goddamn, I’m talking more than he is for this one. This is only partially correct. What he’s referring to is an event known as the “Great Smog of London” which happened in early December of 1952.

timrodresized: The Great Smog was not actually acid rain - it shares the same root cause (sulfur in the atmosphere) but was caused by a couple of completely windless days over London that caused emissions from people burning sulfur-rich coal to stall over the city.

timrodresized: The resulting smog may have killed as many as 12,000 people, but it wasn’t from the acid so much as it was from fine particle matter in the air exacerbating existing respiratory issues.

Hiruta: “Perhaps one day such a deathly rain will fall on Japan… my heart, too, is overcast, just like the rain that falls on the city… ah, rain!”

Kawakami: “Niijima-san’s looking for you. Could you head to the student council room right away? She says there’s no report of a lost item, so she wants you to start filling out some paperwork.”

Kawakami: “Telling me that isn’t going to get you out of this. The student council room is on the third floor, next to the library. Got it?”

Morgana: “What could she want…?”

Makoto: “…Have a seat.”

Makoto: “Mr. Kamoshida and Madarame. Won’t you tell me the truth behind the Phantom Thieves’ incidents?”

Makoto: “Can’t answer that? Ah, of course. There’s no way you would admit to such things. Have a listen.”

timrodresized: What is she, Chris Hansen? I still remember when he got arrested in Connecticut because he wrote a bad check. Good times.

timrodresized: This is why I’m glad Connecticut is a two-party consent state for recording.

Makoto: “…What could all this mean?”

timrodresized: Couldn’t they like, just say they’re LARPing or something?

Makoto: “Was it blackmail? Hypnosis? How do you corner someone into making them confess? Won’t you tell me how you did it?”

Makoto: “…You want to say that this doesn’t prove anything, don’t you? I believe that you three are the Phantom Thieves. Now, what would the police think if they heard my recording?”

Morgana: “It’d be bad if we’re put under police surveillance. There’s no telling what’ll happen to you, too!”

Makoto: “If you confess the truth, I don’t mind just leaving this between the two of us. You’ll tell me, won’t you?”

Makoto: “That’s the same as admitting to it, you know.”

timrodresized: This is so contrived it’s funny.

Morgana: “That idiot!”

Makoto: “As loud as always… but his timing’s perfect. I’d like everyone else to hear this as well. Won’t you take me to your friends?”

Morgana: “I guess it can’t be helped now…”

Ann: “What’s the meaning of this?”

Makoto: “I had him lead me here. Ryuji Sakamoto, Ann Takamaki… and you’re Kitagawa-kun, correct? Second-year at Kosei High and former pupil of Madarame?”

timrodresized: She plays the clip of Ryuji again, only the game (mercifully) doesn’t subtitle it again.

Makoto: “An extremely similar technique was used for both Kamoshida and Madarame… while those affected by their acts were just coincidentally meeting up. How could that not raise suspicions?”

Yusuke: “What do you intend to do? Have you come just to say you’re going to report us?”

Ann: “I bet someone told you to find us. The school can’t have ties to criminals, after all! And yet they turn a blind eye when it comes to suicide and sexual harassment.”

Ann: “Huh?”

Ryuji: “What?”

Makoto: “I’m the only one who knows about you. If you prove what you’re doing is just, I’ll erase this.”

timrodresized: Classic mistake there, now they can kill you knowing that you have the only copy of the recording on you.

Morgana: “She wants to make a deal…”

Makoto: “There is someone whose heart I’d like you to change.”

Yusuke: “Who?”

Makoto: “Hm, so you’re not saying it’s impossible. However, I cannot tell you that just yet. Let’s continue our talk after school tomorrow. On the roof. Assuming you accept my offer, that is.”

Ryuji: “This is turnin’ into a real pain…”

Yusuke: “Anything to say, Ryuji?”

Ryuji: “Why’re you singlin’ me out? Ann got recorded too, y’know!”

Ann: “I’m so sorry…”

Ryuji: “Hey, what should we do? That girl’s got dirt on us…”

Yusuke: “A recording seems to be insufficient evidence though. And even with that, there’s no way they could prove our methods.”

timrodresized: Joker is attracted to Yusuke because Yusuke is the only person in the party who isn’t a complete idiot.

Ann: “Considering who we’re dealing with, I think it might be a trap.”

Morgana: “Regardless, Akira would be in real trouble. He’s on probation, after all.”

Ryuji: “Things’d get rough if we didn’t have our leader… and I totally don’t wanna deal with the police…”

Yusuke: “Then… we have no other choice but to go along with it.”

Morgana: “Yes, it’s best we agree, at least for the time being. We made a crucial mistake… but not a critical one. We’ll just have to recover from here on out.”

Ryuji: “Yeah, yeah. My bad. So… we doin’ this?”

Ryuji: “All right. We’re meetin’ on the school rooftop tomorrow, yeah?”

Yusuke: “What about me? I could always sneak in if necessary.”

Ann: “That’d draw too much attention. You should just wait outside, Yusuke.”

Ann: “What could she be scheming?”

Morgana: “Be careful. She’s a shrewd one. We’d best be prepared for anything.”

timrodresized: I actually checked afterward, and the devs apparently didn’t think to charge you for the trip to Kichijoji if you warp there via the confidant tracker.

timrodresized: You might be asking why Akechi’s confidant scenes take place in Kichijoji - after all, Kichijoji wasn’t in the base game and Atlus didn’t re-write any of the original confidant cutscenes from the base game.

timrodresized: The answer is that a lot of the locations in Kichijoji show up in Akechi’s confidant in the base game - so they were already fully modeled, you just couldn’t visit them outside of the confidant scenes. Man, Royal really is a cashgrab.

timrodresized: I totally forgot about this, and when I looked something up involving the ability we’re going to get at the end of this cutscene, I realized WHY I forgot about it.

timrodresized: The reason is that Akechi’s confidant was changed in Royal. In the base game, his confidant was an auto-confidant that progressed with the plot, like Morgana’s or Igor’s. Now he’s an optional confidant just like the rest, and is thus able to be the cause of a permafuck.

Akechi: “Well, I wouldn’t say I’m unoccupied, but I’m not busy all the time either. If anything, it’s my policy to spend my spare time in meaningful ways.”

Akechi: “Oh, my apologies. A break ace.”

timrodresized: This is why I feel like pool is kind of a dumb game, because it’s possible to lose without ever doing anything.

Akechi: “Well, the 9-ball’s been sunk already, so…”

Akechi: “But that was just a coincidence, of course, so we can start over. That won’t count.”

timrodresized: This choice matters and I have no idea why.

Akechi: “I win. That was a close one, though. I suppose it would have been embarrassing to lose as your senior, huh?”

Akechi: “Huh… I’m honestly impressed you noticed. That’s right, this one’s my dominant hand. I switched hands during the game. It’s not anything against you. Going all-out against a junior just seems a bit gauche…”

Akechi: “But I confess you’ve surprised me. I’m rather dextrous with my right hand. I can even use chopsticks with it. Frankly, I didn’t expect you to see through it.”

timrodresized: Akech is a discount Light Yagami and it totally shows.

Akechi: “Oh, so those glasses are just for the aesthetic, then? Or were you being metaphorical? You’re a hard one to read sometimes.”

Akechi: “In any case, you truly are interesting. You never cease to amaze me.”

timrodresized: This is a new ability added for Royal - in the base game, Akechi’s confidant had no rewards associated with it, probably because it was automatic.

timrodresized: It’s not super-valuable because soon we’ll have SP regeneration and can freely experiment with weaknesses (or, you know, use the wiki) but I guess it’s nice to have.

Akechi: “Well, see you.”

Akechi: “Our little game turned out to be more interesting than I expected. Barely anyone notices when I don’t use my dominant hand. I can only commend your powers of observation.”

Akechi: “I think you’d be an interesting influence on me. If you’re so inclined, we could go out again sometime.”

timrodresized: I think we all know the correct answer is “I already have a boyfriend”.

Akechi: “Haha… whatever works for you. As long as I can spend some time with you, think of it as you please. Well! I suppose I’ll reach out the next time something comes up. See you.”

timrodresized: I tried looking up where we’d be at this point in the base game with Akechi, and the answer is I couldn’t find it - none of the guides mention it because it was an auto-confidant.

timrodresized: The routing for the base game is wildly different: at this point in the base game, we’d be maxed out with Ryuji within a couple of days and nearly maxed out with Ann. We would’ve hit Rank 7 with Dr. Femdom weeks ago, before the end of Madarame’s dungeon.

timrodresized: The reason this route is so different is because there’s more confidants, but also because of things like the outings with Caroline and Justine that weren’t in the base game.

Ohya: “Morning! Going to school now? I’m just heading home! The morning sun is too bright…”

Ohya: “I pulled an all-nighter. Journalist Ichiko Ohya works around the clock, you know! Well, you work hard on your studies.”

Ann: “So, whose heart do you want us to change?”

Makoto: “A mafia boss.”

Ann: “Mafia!?”

Ryuji: “What’re you talkin’ about!?”

timrodresized: The writers kind of wrote this like Makoto already knows that there’s supernatural shit involved, but at this point she doesn’t. Because she’s assuming they’re going to what… blackmail a yakuza captain?

Makoto: “That’s what they call themselves. This group seems to be the cause of the rise in phishing scams. What’s worse, once you’re in their sights, they won’t stop threatening you until they get what they want.”

Makoto: “They’ll force you to take part in their scams, threaten your family, and ultimately destroy your life.”

Ryuji: “Holy shit…”

Makoto: “It appears that their victims include some of our students.”

Ann: “No!”

Makoto: “They primarily target juveniles.”

Ryuji: “What’s their boss’s name?”

Makoto: “Nobody knows. The victims are being threatened not to testify, so even the police can’t get a grasp of the situation.”

Ann: “That’s where you want us to start!?”

Makoto: “You should be able to pull it off… if you’re really the righteous Phantom Thieves. Or is Akechi-kun correct when he says you act without justice?”

timrodresized: I mean, what was he expecting? This is the guy who named his supernatural crime group John Persona.

Makoto: “Their main hub of activity is in Shibuya… that’s all the information I have. You have two weeks. Once that has passed, I’ll submit all the evidence I have to the police and to the school.”

timrodresized: “Hello, police? I have this recording of a couple of high schoolers… what do you mean blackmail is illegal?”

Ryuji: " ‘Don’t let me down…’ Dammit, she was just bossin’ us around."

Morgana: “Come on, we should get in touch with Yusuke.”

Sae: “…! Why would Makoto… bringing up my sister to upset me, are you? It seems there’s no limit to your duplicity.”

Sae: “Fine. I’ll listen to everything you have to say before I decide the truth of your statements.”

timrodresized: This is maybe the one time a Sae cutscene actually has a point.

Yusuke: “The mafia? Hm…”

Ann: “Can we really do this?”

Ryuji: “…”

Morgana: “Either way, we have almost no information on the target. This guy’s a crime boss, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a Palace. Still…”

timrodresized: Wait a second. Kazuma Kiryu was a Yakuza boss for like… a day. I bet he has a palace wherein he imagines himself actually committing a crime or killing a man.

timrodresized: Actually no, let’s be real here, his palace is the 80s version of Serena and his treasure is the record with Baka Mitai on it.

Yusuke: “Isn’t this a prime opportunity, though?”

Yusuke: “Even after we punished an evil man who seemed to be good, the public did not acknowledge us. However, if we take down an actual criminal, let alone a target the police don’t have answers for…”

Ann: “Oh, right! That might make people believe in us!”

Ryuji: “I get it! That means even Akechi’ll have to acknowledge us as the Phantom Thieves! Whaddya say, leader?”

timrodresized: I’d say you haven’t learned a goddamn thing.

timrodresized: Joker saw someone wearing a “be gay, do crimes” t-shirt once and now he’s getting ideas.

Ryuji: “Well yeah, it’d be a pain if they came after you. But we don’t hafta deal with 'em directly! We just gotta do what we always do!”

Yusuke: “Our time limit is two weeks, correct? We can’t afford to waste too much time. I’ll ask around Kosei and see if there are any victims.”

Ann: “Okay, I know some girls who go to Shibuya pretty often. I’ll check with them about it.”

Ryuji: “All right, and I’m gonna see what I can find on the net. That leaves our school up to you and Morgana. You figured out what to do during the whole Kamoshida thing, right?”

Morgana: “I’ll back you up.”

timrodresized: Translation: He’ll be thirsty for Ann.

Ryuji: “All right, let’s get back together at the end of the week once we’ve got all our info! I’ll get in touch with you guys later!”

Morgana: “We’re meeting in front of the school tomorrow, right? Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll find something new!”

timrodresized: Joker puts his hands on Yusuke’s shoulders, looks directly into his eyes, and goes “Yusuke, we need to start our own yakuza. The only rule in our code of honor will be that no animals will be allowed to thirst for human women.”

timrodresized: Feeling a little lonely in that closet, Yusuke?

Yusuke: “So if you’re heading homeward, I’ll accompany you.”

Yusuke: “I’m glad I chose to leave it here.”

Yusuke: “To put it bluntly, I am in need of your assistance… please, listen to what I must say. Throughout my artistic career, there have been moments I’ve struggled with particular motifs or techniques. However, each of those struggles did eventually fade.”

Yusuke: “Yet now I find myself in a similar situation… but the more I try to escape it, the worse it becomes. It seems I am trapped in what we in the art world call a ‘slump’.”

timrodresized: That’s a funny way to pronounce “closet”.

Yusuke: “Are you aware that I am attending Kosei on an art scholarship? Such coveted grants are not given as charity. I must continually achieve within my field to remain eligible.”

Yusuke: “Were I to lose my scholarship… I would likely have no choice but to leave the school as well.”

Yusuke: “In the earlier days of my career, I would exclusively paint what I desired, when I desired it. The only goal I had in mind was the pursuit of true beauty… that goal is what drove me onward.”

Yusuke: “I wanted nothing more than to attain the lustrous allure of the ‘Sayuri’ in my own work. Yet what reason do I have now? Holding on to my scholarship? Keeping a roof over my head?”

Yusuke: “Worldly desires are all that spur my brush to move… and the resulting work reflects such impurity of mind. To be honest, I am unsure as to whether I can call myself an artist anymore.”

Yusuke: “…My apologies. It seems I got somewhat carried away there. But… I simply cannot accept this lack of purpose in my work. That is why I am so upset with my own indecision. Such vague ambition is, in essence, a sin of sorts.”

Yusuke: “Though I suppose allowing my young career to come to an end here would be even more sinful. I only wish to create a work I can be genuinely proud of…”

Yusuke: “Yet no matter how hard I try to replicate it, an elegance so sweet remains elusive to me! Why is that, you ask? It is surely because the painter behind the work differs… because the soul differs!”

timrodresized: This entire conversation, by the way, is a very long-form way for the game to tell you that Yusuke is now available as a confidant.

Yusuke: “But if my estimations are correct, the ‘soul’ is nothing but another way to speak of the human heart. What, then, is the heart? How does it bring forth such beauty? I must understand!”

Yusuke: “What, then, is the heart? How does it bring forth such beauty? I must understand! …To be perfectly frank though… I am unsure of how to do so.”

timrodresized: Joker just looks at him and goes “I thought you’d never ask.”

Yusuke: “You would!? Wonderful. At the moment, my art teacher has yet to notice any drastic changes in my work… but I cannot hide forever. Impurity of the heart will undoubtedly seep onto an artist’s canvas eventually.”

Yusuke: “I must go now. My curfew approaches.”

timrodresized: Tonight, we’re supposed to go to the bathhouse. That is exactly what we do, and we’ve all seen it enough times to know the cutscene is the same every time.

timrodresized: I stopped by the recycle shop and found out the game system was already in-stock, so let’s take a (non-canon) look at that. Remember, we do the bathhouse tonight and not this if you are following this for 100%.

timrodresized: There’s a store that sells games in Akihabara, but we can’t get there yet.

timrodresized: There’s a button mashing minigame I didn’t get to capture because both of my hands were on the controller. I’ll show it off when we actually do this later on.

timrodresized: The game console increases your social stats just like watching the DVDs. The old 100% route for the base game never actually used it: you did it at the end of the game if you wanted a trophy for it.

timrodresized: I looked at the current 100% guide, and it looks like we’ll have maxed out social stats sometime in September, meaning that around then we’ll start having a lot of free nights. I’ll probably do darts and the game console at that point.

timrodresized: That isn’t to say the game’s schedule isn’t incredibly tight: even though our nights will be free, we’ll be doing confidants until more or less the last day.

timrodresized: Next time: More cutscenes. More Kawakami. Still no actual gameplay!

Please, Kiryu is a pure soul who doesn’t have enough twisted desires to make a Palace.

Also move the camera over when it’s game time you cowards I’d award this game bonus points if you showed me a cat playing an SNES game.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a cat could do it, since a Japanese channel managed to finish three Pokemon games back to back by mapping certain areas of a fish tank to buttons. I think with that, they had to give the fish some kind of stimulus to keep them moving because the article mentions that the streamer switched them out every 12 hours.

Still, I’m sure if you did something like wired up a cat with electrodes that go off when it moves its legs (and maybe one on top of its head) and mapped the electrodes going off to buttons you could probably finish Earthbound.

Click Here for Update 30

timrodresized: We wind up reading Expert Billiards today even though we started The Gallant Rogue and never finished it. I’m pretty sure this is because the book that gives you better stat gains from reading is coming up soon.

timrodresized: We’ve now unlocked our Technical Rank, which basically allows us to use the Jump Cue we bought to perform trick shots when playing pool.

timrodresized: The reason the guide probably chooses this over Baton Passes is because it allows for cheap knockdowns - once you get your Technical Rank up to 3, you can get knockdowns from technical hits, meaning you can toss a status effect on an enemy for cheap and then knock them down.

Morgana: “That book was filled with billiard know-hows! And the trick shot section got me pumped! Especially the behind-the-back and jump shots…”

Makoto: “Well…”

Kobayakawa: “Not only are there victims, there are even rumors that some are involved with such crimes… I’ve even received inquiries from their guardians. Why is this happening?”

Makoto: “Unfortunately, I do not have the answer to that…”

Kobayakawa: “This is the greatest disgrace in the history of this academy… if it were to be discovered…”

timrodresized: I hate that the game has a lot of nothing to say at times, but doesn’t clarify why this would even be an issue for the school and not the police.

Kobayakawa: “This is a vital issue for the student council! Did I not ask you to resolve it!?”

Makoto: “I’m… doing the best I can.”

Kobayakawa: “A-and I can trust you!? You must do something about this at once! You’re the only one who is reliable around here… don’t let me down…”

Makoto: “I do. Please, just give me a little more time…”

timrodresized: This guy is just Japanese Hank Hill, isn’t he? King of the Hill actually has a Japanese dub.

Ushimaru: “But what I gave them was a bona fide Japanese bank note. Don’t tell me young people these days don’t know who Hirobumi Ito is.”

timrodresized: Ito Hirobumi was the first Prime Minister of Japan following the Meiji Restoration. He was a samurai who was educated in London… and was also a gigantic imperialist asshole who spent a lot of his time being pissed that he couldn’t be the one true head of Japan’s government.

timrodresized: He was also a driving force behind the first Sino-Japanese war and the Japanese annexation of Korea. Ito was assassinated in 1909 by a Korean nationalist.

timrodresized: This also means that Ushimaru has some seriously old money sitting around. Hirobumi Ito was put on the 1000-yen note in 1963 and removed in 1986. There have been two new 1000-yen bill designs since then (one in 1984 and a second in 2004) with a new one coming out in 2023.

Ushimaru: “I shudder to think that these will be the people shouldering Japan’s economy… I hope you all know your stuff. Here’s a quiz just to make sure.”

timrodresized: Given that Japan’s economy doesn’t work and hasn’t worked for a long time, I think they’ll be just fine.

Ushimaru: “Hey, Kurusu. Between paper bills and coins, which one is issued by the government?”

Ushimaru: “That’s right. Paper bills are printed by the bank, and coins are issued by the government. Originally, the government made both coins and paper money. However, with the ability to make as much money as they wanted, the economy fell into chaos.”

timrodresized: That’s never stopped the Fed before.

Ushimaru: “An independent organization - namely the Bank of Japan - has been tasked with printing paper money ever since.”

timrodresized: That’s not entirely accurate. The Bank of Japan is this weird quasi-public thing where the government owns a controlling stake in it (55%) and controls all the voting rights, but it also is a publicly-traded company.

Ushimaru: “Coins, which don’t have as much of an effect on the economy, are still produced by the government. You simply can’t trust a moron to look after your finances. The best they can manage is pocket change.”

Morgana: “Imagine all the money you could ever want, at your feet… I hope the next Palace is somewhere awesome like that…”

Ann: “Can you tell me about this easy part-time job? I’m sure you know about it, Iida-kun. Please!”

timrodresized: What he’s saying is that she can become an e-girl.

Ann: “Huh!? Um… now that you mention it… yes. So, um… what I mean is…”

Morgana: “This is going south fast.”

Ann: “O-oh, Francois!”

timrodresized: Metal Gear!?

Ann: “My cat Francois got run over by a car… and also has an incurable illness! I need money fast!”

timrodresized: The incurable illness is that he’s constantly thirsty for human women.

Morgana: “That’s not convincing at all… is she talking about me?”

Ann: “I-if Francois were to die, I think I’d die too! Probably…”

Ann: “If you don’t like it, then tel me about that easy part-time job. You know something, don’t you? I’ve heard the rumors.”

Ann: “Nishiyama?”

Ann: “Hey, what was that about Nishiyama?”

Morgana: “She actually got the momentum back. She’s not acting anymore now, is she? Come on, let’s leave this guy to Lady Ann and go look for that Nishiyama fellow.”

Mishima: “You’re looking for something, right? I want to help you out, so please ask me anything.”

Mishima: “Nishiyama? He usually hangs out with Iida. Oh, so you want to ask him about Iida? So that’s why Takamaki-san was chasing him…”

Mishima: “I’m sorry, I don’t know where he is right now… he usually stays till late, so I think he’s probably still somewhere in the school. I’ll keep digging around while you’re looking for him!”

Morgana: “Well, I guess we can let him handle this. We’ll have to ask someone else about Nishiyama’s whereabouts. Can you think of anyone who might know?”

timrodresized: An NPC not even five feet away from where we met with Mishima has the answer. In fact, if you look up a couple of shots you can see her in the background.

Morgana: “A man on Central Street, hm? That is suspicious… maybe he was making him commit crimes?”

timrodresized: Yusuke Kitamura, boyfriend detective.

Morgana: “So that means this part-time job is somehow crime-related… it takes ten minutes, is good for people who don’t stand out, and involves a small envelope… does that ring any bells? It’s something the mafia would definitely be up to.”

timrodresized: I’m just imagining a scenario where Sadako (from The Ring) starts an order-only hostess club where somebody delivers you an envelope with a VHS tape in it and then she comes out of the TV so you can order expensive bottles of wine for her.

timrodresized: By the way, this isn’t an Innocent Sin scenario where what you pick changes the outcome. I wish it was, because a yakuza group somehow killing people by throwing envelopes at them from long distances would be fucking hilarious.

timrodresized: Thank you Mishima for being several minutes too late on that.

Morgana: “She’s still doing that…? All right, take over for her.”

timrodresized: Take over? Time to put him down? Make over, nothing’s going to be the way he might like?

timrodresized: You have to pick the bottom option to progress - the top just throws you into a dialog loop.

timrodresized: And there’s my update title right there.

timrodresized: In a sudden plot twist, the envelopes were actually coming from the Majima Family (a division of the Tojo Clan) and were being put there because that’s the only way they can get Kiryu to accept anything. They have to have high schoolers do it so that Kiryu doesn’t get suspicious about why a bunch of yakuza are hanging out around the coin lockers.

timrodresized: Wait, this makes no sense. These are high schoolers who presumably only have a part-time job at best. The whole point of extortion is that you’re extorting people who have money.

timrodresized: He’s like “Nah, I’m already doing that with Kawakami.”

timrodresized: Too much writing. Just… too much writing.

timrodresized: I mean, that was kinda the plot of Ghost Trick, so…

timrodresized: Anyway, tonight, we’ve got Kawakami again.

Becky: “I want to provide more services for you…”

Becky: “I-I’m definitely not scheming anything! Meow!”

Becky: “I just want to get requested more.”

timrodresized: Believe it or not, this is why we’re rushing Kawakami’s confidant. When you reach Rank 10 with her, you get an ability called “Special Massage”. This allows you to call Kawakami on a night when you’ve been to a dungeon or Mementos (which would ordinarily prevent you from doing anything that night) and get a massage, which allows you to go out as if you had not gone to the dungeon.

Becky: “The thing is, I talked to my boss about picking up more shifts… but he said that he prioritizes “younger” women!”

Becky: “Seriously… he didn’t have to say that right to my face. I mean, age has nothing to do with cleaning a room! And I look damn good for my age, if I do say so myself.”

timrodresized: Oh, right. I was looking on the wiki to see if there was any official source for how old Kawakami is supposed to be. There isn’t, but apparently in one of the betas for the game it was possible to break her confidant if you decided to date anyone who wasn’t her.

Becky: “The girls in my neighborhood always tell me I’m pretty. And the latchkey kid who lives next door always asks me to tie up her hair. Thanks to that, I’m an expert with these pigtails now. See? So I’m damn good for-”

timrodresized: My guess is that there’s no way Kawakami is over like, 35.

Becky: “…Wait, don’t tell me I’m the only one who thinks this way? Master… would you please give me your honest opinion?”

timrodresized: Please note that this is not Joker’s canon response. We’ll see what that is… just after this update. I’m going to end it early so I can get this out before Christmas.

Becky: “Huh…? I don’t really feel like I’m worth being loved. But… you’re right. You go out of your way to request me, and all I do is sit here and vent to you.”

Becky: “What the heck am I saying? You’re my student… my double life as both a teacher and a maid is so exhausting.”

Becky: “Maybe I let my guard down because you know both sides of me. The more I come here, the more I feel like I can relax. As a maid, I’m supposed to help my master relax… but instead, I’m the one who’s being helped.”

Becky: “Haha… sorry I’m such a terrible maid.”

Becky: “I have to confess something… I lied about the reason why I need to make more money… I don’t have a sick sister. All that stuff about the fees and charges was a lie too.”

Becky: “I can’t get requested unless I make up those types of stories. See, you understand now, right? Nothing good will come from involving yourself with a terrible person like me.”

timrodresized: Next time, two days of nothing but cutscene, followed by another visit to Kawakami where we finally learn what her deal is.

1 Like

timrodresized: So, you might ask why that last update was only one day. The reason is that I had ordered some art from Salty Vanilla, couldn’t figure out when I wanted to use it, and then found the perfect opportunity to use it.

timrodresized: Let’s see Joker’s canon response to this question.

Joker: “Yeah, but not as good as Yusuke would.”

timrodresized: Happy Holidays to all of the people who wanted a dateable Yusuke. You can just superimpose this over Kawakami’s romance cutscenes.

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That’s a super cute look honestly. Also Merry Holidays!

I’m honestly pretty interested in seeing what Kawakami’s deal actually is.

Wow it’s been like a month since I read any of these updates, I wonder what’s happened since then—

Nothing. Goddamn nothing.

Okay, that’s unfair, especially since I was there for one of the recording streams. I got to find out what tomalley is. And I got to hear you realize you forgot to water the plant.

I had a bunch of other things I could say, but I saved it all in a Notepad and then my computer crashed. Nothing important anyway, I don’t think.

How can you say its nothing? Don’t you remember the scene where they said they didn’t know who they were going to mindjack next? Or the scene where they didn’t know who they were going to mindjack next? Or the scene where someone else came along and told them what to do?

…you know for being thieves our heroes don’t seem to have much agency about their targets unless someone with “I am a major league asshole” walks in front of them.

1 Like

Click Here for Update 31

obs64 2020-12-17 20-31-59-92

Morgana: “Oh yeah, something weird happened in food service before, right? Some employee cooking naked… with all these extortions and scams, this world’s really messed up.”

obs64 2020-12-17 20-32-52-95

Ann: “There sure are a lot of high schoolers during the day. They must be targeting them somehow.”

timrodresized: I mean, given that most of them are going to be wearing school uniforms, I think that’d be pretty easy.

timrodresized: I’ve heard (but haven’t been able to find it online) that there are places in Japan that publish school uniform listings by school so you can tell which uniform belongs to which school. I don’t know if they still do this or not, but theoretically it’d be even easier to target high schoolers in Japan than in say, the US.

Yusuke: “Finding the specifics may be difficult. With such a crowd, the odds are against us.”

Ryuji: “Right! We’re gonna grab 'em by the tail!”

Ann: “You should head over to Central Street, like we planned yesterday, Akira.”

Ryuji: “Sweet, let’s get goin’! Lemme know if you find any shady people!”

timrodresized: Right away, we can find Makoto in her natural habitat - the trash.

Makoto: “Are you investigating here with your friends today? I hope something comes of it. I’ll be counting on you.”

Morgana: “Is she following us? Nah, that can’t be.”

timrodresized: There’s some optional dialogue I ran into, but I’m not going to post it because this update will be long enough as-is by the time I’m done with it.

timrodresized: What we’re looking for is this guy, who is in the alley leading to the weapon shop.

timrodresized: He’s clearly part of the homeless mafia from Yakuza. Did I mention there’s a Yakuza costume DLC for P5 Dancing? Joker is Kiryu (he takes his glasses off and his model clearly was not meant for that), Ann is Majima, Ryuji is the villain from Yakuza 2 by the same name, and Yusuke is Akiyama.

timrodresized: Joker just wants to go and enter the underground arena, maybe beat up on Gary Buster Holmes.

Morgana: “Hm, maybe this other person would know something…? Apparently he’s near the train station, so let’s go take a look over there.”

Morgana: “Everyone’s really going about this seriously. They’re definitely worthy of being the Phantom Thieves. We can’t fall behind either. Let’s look for that homeless man.”

timrodresized: Speaking of DLC, apparently the US release of Royal came with the all the costume DLC the base game had, but unfortunately I don’t think you can mix-and-match. Otherwise, I’d probably find a way to transfer my save to my PS5.

timrodresized: The reason I won’t is because Makoto gets Yukino’s uniform in the P1 DLC (Yukino is fucking leagues ahead of her on the “best girl” chart, just under Yukiko and Elly) and Atlus also made the nonsensical decision of not giving Yusuke Jun’s uniform in the P2 DLC - he gets a closed-jacket version of Tatsuya’s outfit instead.

timrodresized: On the way to the objective, I found a couple of Persona 4 references I forgot about. Mashita Kanami is a (presumbably) non-canon character from Persona 4 Dancing. I have that on the Vita and never really touched it.

timrodresized: We also have a poster of the worst girl from Persona 4.

timrodresized: The person we’re looking for is actually in the Underground Walkway and not in the station.

timrodresized: They have really gaudy-looking suits and pop their collars. It’s actually a secret code depending on what color their shirt is and how the collar is popped.

timrodresized: They’ll spend hours hiding under manholes or giant traffic cones just so they can jump out and fight each other when someone comes to investigate.

timrodresized: Yusuke winds up in a grocery store.

Morgana: “All right, we should do what we can do help them out. I have no idea which of these leads are real. Try going to the most suspicious-sounding place.”

timrodresized: I went to Yusuke first, since he was closest, but apparently you have to do these in order - first Ryuji, then Yusuke.

timrodresized: Yusuke is actually one of those Tetris Grand Master pros. Speaking of which, someone actually made a patch for TGM 1 that makes it run on a PS1.

timrodresized: There’s been a lot of that lately: a different guy has been patching Atomiswave (a piece of arcade hardware made of spare Dreamcast parts) games to run on a stock Dreamcast.

timrodresized: All sorts of shady activities like me mashing the “hardware reset” button on my Neo-Geo every time I fuck up a shot in Turf Masters, which is to say all the time.

Ryuji: “Arghhh, c’mon… Oh, Akira.”

Ryuji: “Sorry, my lead didn’t end up bein’ anything. That dude at the stairs… pretty misleadin’, huh? Sheesh…”

Ryuji: “Oh, what about Ann and Yusuke? You should go check on ‘em. Hey, granny, you okay? You’re lookin’ pretty shaky, so I don’t mind givin’ you a hand.”

timrodresized: Once I talked to Ryuji, I was able to progress the story.

Makoto: “Well… you aren’t wrong about that.”

Makoto: “It seems we didn’t have to look very hard in the end.”

Makoto: “Hm… by delivery, do you mean delivery of suspicious materials?”

timrodresized: No, she’s supposed to be the “smart” girl. We haven’t met the “funny” girl yet. Trust me, you don’t want to meet the “funny” girl.

Makoto: “So you won’t answer me? Then I was right…”

Makoto: “Oh…”

Makoto: “U-um… if you don’t want to deal with us, we could always go see your boss ourselves.”

timrodresized: The smart girl, everyone.

Makoto: “I don’t have any proof though. I tried to trick him into saying something, but he dodged all the traps I was laying down.”

timrodresized: What traps?

Makoto: “By the way, thanks for standing up for me. I’m going to go now.”

Morgana: “That boss seems tricky… it looks like he taught his subordinates well, too. No wonder the police are having a hard time catching him.”

Morgana: “Anyway, you have some serious guts. You didn’t back down at all against that hooligan. Though we still didn’t end up with any new information… let’s stop here for today.”

Makoto: “Thanks. For earlier.”

Makoto: “…I dug it up. I realize I’m apologizing after the fact, but… it just didn’t feel right, keeping it from you, so… that’s all. Bye.”

Sojiro: “You talking to a woman? I heard her voice. Speaking of, some girl called looking for you around noon. Said she’s the class president.”

Sojiro: “Said she’s got something that belongs to you. She seemed to know you, so I gave her your number.”

Morgana: “She must’ve looked up Leblanc’s address trying to contact you. That Niijima sure is thorough! Then again, she called you just to apologize… it’s a bit weird, but maybe she’s not so bad after all.”

timrodresized: Makoto’s writing is kind of wildly inconsistent at best, and it’s one of the things that kind of turned me off to the plot when I played it the first time.

timrodresized: We have a crossword tonight, so might as well do that.

timrodresized: Clearly, no one outside of China ever changed their clothes for any reason.

timrodresized: Tonight is one of those nights that was changed from the base game - in the base game, you just went to sleep immediately after arriving back home. There’s no available confidants tonight, because they didn’t adjust the schedule to reflect that tonight is open (the Caroline and Justine thing is another non-confidant outing).

timrodresized: Instead, we’re going to watch Joker make some sick pool shots. What’s funny is how we just had an IM conversation about how the party shouldn’t meet up in case they’re being followed by the yakuza… and yet they’re meeting up anyway. Ludonarrative dissonance!

timrodresized: I too would be worried about hitting myself in the balls with the pool cue. Trust me, I’d find a way. What’s funny though is that none of the positions the balls are in look particularly difficult to hit.

timrodresized: My favorite thing about this is that it you look at the lines of sight, Ann and Yusuke look like they’re staring at Joker’s ass while Ryuji looks like he’s desperately trying not to and then caves in anyway.

timrodresized: I should mention that I’m pretty sure this is the only trick shot you can pull off without buying the jump cue, but the next pool outing will be before the third dungeon so we’d have to buy it anyway.

timrodresized: John Persona reaches Technical Rank 2, which increases damage done by technical hits. This is where I kind of wish the game had an auto-battle thing that worked like Persona 1 or Innocent Sin’s, because then I could set it to use status effect spells (which work on most regular enemies) and get tech hits instead of bothering with weaknesses.

Akechi: “Speaking of murky… there haven’t been any new developments in the phantom thief incidents. If they go so far as using calling cards to get attention, I doubt Madarame’s case will be the last.”

Akechi: “What kind of target will they choose next? What do you think?”

timrodresized: The correct answer is “Not you, you’re trying too hard, I already have a boyfriend.”

Akechi: “…To be blunt, neither do I. There’s just not enough material to form any concrete thoughts. However, I’m positive they’ll soon target someone who will garner even more attention…”

timrodresized: Someone needs to send this Jimmy Neutron-ass dipshit back to Attack of the Twonkies.

Akechi: “…Oh, sorry. I’m getting lost in my own head… I have to stay on top of any Phantom Thieves activity due to what I said on the air. If you hear any rumors at school, I hope you can let me know.”

Ann: “God, they suck…”

timrodresized: There’s someone singing in the other room, for context.

Ryuji: “Man, we’re goin’ nowhere with this. Hey, can’t we ask Miss President to change it up?”

Ann: “You mean… change our target?”

Ryuji: “We just gotta show our justice to satisfy her, right? There are tons of shitty adults in this world. It’s not like it matters who we’re goin’ after.”

Ryuji: “She says this is for the students, but I bet it’s just so she can brag about it on college apps.”

Ann: “But that mafia’s stealing money from kids. We can’t just accept that! It doesn’t matter who the target came from anymore.”

timrodresized: They’re also the worst mafia ever, because seriously, how much money are they expecting high schoolers to have? This is like the people who broke into my car a couple months ago and found absolutely nothing of value. They didn’t even steal anything because there was nothing to steal.

Yusuke: “Ann’s right. We want to give courage to the weak. Isn’t this the perfect target to accomplish that goal?”

Yusuke: “They really have no talent…”

Ryuji: “I never thought it’d be this noisy if you weren’t signin’… anyways, I’m sure we’ll shut Akechi up if we pull this off, but-”

Yusuke: “That’s exactly why we should do it.”

Morgana: “It all comes down to intel in the end… if we don’t start finding tips on that front, we’ll never get any further than this…”

Yusuke: “There has to be someone who has what we need.”

Ann: “…That’s right! What about that journalist?”

Morgana: “You mean the woman who was staking out Madrame’s house?”

Ryuji: “Oh yeahhhh… I completely forgot about her! Didn’t she give you her card?”

timrodresized: I thought this was some kind of Innocent Sin reference before I remembered that before I got frustrated and stopped learning Japanese, I learned that “Maiasa” means “Every Morning”. I really should get on that again.

Yusuke: “This is for a rather major publication.”

Ryuji: “You think we can trust her?”

Morgana: “There’s no other way.”

Ann: “Okay, let’s contact her!”

Ryuji: “Happy hour’s over, yeah? C’mon, let’s just go.”

Yusuke: “How wasteful!”

Ryuji: “Anyways, guess we just gotta wait for that journalist to email us back. Let us know ASAP when she responds! Got it, Akira?”

Morgana: “The chief’s as sharp as ever… but it’s more like we’re the ones being dragged into things…”

timrodresized: It’s time to finally find out what Kawakami’s deal is.

Becky: “I told you that the story about my sick little sister was a lie… you know you’re being used for money, and you still request me?”

timrodresized: I believe we call that a “simp”.

timrodresized: Fun in the sense that to Joker, straight people might as well be aliens.

Becky: “Huh? Are you… an extreme masochist or something? You really are one strange kid…”

Becky: “I’m a mediocre teacher and a mediocre maid… and yet, you listen to everything I have to say… you’re the complete opposite of me. I don’t even properly attend to my students’ needs.”

timrodresized: Note that I never said her entire deal was good or well-written. I’ve seen this exact plot line in several different pieces of Japanese media. Yakuza 7 even has a character who has a near-identical backstory (granted, he’s a cop instead of a teacher).

Becky: “There was a student named Takase at the school I taught at before Shujin. Takase-kun was considered a problem child, since he had the lowest grades and skipped school a lot.”

Becky: “So I was put in charge of guiding him… or rather, pushing him to transfer to another school. But when I got to know him, I realized that he wasn’t a problem child after all.”

Becky: “In fact, he was working several part-time jobs just so he could cover his living expenses. His relatives took him in when his parents died, so he had to make money to support himself.”

Becky: “He couldn’t attend school every day, but he was motivated to study. That’s why I decided to tutor him. After I started working with him, his grades started to improve, slowly but surely.”

Becky: “But I was told that it was wrong to only help certain students and not others… then a strange rumor about him being a juvenile delinquent began to circulate. And on top of that, I got called into the principal’s office… he threatened me… saying that I’d be dismissed if I continued to tutor Takase-kun.”

Becky: “Yeah… but you could say the same about me. I got scared… of losing my job, and of having rumors spread about me. So… I canceled our upcoming tutoring sessions…”

Becky: “Takase-kun was on his way to one of his part-time jobs when I told him… out of all days, it was New Year’s Eve and it had been pouring rain all day. And… he died in a car crash.”

timrodresized: So, here’s my thing about this. Apart from being slightly darker and more flawed, how is Kawakami functionally different than Ms. Saeko was in Persona 1 and Innocent Sin?

timrodresized: The worst part is, this isn’t the first time Hashino has done this. There’s a character in Nocturne who also has some striking similarities to Ms. Saeko, because Hashino is a hack.

Becky: “He sounded so depressed when I told him I couldn’t tutor him anymore… but then he said that it was no big deal because he had to work anyway, so I wouldn’t feel bad. If only I had kept my promise to him…”

Becky: “Takase-kun was exhausted from the tutoring sessions and working at all his part-time jobs… his guardians blamed me for the accident, saying it was all my fault that he was so tired…”

timrodresized: I’m not sure if the idea is that he was driving, or that he got hit by a car on foot. From what I understand, personal cars aren’t that big of a thing in Tokyo because of the insane amount of traffic and presence of things like the trains… unless she taught outside of the city.

timrodresized: I’ve said this before, but this is more or less the exact same plot line for every confidant in this game.

Becky: “I wouldn’t have been accused of a crime, but if word had gotten out, the school would’ve been done for. I wanted to continue teaching, no matter what. So I ended up paying them the ‘apology’ money so they wouldn’t sue me or say anything.”

timrodresized: This entire thing makes zero fucking sense.

Becky: “It was my indecisiveness that backed him into a corner, and I blame myself every day. I know paying them isn’t going to bring him back, but it’s the only way I can atone for my sins. It seems like his guardians are satisfied with our arrangement, so…”

timrodresized: I’m trying to make sense of this whole thing and just failing. She paid the guardians off so they wouldn’t sue the school, then left the school anyway, and now pays because she feels guilty even though they were extorting her?

Becky: “I have to keep my distance to avoid hurting others, so I don’t meddle in my students’ lives. I’ve been coming here because of a random twist of fate, but we should say goodbye as well.”

Becky: “Kurusu-kun… you’re not really the type to back down, are you? Haha… I guess we’re in this together, now that I told you the whole story, right?”

obs64 2020-12-17 20-55-26-29

timrodresized: Now we get even more free time in school that we have no practical use for other than reading books.

Becky: “Oh my, this room is sooo dusty! Even though I wipe the place squeaky clean every visit… well, I guess it’s all for you, Master! I’ll work hard to earn my keep! :heart:

Becky: “cough Oh, uh, wooow! It’s so dusty! If my cough is already this bad… maybe we’d be better off tearing this place down than trying to clean it?”

Becky: “Well, the shabbi- I mean, chicness of this room is truly its charm, so let’s keep it as is! All right, I have to go. :heart:

obs64 2020-12-17 20-56-33-98

Becky: “By the way, I’ve always wanted to ask, but do you live in that cafe right now?”

timrodresized: Writers just phoning it in. Seriously, hasn’t he told her this is where he lives?

Becky: “There’s always this nice curry smell around the place. Do you get to eat that place’s curry every day?”

Becky: “Ooh, then I can serve it to you. Imagine it was cooked by your own maid, with lots of love… okay, that was a joke, but… God, I could really go for some homemade curry right now.”

timrodresized: YHVH descends and just goes “Sure, Kawakami… but only if you join the Messians and fight for my Thousand-Year Kingdom!”

Becky: Cough Cough “Sorry. Can’t seem to shake this cough. I’ve been so busy lately… but I’ll aaalways be ready and waiting for Master to request me! :heart:

Becky: “…Okay, don’t stay up too late. Night.”

Sae: “They were asking if you’ve made any lifestyle changes recently.”

Makoto: “Huh?”

Sae: “I gave them a suitable enough answer, but… is there some kind of issue at school?”

Makoto: “No… it’s nothing. I’m sorry to worry you.”

Sae: “I doubt you would do such a thing, but try to avoid wandering around Shibuya late at night. I’ve heard stories of girls your age throwing their lives away out there.”

timrodresized: This line was changed quite a bit from the original, which was kind of poorly translated. The original line was “They got involved in criminal acts and were blackmailed into working at illegal sex establishments…”

timrodresized: This also doesn’t explain why the yakuza would be targeting male students.

Makoto: “I’ve heard rumors about that as well. People have been mentioning it at school.”

Sae: “…These aren’t mere rumors. I know of a few such cases.”

timrodresized: Hoo boy, we made it here. Today is the day where “the” cutscene comes into play. You might’ve heard about it - it sparked a lot of controversy over how Atlus (and specifically the writers for Persona) have issues with their portrayal of gay people. It also outed Hashino as a massive homophobe.

timrodresized: Ordinarily, I’d have ended the update on the 17th, but the next three days are all basically solid cutscene because honestly, the entire month of June in this game is basically a filler arc.

Makoto: “Calm down… they’re still targeting you?”

Makoto: “…I’ve found some clues regarding your incident. I just need you to wait a bit longer.”

Makoto: “That is not true. My goal here is to protect the students of this school…”

timrodresized: Today, we start Yusuke’s confidant.

Yusuke: “A dream world… the abyss held within one’s unconsciousness… ah, I see! Mementos! The desire that emanates from that place is the root of humanity!”

Yusuke: “Incredible! You honestly have a unique perspective on things. With that destination in mind, let us make haste!”

Fox: “The same thing which brought forth the beauty of the ‘Sayuri’ can also create such morbid fabrications… but I actually find that aspect to be quite fascinating. The heart is akin to an abyss…”

Fox: “Now, regarding the source of my slump… I actually have an idea. In that other dimension, I saw the perversion of Madarame’s heart. At that moment, the art realm I had so much faith in was distorted by greed and unchecked desires.”

Fox: “And from that point forward, my brush has been stayed by crippling hestitation… does pure beauty truly exist? And if so, can hands tainted by Madarame’s depravity capture it?”

Fox: “Considering such intense questions only served to distance me from reality. Doubt filled my mind. I struggled to find a reason to move my brush again…”

Fox: “And honestly… I still have yet to discover a suitable answer.”

Fox: “…What’s the matter? Have you been overcome by an urge to paint?”

Fox: “Please, do not rush me. I only need a little more time… hm, the lingering uncertainty present in this place seems to be sharpening my senses…”

Fox: “I feel a revelation approaching. Hm… yes! Inspiration has struck! That must be it! Such brilliant composition! Ah, my heart races!”

timrodresized: So yeah, we just got into a battle during a confidant event. I think this is the only time that happens.

timrodresized: It’s here I finally figure out how technicals work, since this was something I never even used in the base game.

timrodresized: Here’s how it works. Say you’ve got an enemy that resists or nulls everything. This is apparently something Royal does - the base game never really had enemies like that.

timrodresized: First, you hit the enemies with a status effect. In this case, I had Yusuke cast Mabufu, which froze all the Slimes.

timrodresized: Different status effects effectively open up a new weakness on the enemy: in the case of Burn, Freeze, or Shock, it opens them up to Nuclear damage.

timrodresized: There’s a chart on how this works, which I’ll just post here.

timrodresized: This is part of why I never used technicals in the base game, because it effectively depends on you having a lot of nuclear and/or psychic damage… and you don’t get the one party member that does psychic stuff until near the end of the game.

timrodresized: The other reason is that technicals in the base game only added a 1.4x multiplier to damage, which I believe is significantly weaker than a weakness hit.

timrodresized: The Slimes respond by exploding, doing something like a third of their max HP to each other every time they blow up. The explosion knocks them out of freeze.

timrodresized: Note that we still get our money bonus from Jose even though this was a cutscene battle.

Fox: “I’m glad you were here. You have my thanks. …You’re like Theo.”

timrodresized: Not pictured - Joker’s actual response of “Oh shit, that’s not your boyfriend, is it?”

Fox: “… I worry that you may not get what I mean. It was a figure of speech. I was referring to Van Gogh’s brother, Theo.”

timrodresized: Joker goes from alarm to “Oh fuck is this him friendzoning me? He’s not even out of the closet and he’s already friendzoning me?”

Fox: “Van Gogh did not achieve fame in his lifetime, but found an admirer and supporter in his brother.”

Fox: “Well, there aren’t many who are willing to deal with my… eccentricity. By the way, what’s that in your hand…? A card?”

Fox: “…Whenever I see blank paper, I have the urge to draw something on it. May I?”

timrodresized: Okay, so Yusuke’s also in the “Like Sonic” camp. Anyway, there’s like eight black screens of Yusuke making various Yusuke noises that I’m just gonna cut.

Fox: “My picture… turned into a real skill card?”

timrodresized: This is part of why I never used Yusuke in the base game. Yusuke is essentially this game’s version of the Demon Painter, in that all of his confidant abilities involve using blank cards to duplicate skill cards.

timrodresized: This means he doesn’t get the useful battle skills like Ann and Ryuji have, which kind of drags down his value in combat.

Fox: “Indeed… Akira. Would you mind helping me further? If I can overcome this slump, I should be able to aid our group like earlier - perhaps even more so.”

timrodresized: I should mention that Yusuke’s card duplicating ability is less bad than it was in the base game in that eventually you can just have him instantly dupe cards, but there’s not much of a reason to since I don’t think cards for skills like Megidolaon exist.

Fox: “I know… why don’t we act as the thieves we are and strike a deal?”

timrodresized: We’ll have him out of the closet in no time.

timrodresized: And, of course, the obligatory pointess Sae cutscene.

timrodresized: Sae is not a fan of Magic the Gathering. Neither am I, to be honest. Collectible card games are the OG microtransaction-filled pay to win mobile game.

obs64 2020-12-26 20-21-45-17

timrodresized: The game gives us a tutorial - basically, you can find blank skill cards as drops in Mementos. You can then drop them off with Yusuke, who will take a day (at first) to duplicate them.

Fox: “We’ve done enough for today; I’ve completed a rough sketch. I’ll finish this back at the dorm. I’ll contact you once it’s done.”

Yusuke: “Thank you for all of your assistance today. You helped me discover some truly wonderful inspiration.”

Yusuke: “I must say… I never expected my art skills would ever prove useful for the Phantom Thieves. I have to hold up my end of the deal, so I’ll perform to the best of my ability. You need only ask.”

Yusuke: “I should be the one thanking you. Without your help, I could not have finished today’s piece. Now, we should be heading back. I have to apply the finishing touches as soon as possible!”

Yusuke: “Hah… for the first time in a long while, my brush will dance again.”

Morgana: “This is from that journalist, right? She wants to meet you there now? Looks like this Crossroads place is in Shinjuku. A meetup in Shinjuku…”

Morgana: “Let me see… I guess to put it simply, it’s a nightlife district for adults. You should send everyone a message and let them know what you’re up to.”

Morgana: “Wait, are you gonna go in your school uniform? It would be bad for you to stand out. You should change before you go.”

Ryuji: “Huh? No choice. I didn’t have the time to go home. People aren’t gonna notice anyways with this t-shirt over it.”

timrodresized: You’re a bleached-blonde anime boy in Anime Japan, where everyone has either brown or black hair. No shit you stand out.

Ryuji: “You think so? I thought this is normal…”

Morgana: “I’m surprised you were thinking anything… look, it won’t be my fault when the cops catch you.”

Ryuji: “Don’t worry about it. That place ain’t so different from Shibuya. C’mon, I’ll guide ya. If we’re goin’ to Shinjuku… we should probably hop on the JL. Just gotta get out of this building and then the ticket gate should be on the right. It’s go time!”

Morgana: “Is this really going to be okay?”

timrodresized: For some reason, the game makes us walk to the subway gate even though once we do this we’re never going to do it again because of fast travel.

timrodresized: Note the part about the bars there being open to minors, because it’s going to make an upcoming scene make no sense.

timrodresized: Shinjuku also has a fee to viist, but for some reason it’s smaller than the fee to go to Kichijoji.

Morgana: “Stop looking around so much. You look like a tourist.”

Ryuji: “I-I was just tryin’ to find that place we’re lookin’ for. Crossroads Bar’s right ahead. I’m sure we’ll get there if we keep goin’ straight.”

timrodresized: It’s funny he says that.

timrodresized: Joker looks him straight in the eye, goes “That’s never stopped me before.” and pulls a flask out of his overshirt, draining it in one go.

Ryuji: “Tch… you’re the one who was all wantin’ to talk to us.”

timrodresized: Joker has the only cute boy he needs, thank you very much.

Morgana: “Just ignore that guy, you idiot. No matter what what you cut it, he’s a shady character.”

timrodresized: Unfortunately, we can’t go to the second-most important place in Shinjuku: this flower shop. The shop here sells better plant food that increases Kindness by 5 instead of 3. We will be back.

timrodresized: I didn’t know Tokyo had the same law that Connecticut does where we all have to be in bed by 8 or the gods will curse the harvest.

Ryuji: “Oh, yeah. We’re adults, y’see.”

Ryuji: “…Shit.”

obs64 2020-12-26 20-27-54-57

Morgana: “Shoot! This is why I said uniforms were a bad idea! Let’s run!”

Ryuji: “Hey, it ain’t our fault we had to deal with that detour! Our school’s gettin’ real famous!”

timrodresized: The other weird thing is, you’d think that especially in an adult entertainment area there would be people doing something like what Kawakami does only pretending to be high schoolers.

timrodresized: And now we meet THE MOST IMPORTANT CONFIDANT IN THE GAME. If you do NO OTHER CONFIDANT, DO THIS ONE. Why, you ask?

timrodresized: Let’s look at her abilities. At Rank 1, you can pay her 5000 yen and she will give you a buff that increases your social stat gains by 50% for an entire day. We will be using that frequently.

timrodresized: At Rank 3, you can pay her 5,000 yen and she gives you a buff that DOUBLES the amount of money you get from battles provided you end them with an all-out attack. We will be using that every single time we go into a dungeon or Mementos, especially once we can confusion farm.

timrodresized: At Rank 5, you can pay her and she’ll give you a single point toward any confidant (other than the auto ones and things like Mishima or Yoshida). This means she can potentially avert a permafuck. By the way, you can do any or all of her buffs on the same day.

timrodresized: Her later rank abilities are why you really want her though. In the base game, her later abilities were shit - she could tell you some or all of the abilities a confidant would give you and it was bunk because guides and the Megami Tensei wiki exist.

timrodresized: At Rank 8, she can trigger what’s called a Fusion Alert. This is how you get fusion accidents, along with a couple of other perks that let you abuse the hell out of the Velvet Room.

timrodresized: Finally, at Rank 10, you can pay her to automatically reveal the correct answers during any confidant events for a single day. This is still bunk.

timrodresized: The only thing that sucks about her confidant is that there’s a 100,000 yen entry fee and you have to visit her… I think twice… before you can even get to Rank 1.

timrodresized: Oh, we will be back. In fact, if you’re not doing the 100% route, the first thing you wind up doing (more or less) after finishing Kawakami is her confidant until it’s done.

timrodresized: Now we’re at the bar, and I’m going to have to start explaining a lot of shit. We’re almost at “the” cutscene.

Morgana: “Beer, whisky, wine… looks like nighttime is bar time.”

Ryuji: “Goin’ in our uniforms is probably a bad idea… we got caught last time too…”

Ryuji: “I came all the way to Shinjuku and I can’t even go in? Fiiine. I’ll kill time somewhere nearby. Just lemme know when you’re done.”

timrodresized: You see, it’s funny that Ryuji said they’d get here if they kept going straight, because Crossroads…

timrodresized: Is what’s called an okama bar - at least, that’s the term the Yakuza games use for it. Usually, okama bars are gay bars. Not always (sometimes they’re geared towards trans people) but from what I understand, that’s usually the case.

timrodresized: The proprietor is presumably either a crossdresser (something akin to a drag queen but not quite) or trans - the word “okama” has a really, really broad meaning that can be anything from “gay” to “drag queen” to a less-polite version of “trans” to outright slurs.

timrodresized: Apparently, the term “okama” used to be hurtful, but now things are a little different and people are starting to move on to a different term (“one”) and I don’t think anyone really knows what the deal is. Trans men in Japan use the similar term “onabe” to refer to themselves so I’m just going to stick with “okama” for now.

Ohya: “Sorry, Lala-chan. He’s with me.”

timrodresized: One thing that’s going to make “the” cutscene make a lot less sense is that this bar clearly has a clientele that are not necessarily gay men or people who are into crossdressing.

timrodresized: Lala, by the way, is pretty clearly based off Matsuko Deluxe, a famous self-described okama who appears on TV a lot.

Ohya: “Lala-chan, I’m going to borrow the seats in the back. Go on back there. I’ll treat you to some water!”

Ohya: “I’ll respect that bravery, so I’ll listen to what you have to say. Well, what do you want to know?”

Ohya: “Oh? Why that?”

Ohya: “Well, I do happen to know something about that. I could tell you, but… do you know the Phantom Thieves of Hearts? You know, that case the public has been focused on lately.”

timrodresized: Joker looks at her and goes “Lady, I don’t know a thing about that, all I know is John Persona.”

Ohya: “I was pursuing the issue of people randomly entering into a shut-down state, but I’m lacking intel… that’s why I’m looking for new material to write about. So, do you have any info on these Phantom Thieves?”

Ohya: “You’re a Shujin kid, right? I remember you wearing their uniform the last time we met. I thought maybe you might have some insider knowledge on the Phantom Thieves because of it.”

Ohya: “Their first incident was that of Kamoshida, you know? Ideally, I’d like to get some exclusive coverage from a student who suffered Kamoshida’s abuse.”

Ohya: “I would love an introduction if you know of someone who fits the bill. Seems both you and I can’t really do our stuff out in the open, so… whaddya say?”

Morgana: “Hm, a student who suffered from abuse… oh! What about that Mishima guy? He always seems to be on the side of the Phantom Thieves.”

Ohya: “It’s a deal then. Send me your friend’s contact info later.”

Morgana: “You better be thankful. My quick wit is the only reason we’re getting this far.”

timrodresized: Shut up, Morgana.

Ohya: “Now that I think about it, those mental shutdowns and the Phantom Thieves both seem supernatural… could they be related? Or am I just hoping for a coincidence?”

Ohya: “Oh, sorry. I have a tendency to talk to myself on occasion. Well then, you can’t exactly consider this an upfront payment, but…”

Ohya: “I think he’s probably the guy you’re looking for.”

Morgana: “Yes!”

Ohya: “You should check him out further if you’re curious… but I’m not responsible for what happens next! Lala-chan, can I get a refill for this kid? We need to make a toast to our new acquaintance!”

Morgana: “It’ll be a problem if you stay too long. You should leave right after you finish your water…”

Morgana: “Let’s meet up with Ryuji.”

Morgana: “So we just have to go back the way we came, huh? All right, let’s go.”

Morgana: “Not so loud!”

Ryuji: “Junya Kaneshiro… aaand enter. There we go! Mkay, now we just gotta get some info on the distortion. Once we know that, it’s Palace time!”

Morgana: “Let’s try tomorrow. It’ll be better when we have the whole team together.”

Ryuji: “Right. I’ll tell everyone to meet up in Shibuya. This is totally crazy though… it’s a huge catch! I’m pumped.”

timrodresized: Only Dante (from the Devil May Cry series, who is not featured in this game) gets to say that. Anyway, we’re at “the” cutscene now.

timrodresized: So, let’s talk about this cutscene a little. You might’ve heard about this because it was one of the big controversies in both the original game and Royal.

timrodresized: One of the few changes to this scene is that the NPCs have names where they had generic descriptors like every other non-portrait NPC in the base game.

timrodresized: The big complaint people had about this scene is that it not only uses gay stereotypes, but also portrays gay people as predators - in the original, they start talking about how attractive Ryuji is even though they know he’s a minor.

timrodresized: There’s a lot of problems with the writing here even in the old version. For one thing, Crossroads isn’t necessarily a bar for crossdressers or drag queens. Second, even if Ryuji did go near it, that doesn’t mean he’s into drag, given that okama bars also cater to gay people who aren’t into that.

timrodresized: This cutscene doesn’t add anything to the game. It’s not advancing the plot one iota, it’s not doing anything but just taking up space. The thing is, if there was a gay route in this game, this could’ve been used for that.

timrodresized: I should mention that a lot of the uh, usual crowd cried censorship when Atlus announced this scene was being changed, because of course they did. It’s a bad scene and should’ve just been removed entirely.

timrodresized: Like, imagine this scene being something where the gay guys approach Joker and Ryuji because they don’t often see young gay couples out in Shinjuku, especially not ones that are (apparently) underage.

timrodresized: If you tell them you’re straight and they’ve got the wrong idea, they’d say something like “Oh, we just saw you going into Crossroads and assumed since you were going into a gay nightlife hotspot that…”

timrodresized: You could then use it as an indicator for which romance route Joker would plan on pursuing - you could tell them Ryuji’s your boyfriend and that’d set you on his gay route, or tell them about Yusuke or Akechi and it’d set you on that route instead.

timrodresized: This scene is like, the epitome of the problems that Persona’s writing has under Hashino and is a very good example of the reasons why Hashino no longer works for Atlus.

timrodresized: In a better game, this would be how you’d end up with the secret Maid Yusuke cutscene and fight Kawakami as a superboss.

Morgana: “We’re pretty much already in Kaneshiro’s Palace! That was surprisingly easy! Shinjuku sure was crazy, huh…”

timrodresized: Oh, Mishima, you poor dumb bastard. You poor, dumb, overly horny bastard.

timrodresized: Anyway, tonight, we study at Leblanc… only something doesn’t happen that should. We should be ranked up to 4 on Knowledge, but that doesn’t wind up happening until tomorrow, meaning we’re a day behind.

timrodresized: The guide CLAIMS that it doesn’t take the bonuses from pool into effect, but I think the main 100% guide on Gamefaqs is actually just a translation of a Japanese guide, and the original guide author may have reloaded on those days we did pool to get the bonuses into Knowledge. It could also be a typo.

timrodresized: Most likely, this is NOT a permafuck. Because we’re only about three points behind on Knowledge, I can just reload the next pool event to catch us back up. We should also be six points ahead on Charm (since I got charm from pool both times) and can probably re-arrange things to make that work.

timrodresized: For reference, this happened to me in both runs of Persona 4 I did and in the base game run of Persona 5, and none of those were permafucks. I don’t think there are even any confidant events that require Knowledge 5 until the end of the game anyway, and by that point if we need to take a free night to study that’s not a huge deal.

timrodresized: If you were watching the stream, I had a bit of a panic because I thought we were also somehow behind on Charm. We’re not, I just mis-read the 2 we have in Kindness as being in Charm instead. It also doesn’t help that the guide I’m using kinda sucks.

timrodresized: The problem with the guide, and I didn’t understand this at first, is that it has two routes: one is a modified version of the base game 100% route which would have us significantly further ahead on confidants than we actually are.

timrodresized: The one we’re doing is different because it purposely holds back on a couple of confidants (while still getting 100%) because there are certain confidant events that don’t happen if you progress other confidants too far by the time you get to them. I thought for a minute I was somehow following the other part of the guide, but I’ve checked and we’ve done everything right.

timrodresized: Next time, we get to see Makoto be the smart girl and also go to Kaneshiro’s palace for the first time.