Colors Flying High - Let's Play Persona 5 Royal

[Timrod]

Summary

: Glad that’s finally over. April 12th will also be a long day, mostly due to some new cutscenes and tutorials that were added for Royal.

: The game doesn’t give you a break after 4/11 - you just wake up in Leblanc and Joker goes right out by himself.

: Gotta love that guy on the PS Vita. I think I got my first one around this time - it was already deeply discounted and I think I picked mine up for like $80.

: They’re not wrong - the Japanese economy kinda tanked in 2016. To understand why, you have to understand the situation the entire country has been in since the early 1990s.

: In the late 80s, Japan’s economy was in this uncontrolled state of expansion known as “the bubble”. Stock prices shot up, real estate markets were booming, credit was being handed out like candy. The government didn’t want to touch it, and then in the early 90s they started intervening all at once.

: The bubble popped, and it popped hard. Japan’s major stock index, the Nikkei, lost something like 35% of its overall value and has never touched its pre-crash levels.

: To try and keep their economy afloat, the Japanese government started doing all kinds of crazy stuff that most other countries considered outlandish until fairly recently. They started by lowering interest rates, until they hit zero. Part of why the economy tanked in 2016 was that 2016 marked the first time the government allowed interest rates to go negative - negative interest rates mean that banks charge you to hold your money. This caused a massive flight of foreign investors out of the Japanese economy.

: They’ve also done a couple of other things that probably were not the best ideas, like having the government buy stocks. Right now, the Japanese government owns roughly 8% of the entire Japanese stock market. They bought in at high prices, can’t sell because it’d crash the market, and can’t do anything with the shares. They actually almost went insolvent when COVID first hit.

: I think I have file footage of this from the live-action P5 stageplay.

: “I mean - excuse me, that seat was for this lady…”

: I think if I have one complaint about Royal (apart from the fact that they didn’t fire Hashino and do a complete plot overhaul) it’s that these scenes with Not-Elly can make the game drag a little bit.

: "It’s all right. I can understand his position as well.

: “I’m sorry I couldn’t be any help.”

: “Please allow me to carry your luggage, at least.”

: “Not at all! I train plenty.”

: “Thank you so much for earlier.”

: “For speaking up when I offered my seat on the train. You’re a second-year at Shujin Academy, correct? I’m a first-year there myself.”

: “Thanking you totally slipped my mind back on the train, and I didn’t want to be rude to my senpai. Please, excuse me!”

: This honestly kind of reminds me of Densha Otoko - it was a thing that happened in the early 2000s on 2ch where an otaku stops a drunken guy from harassing a woman on a train. They wind up getting married. Supposedly it’s a true story but it’s 2ch so who knows. There was a live-action drama made out of it that was actually not bad.

: This guy reminds me of an executive from Honda I met once when I was working temp jobs.

: “Hmph.. you all look like you’ve been spoiled growing up. Can’t wait to see who disappoints me the most this year.”

: “A certain dictionary defines a year as a period of 365 disappointments. The book’s title is about as cynically satirical as the rest of it. It’s ‘The Devil’s Dictionary’ by Ambrose Bierce.”

: Just like Persona 3 and Persona 4, we’ll occasionally get asked questions in class. This is one of the less bullshit ones - though I still think it’s kind of bullshit. I mean, it’s not like this is a book most people have read.

[Source: The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce]

: Thankfully, Project Gutenberg has a copy available online. The guide also has the answer, but I don’t know how you’re supposed to figure this out without either looking it up or resetting until you get it.

: “Correct. ‘Malefactors’, to be specific. You actually knew that, huh?”

: “Sure, villains can affect the course of history. But remember that this definition is a sardonic witticism, nothing more. Here in the real world, villains don’t push humanity forward. All they do is spread chaos and strife.”

: Let me explain what this is. In addition to his combat stats, Joker also has a set of social stats. These are controlled by hidden numbers and level up when that number hits certain breakpoints. There’s five levels of each stat, and each confidant has a stat requirement to either access it in the first place or to advance it beyond a certain point.

: For a 100% run like we’re doing, it is absolutely imperative that we do everything correctly. Missing even one of these point opportunities can permanently fuck you out of 100% if you don’t catch it.

: Thankfully, one thing Royal changed is that all the point values are now fixed. In the original game, there were a few points where you had to reset until you got the RNG you needed. The music notes also are not indicative of how many points you got: one note is two points, as an example.

: Joker in the background screaming “I did weed ONCE, okay!?”

: “Things have been pretty dangerous lately with all those accidents.”

: Ann is a model, because she’s Lisa and Lisa was an idol.

: “Hey, now.. being a model’s fine and dandy, but don’t work your pretty little self to the bone. You mentioned you weren’t feeling well, right? Something about appendicitis?”

: “Yes. I keep planning to go to the hospital, but I’ve been too busy… sorry to worry you.”

: “You must be lonely too. I feel bad for keeping your best friend at practice so often.”

: “Oh, and.. be careful around that transfer student. He’s got a criminal record, after all. If something were to happen to you..”

: “… Thank you. Please excuse me.”

: “I wanna talk about that castle from yesterday. I tried tellin’ myself it was all just a dream… but I couldn’t do it.”

: “I can’t act like nothing happened. It’s all connected to that bastard Kamoshida, after all.”

: “I wanna find out what’s up with that place, no matter what. And y’know, you’re the only person I can rely on for this stuff. So, you in?”

: “Nice! Okay, glad we’re in this together. I think we should try and retrace our steps from yesterday. In the meantime, you’re walkin’ to the station, right? Let’s go together.”

: “Lemme know if you notice any other weird buildings on the way.”

: “…When’d they build something like that, though? We walked this way from here, right?”

: “When you put it that way, I’m not so sure anymore… all right, this way. Lemme know if you notice something.”

: “We’re at school. There wasn’t anything out of place along the way, right? I didn’t see no castle either..”

: “We must’ve made a wrong turn somewhere. Let’s try again.”

: “Don’t worry, I won’t mess up this time. Let’s go.”

: “Is it smaller than we think? What do you think?”

: “I already did that. I didn’t see anything like it around here.”

: “Huh? Phone.. Hey, that reminds me - didn’t you have a navigation app thingy on, back then?”

: “I dunno if it was or not, but I heard stuff that sounded like one comin’ from your phone. Y’know, didn’t it say stuff like ‘returned to the real world’ or something like that?”

: “Lemme see your phone for a bit. What’s this eyeball-lookin’ thing?”

: “What? What a weird app… oh wait, this is it! I knew it - it IS a navigation app! There’s even your search history.”

: “Let’s try usin’ it.”

: “Then I’ll do it.”

: “There we go! Then, we went in a certain direction, and-”

: “Huh? What the hell?”

: This whole scene feels like it’s longer than it absolutely needed to be. You’d think they could’ve just had Ryuji go “I went home last night and looked for that castle on my phone, but there’s no castles anywhere near Shibuya” and skipped the whole walking around part.

: “…Yeargh! Those clothes!”

: “What’s with that outfit!?”

: “I don’t get it either… what’s goin’ on here!? This makes no effin’ sense at all.”

: “Ah… you!?”

: “The Shadows here started acting up, so I came here wondering what it could be… to think you guys would come back to the entrance when you barely managed to escape.”

: “What is this place? Is it the school?”

: “That’s right.”

: “But it’s a castle!”

: “This castle IS the school.. but only to this castle’s ruler.”

: I’m at the Pizza Hut! I’m at the Taco Bell! I’m at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, right here on Jamaica Avenue.

: “The castle’s ruler?”

: “I think you called him Kamoshida? It’s how his distorted heart views the school.”

: “Kamoshida.. distorted.. explain it in a way that makes sense!”

: “I shouldn’t have expected a moron to get it..”

: “What’d you say!?”

: There’s a stock scream effect here.

: “What was that!?”

: “It must be the slaves captive here.”

: This entire segment of the game is not going to make any sense at all. Just a heads up.

: “For real!? Oh shit… it’s for real!”

: “We saw other guys held captive here yesterday… I’m pretty sure they’re from our school.”

: “Most likely on Kamoshida’s orders. It’s nothing out of the ordinary; it’s like that every day here.”

: “What’s more, you two escaped yesterday. He must have lost his temper quite a bit.”

: “That son of a bitch!”

: “Ryuji?”

: “This is bullshit!”

: “Doing that isn’t going to open it, you know… still, it seems you have your reasons.”

: “Hey, Monamona!”

: “It’s Morgana!”

: “Do you know where those voices are comin’ from?”

: “You want me to take you to them? Well, I guess I could guide you there. But only if he comes with us.”

: “It’s settled then!”

: “For real!? … thanks, man.”

: “Ain’t that where we escaped out of last time…?”

: “That’s right. Not barging in through the entrance is one of the basics of phantom thievery.”

: Unless you’re that Pathfinder group I played with where their definition of “subtle” was using a battering ram.

: “How’re we supposed to know about that stuff…?”

: “I’ll make sure to teach you as we go. Come on, follow me!”

: “So uh.. sorry for draggin’ you into all of this.. but I just can’t forgive that bastard Kamoshida doin’ whatever the hell he wants!”

: “Mm-hm. Now, make sure you do exactly as I say, all right?”

: Morgana does the whole Sonic leg blur thing when he runs.

: “I was seein’ double or something just now…! Was that Shujin!?”

: I feel like this game kind of goes overboard on making sure you know what’s going on. I mean, we already know that the castle is the school.

: “I’ve told you before. This place is your school. Regardless, we don’t have the time to stand around. Who knows when a Shadow might show up.”

: This next part is all tutorials, so I’ll be skipping a lot of it.

: Like the rest of the Persona series post-Eternal Punishment, random encounters are no more. Instead, enemies show up on the map. If you manage to get behind them (this is fairly easy) you get an “ambush” that guarantees you a first strike.

: This mechanic is not only useful, but kind of necessary as we’ll see later. It reduces the amount of SP you’re going to spend healing, which in turn means you can grind more.

: The battle results screen is kind of neat in that Joker will motion to his party and then start running.. until you realize he’s running around in a circle so you don’t lose your position.

: “Dammit, they were here before! Where’d they go!?”

: “Quiet down!”

: “Oh yeah, there were more of 'em further in, too!”

: “They might have been transferred already…”

: “It would be a problem if they discovered us now…”

: “How can you tell?”

: “There’s a lack of distortion here, meaning the ruler’s control over this area is weak.”

: Anime_Butterfly_Meme.jpg

: “Now do you understand? This place is another reality that the ruler’s heart projects.”

: "This is Kamoshida’s reality? Shit makes no sense at all!’

: “One could say it’s a world in which one’s distorted desires have materialized. I call such a place a Palace.”

: Oh, I call that the secret menu at this one burger place around here that closed a few years ago. They had some really dumb crap on that menu - and then they had the legendary Meatball Burger which was a burger coated in breadcrumbs like a meatball and then covered in sauce and mozzarella cheese, served in a grinder roll. That shit was incredible.

: “A Palace?”

: “This is happening because he thinks the school is his own castle.”

: I said this game ties into Persona 2 in a lot of ways, and this is one of them. If you’ll remember, Xibalba in Innocent Sin was a dungeon formed entirely of people’s thoughts. Atlus took this concept and just made an entire game out of it.

: “You must really hate this Kamoshida guy.”

: “Hate doesn’t even cover how I feel. Everything is that asshole’s fault!”

: “I don’t know what happened between you two, but don’t let your emotions get the better of you. His lackeys are everywhere inside.”

: “You’re curious about your outfit, aren’t you?”

: “Yeah, I’m curious as hell about it too.”

: “That’s also because of this world.”

: “More stuff that makes no sense…”

: “Anything distorts according to how a ruler pleases within his Palace. A school can turn into a castle like this, after all.”

: “In order to prevent such distortions, one must hold a powerful will of rebellion. Your appearance is a manifestation of that. It’s the image of rebellion that you hold within.”

: Honestly, it kind of makes no sense that this game takes place in Japan given that all but one of the characters in this game have images of rebels that are non-Japanese.

: “Uuugh, I’m so fed up with all this! I’m more curious about you than his clothes! What the hell are you anyways!?”

: Is this a Persona game, or am I playing Ace Attorney and I didn’t realize it? Shit, imagine if Phoenix Wright had a Persona. Edgeworth’s would obviously be the Steel Samurai.

: “This is, well… it’s because I lost my true form. I think.”

: I should mention that if you’ve played Persona 4, you will see Morgana’s story coming from a mile away.

: “But I do know how to regain my true form. The reason why I snuck in here was for a preliminary investigation of those means.”

: “Well, I ended up getting caught, though.. besides, I’ve been tortured by Kamoshida too! I’m gonna make him pay for sure!”

: “What is this, a comic book? This is seriously crazy…”

: The subtitles say comic book but they’re not accurate, he clearly says manga. I feel like if you’re gonna keep shit like honorifics in, you kind of can’t do that.

: “If we’re gonna keep going, we should hurry along. I’ll be counting on your skills this time too, rookie. Got it?”

: “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna force it all on you. I thought it might help, so…”

: The game fucking chickens out on just giving the characters real guns. I’d say they did it because it’s “problematic” for high schoolers to carry firearms but then SMT V apparently will have a character who is a high schooler and uses a gun.

: “That’s a toy!”

: “But it looks totally real, so it’ll at least fake ‘em out. I brought some medicine too. You know what they say, ‘Providin’ is pre.. something.’ Huh? Huh?”

: “So you were planning this from the start… well, fine. If you’re ready to go, we’ll resume our infiltration.”

: Even though we have a gun, we can’t use it yet because the game expects us to sit through more bullshit first. There’s a tutorial about how what we’re in right now is a save room where you can save and switch out party members. I’ll skip that. We’ve done Snow Queen the hard way, we can handle it.

: “Did you hear that? I think that’s just a little further ahead. Let’s go!”

: There’s another tutorial here about Security Level, which is the other mechanic that ties in with ambushing enemies.

: We’ll almost never see the security level meter because ambushing enemies reduces it and most of the game it’ll be at zero. The higher the security level, the more enemies spawn. If it reaches 100%, you get thrown out of the dungeon. We don’t want that, because we need to do every dungeon in the absolute minimum number of days possible.

: This fight is against two Mandrakes, making their first appearance in the Persona series despite being in most of the mainline SMT games.

: They don’t do a whole lot of damage and go down pretty quickly.

: I’m going to skip a little bit of the dialog here, but this is where the plot gets real dumb.

: “But all I got is this toy from earlier.. I’m such a loser.”

: “Huh? Do you mean that gun?”

: “Yeah… it looks real n’ all, but it doesn’t shoot anything..”

: “Okay, we’ll use that to take down the enemies!”

: “What!? Were you listenin’ to me? It don’t even shoot pellets..”

: “Don’t worry, I’m sure this’ll work. Attack away, Frizzy Hair!”

: So instead of doing the logical thing and giving Ryuji the gun, we’re giving it to Joker. Even if you assume that Persona 1 rules regarding fighting demons without a Persona are still in play (read: getting hit by magic instakills you) it’d still make more sense to give Ryuji the gun.

: We now have access to the best command: GUN.

: In the base game, guns were laughably useless due to their low ammo count. In this game? They fully expect you to start each fight by emptying your magazine. This will probably change my playstyle a bit. In the base game, I never bothered upgrading guns until the end of the game, because there wasn’t a point and it saved money not buying them.

: In Royal though, guns rule. You can see here we took out the Pyro Jack with five bullets (I think one missed) and I was still able to do like half the Mandrake’s HP in damage with the remaining three. With a full party, it’s definitely possible to gun down the earlier enemies in Kamoshida’s Palace without them ever getting a turn.

: Morgana’s gun is a giant slingshot, which from what I remember in the base game was the worst of all the gun types. I should mention that Joker’s starting gun is a Tokarev TT-33, a Soviet-made pistol chambered in the 7.62 x 25mm Tokarev round. These days, you’d be far more likely to see a Type 54 instead: they’re Chinese-made knockoffs of the TT-33 that are usually chambered in 9mm parabellum and have 9-round magazines instead of the 8 that most TT-33 models had.

: “As long as our opponent sees it as real, it becomes such. It’s a good thing it’s realistic-looking.”

: “… I don’t get it.”

: “Because they recognize it as a gun, your ammo capacity is limited in battle. But your enemies are expecting you to come at them with guns loaded, so your ammo’s replenished in every new fight.”

: I’m pretty sure the reason the game is hammering this in so hard is because Royal rebalanced a lot of enemies around you starting every fight with a mag dump. Most people who played the base game would never do that just on instinct alone. Also, this cutscene makes fuck-all sense. Morgana knew the gun would work.. but just didn’t say anything.

: This is followed by another tutorial fight where they tell you yet again “Go ahead and magdump! Devil bust the shit out of these fucks like you’re the SMT 1 protagonist!”

: Mandrakes are a bit more spongy than Pyro Jack is.

: The game then gives us access to direct commands over our party members. There’s an option to have your party controlled by the AI like in Persona 3, but why the fuck would you do that?

: The game even forces you to pick. You can change it whenever, but always pick Direct Commands. Otherwise, you get shit like this. Don’t be Mitsuru and waste your SP on Tentarafoo and Marin Karin. Be Elly, who spends her SP spamming Megidolaon for shitloads of damage.

: There’s an enemy at the end of this hallway, and now it’s time to show the Magdump Principle at work.

: Joker nearly kills both of them in one mag dump. SP? Skills? Who cares, I’ve got a gun with a magically refilling magazine.

: Another tutorial fight. Remember that finisher that Not-Elly did in the intro? We’re going to learn how to do that.

: The game forces us to cast Eiha, which the Pixie is weak to. This knocks the Pixie down, and because it’s the only enemy on the board…

: Now that we’ve got them at our mercy, we can use an All-Out Attack, which hits for a shitload of Almighty damage and bypasses defense. These can only be used in a very specific circumstance:

• All enemies are knocked down and you are in a Hold Up
• Joker is not under a status effect that would prevent him from attacking
• There’s at least one other party member alive and able to attack.

: If nothing else, Persona 5 is pretty stylish. This is also Joker’s Final Smash in Ultimate. I should mention that the finisher screen you get is decided based on who made the last move before the Hold Up was initiated. It also only happens if all the enemies die from the All-Out Attack. This means it’s much harder to do with the non-Joker party members. I think in my playthrough of the first game I saw Morgana’s maybe once after I made an elaborate setup to force it.

: “Kamoshida’s… Training Hall.. of Love? What kinda bullshit is this!?”

: Oh shit! It’s Nemesis Tower! If you haven’t read the Persona 1 LP, Nemesis tower is part of Snow Queen. It’s a tower ruled by a crazy bitch who captures a couple of people from the protagonist’s school and tortures them because her powers are based on hatred.

: “How many times do I have to tell you to keep your voice down!?”

: “But this is beyond messed up! How do I open this!?”

: “You’re tellin’ me you want to stay in a place like this!?”

: “Wait a minute.. were you planning on taking these guys out of here?”

: “We can’t just leave 'em here!”

: “How stupid can you be?”

: “What!?”

: “These are only humans in Kamoshida’s cognition. They aren’t real humans that have entered from reality. They’re different from you two.”

: “Cognition…?”

: This is why Persona 5’s plot is extremely weak as a whole. In Persona 4, your motivation for going into the Midnight Channel was to stop people from being executed by their shadows. Persona 1 and Innocent Sin both had the threat of the world being destroyed.

: Instead, the sense of urgency is.. just kinda not there. There are deadlines to complete the dungeons just like in 4, but the reasons behind it are increasingly stupid.

: “The hell!? Why’s it gotta be so complicated? So the school’s a castle, and the students are slaves… it’s so on point that it makes me laugh. This really is the inside of that asshole’s head!”

: “Still, this is horrible. It must mean he treats them as slaves in the real world too.”

: “In the real world too? Wait, I know these guys…”

: “They must be physically abused every day.. there’s no way they’d be so beat up normally.”

: “Don’t tell me.. they’re going through similar shit in reality!?”

: “Most likely. I mean, this proves that Kamoshida thinks of them as slaves.”

: “So it might be for real… I heard that Kamoshida’s using physical punishment. They’re just rumors, but.. if they’re true, wouldn’t this be somethin’ to report to the police!?”

: “I’ll use these guys as evidence. If it all goes well, we can take down that asshole Kamoshida!”

: It’s dumb that both Persona 1 and Persona 2 had characters who could take pictures of demons, but they can’t do it here for some reason.

: “A navigation app?”

: “That’s what we used to come here. What about yours?”

: “Whatever you do is fine, but we’re gonna get caught if we stand around like this. We need to head back!”

: “Hang on a sec! There’s no other way… I’ll just memorize their faces before goin’ home!”

: “Not givin’ athletes water even for tough trainin’ is a common thing in the real world too. That sack of shit! I’m gonna try and memorize all these guys’ faces before we go back.”

: So here’s what I don’t get, right? If you know these guys are all on the volleyball team, couldn’t you just.. I dunno, do this in the real world?

: “What’re you talking about!? You’re seriously okay with this!? Tch.. I guess there’s no point tryin’ to talk to 'em…”

: “The hell…? This ain’t trainin’ at all.. it’s just violence! This means he’s been doin’ something similar in reality too, right? Damn that bastard!”

: I’d like to point out that this uh.. duplicate I guess? is having explosive volleyballs shot out of a cannon at his dick. Somehow, I doubt Kamoshida is doing that.

: “Oh, my bad! I gotta hurry this up. Gimme a sec and I’ll memorize 'em as quick as I can.”

: “Hey, are you done yet!? We’re cutting it close here!”

: “Don’t freak me out like that, you goddamn moron! Anyways, I got all of 'em!”

: “Then let’s stop wasting time! We need to scram!”

: “To think you’d make the same mistake again. You’re hopeless!”

: “The school ain’t your castle! I’ve memorized their faces real good. You’re goin’ down!”

: Somehow, I don’t think this is a thing anyone has ever actually said. Just a hunch.

: “How far the star runner of the track team has fallen.”

: “What the hell are you gettin’ at!?”

: “I speak of the Track Traitor who acted in violence, ending his teammates’ dreams. Oh, I can only imagine the pain of the others who were dragged under with your… selfish act.”

: “Ngh…”

: Track Traitor sounds like a villain in Initial D.

: “What a surprise. So you’re accompanying him without knowing anything at all? He betrayed his teammates and crushed their hopes, yet he still carries on as carefree as ever.”

: “What a tragedy. You blindly trusted this fool, and he’s led you right to your death.”

: “Hurry up and dispose of them. I can’t stand their stench.”

: The two soldiers reveal themselves as Bicorns, which surprisingly is not a portmanteau of “bisexual” and “unicorn”.

: Bicorns are regular enemies in the later parts of Kamoshida’s Palace. This fight is one we have to lose, though.

: In the base game, you probably never would’ve gotten one of these this low on health without blowing all your bullets on it. They’re scripted to not die - at 1 HP they just stop taking damage. If this was an actual fight I could almost have killed two of them in one go.

: “No…”

: “What a worthless piece of trash, getting emotional so quickly.. how dare you raise your hand at me.”

: “Though it was only temporary, have you forgotten my kindness in supervising track practice?”

: “Wasn’t no practice - it was physical abuse! You just didn’t like our team!”

: “It was nothing but an eyesore! The only one who needs to achieve results is me!”

: “…What?”

: “Do you need me to deal with your other leg too? The school will call it self-defense anyway!”

: This would make Ryuji into Anna Yoshizaka with the serial numbers filed off. Anna has pretty much the exact same story in Innocent Sin that Ryuji does: she’s a track star who has her leg broken (in her case it’s a car accident) and becomes a delinquent. In case you’re wondering, no, none of the characters in Persona 5 are in any way original.

: “Dammit… am I gonna lose again? Not only can I not run anymore… the track team is gone too 'cause of this asshole..”

: “Once these two are dealt with, you’re next. Hahahaha!”

: He’s cartoonishly evil. I mean, let’s just look at what he’s doing here: he’s beating the shit out of a bunch of kids, broke a kid’s leg because he was jealous (making him a male Tonya Harding), disbanded the track team for the lulz, and as you can probably guess from how he talks to Ann is also sexually assaulting minors. I’m kind of surprised that he hasn’t like, gone around shooting boxes of puppies or burning down an orphanage or something.

: “Ryuji!”

: “…You’re right. Everything that was important to me was taken by him… I’ll never get 'em back!”

: He’ll never get his ability to speak in the active voice back. And while yes, I understand that people like Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein exist and that abuse like that is a very real thing, the way Hashino wrote this is kind of over the top.

: “Stay there and watch. Look on as these hopeless scum die for nothing because they sided with trash like you.”

: “No.. that’s what you are…”

: Meet Captain Kidd, Ryuji’s Persona. As a “sign of rebellion”, he kind of makes no sense.

: The real-life Captain Kidd wasn’t really a pirate. He was a privateer commissioned by the English government to defend trade ships rather than to attack them. There was some degree of understanding that if he were to run into an enemy ship he was free to rob them, but from what I understand, most of Captain Kidd’s career was guarding ships and basically being a soldier.

: He got a second commission in 1696 to go to the Indian Ocean and hunt down pirates - with the same understanding that he was allowed to capture and rob enemy ships. Captain Kidd did so poorly that his crew mutinied and captured a ship by themselves without him really taking part in it. There’s even some evidence that when Kidd learned that the captain of the ship they were pirating was English, he demanded that the crew stop what they were doing at once.

: Unfortunately for him and his crew, England declared piracy illegal while they were still at sea. When he returned to North America, he found he had been deemed a pirate and was to be sent to England for trial. The English hanged him with no real proof on charges of piracy and murder (he had killed one of his mutinous crew).

: As a misunderstood figure, he certainly fits Ryuji… but as a rebel? Hardly. He was following the orders of the English government the entire time. Blackbeard would’ve been a way better choice.

: The gold armored soldier turns into Eligor, who is less of a dick than he was in Persona 1, but still a dick.

NEW PERSONA: Captain William Kidd

Origin: Scotland (A Real Person)

Persona 5 Original

One of the few actual historical figures to make it into a Persona game - most of the others being in Persona 2. Scottish privateer who sucked at being a pirate.

: Eligor immediately summons two Bicorns, which was a mistake when he could’ve summoned a single Quadricorn instead.

: Ryuji gets a shotgun - he’s using a Remington 870 pump-action shotgun. It’s the same one that most of the classes in TF2 use. Unfortunately, Eligor resists gun damage. What you’re supposed to do here is realize that the Bicorns are weak to Electric and chain-Zio them into an All-Out Attack. I did not do this.

: Instead, I gunned the Bicorns down first.

: Eligor hits like a truck, and honestly there was no reason for me to conserve SP because this is the last fight before we leave.

: I eventually said fuck it and just Zio’d Eligor to death. Because he counts as a mini-boss, you can’t knock him down.

: “How 'bout that!?”

: “Whoa… so Ryuji had the potential too…”

: “Even if you apologize now, I ain’t forgivin’ you!”

: “I told you that this is my castle. It seems you still don’t understand…”

: “Oh… wha… what a meow-velous and beautiful girl…”

: Just like how Teddie in P4 was thirsty for Yukiko, Morgana is going to spend the rest of this game very thirsty for Ann.

: “What’s going on!?”

: “Yeah, now that you mention it… but why is she even here!?”

: “Hey! Let go of her, you perv!”

: “That is, everyone but slow-witted thieves like you.”

: “Takamaki! Say somethin’!”

: “Calm down, Ryuji! It seems that girl isn’t the real one. She’s the same as those slaves - a being made from Kamoshida’s cognition of her!”

: “Are you jealous? Well, I’m not surprised. Women aren’t drawn to problematic punks like you.”

: “Dammit…”

: “Thank god you’ve got a level head.”

: “Ngh.. fine. We’ll expose what you really are, no matter what! You better be ready for us!”

: “Hahaha! I was beginning to get bored of torturing the ones here! Come at me whenever you want, if you don’t care about your life! Haaaaahahaha!”

: “Ignore him, let’s go!”

: “I don’t remember changing into this!”

: “Uh… should I be happy about that? Then again, it ain’t as bad as yours.”

: “So what’s goin’ on? I’m completely lost, man!”

: “I told you before. When a Persona-user opposes a Palace’s ruler and becomes a threat to them, this happens. It’s to prevent you from being affected by distortions.”

: This is.. what, the third time they’ve explained this? I think this is part of the reason I had such a hard time getting invested in the plot when I played this the first time. I’m sure if you look back that Persona 4 does some of the same stuff but I feel like P4 didn’t quite bash you over the head this hard.

: “Your appearance reflects your inner self. It’s the rebel that slumbers within… not that you’ll get it.”

: “Nope…”

: “Then stop asking questions and accept what you see for what it is.”

: “Easy for you to say. Wait, we’re in deep shit!”

: “I said to be quiet!”

: “We might’ve gotten away here, but we’re still screwed with Kamoshida at the real school..”

: “That’s quite sharp of you.. for being an idiot! Relax. The Kamoshida in reality can’t possibly know about what happens here.”

: So uh.. here’s the thing about this. Actually, two things. First is that for the most part this is true until they forget about it.

: Second, isn’t this just kinda Minority Report, or in extreme danger of becoming Minority Report? If you haven’t seen that, it’s a movie about a world where psychics can predict crimes before they happen and arrest people for them. Naturally, the twist is that they’re not always right.

: Not to knock this or anything, since I get that Jung is complicated enough that they have to explain parts of it in every game, but I think Persona 4 did this a lot better. P4 Golden had an entire side thing explaining the Jungian stuff, which you can see in the LP on the archive.

: “…So we’re okay?”

: “Did the Kamoshida in reality remember about the execution?”

: “All right! Now that we know that, all we gotta do is-”

: “Wait. I guided you as promised. It’s your turn to cooperate with me. That’s why I was super nice about teaching you idiots everything.”

: “Don’t you remember? I originally came here for an investigation. I need to erase the distortion from my body and regain my real form!”

: Mementos is this game’s equivalent of the Mikage Ruins, Devil’s Peak, and/or the Abandoned Factory. I think there’s a tutorial on it where you have to go in at some point, but beyond that the only time we’ll be touching Mementos is at the very end of the game.

: “Whoa, hold up. What’re you goin’ on and on about? We never said anything about helpin’ you out.”

: God dammit no I am not doing the Bane meme for a third LP but this is just begging for a “Was getting caught part of your master plan?”

: It’s because you’re an annoying mascot character in a game where the writers should’ve learned that no one likes annoying mascot characters. This is post-Borderlands when Anthony Burch ran that shit into the ground.

: “We’re busy! Thanks for everything, cat. You’ve got guts, bein’ a cat and all.”

: When you’re playing FF14 and your tank’s a female Miqo’te.

: “…Thank god. We’re back.”

: “I dragged you around a lot, huh? …Sorry, man.”

: “Ugh, I’m dead tired… how you holdin’ up?”

: “That’s impressive. I’m exhausted even though I used to do track. But damn, if what we saw was for real, this is gonna get good!”

: “I totally remember the faces of the guys Kamoshida was treatin’ like slaves. Once we make 'em fess up to any physical abuse, Kamoshida will be done.”

: “So… wanna help me look for those guys or any witnesses?”

: “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!”

: “Hey, so… if you’re thinkin’ of layin’ low 'cause you got a record, I don’t think that’ll help… everyone already knows. They totally got you pegged as a criminal.”

: “Kamoshida opened his damn mouth!”

: “No one else besides a teacher could’ve leaked it that fast! It doesn’t matter if it’s a student or a club; that asshole just wrecks things he doesn’t agree with. Just like he did with me!”

: “No one’ll take anything I say seriously. Still, those rumors about him gettin’ physical might be real. And after seein’ Kamoshida’s distorted-heart thing in person, there’s no way I can just sit back!”

: Remember how in the last update I said that Sae pops up to ask nonsensical questions? We’re about to get our first Confidant - the P5 equivalent of Social Links. She will pop up every time we get a Confidant, even if they’re not a party member and have nothing to do with the group.

: “However, you did not. There are merits to having associates. That’s what you decided.”

: “Oh.. right. I haven’t eaten anything since lunch. It’d be weird splittin’ off now, so why don’t we grab a bite somewhere?”

: Let me explain a little about how Confidants work. Like Social Links in Persona 3 and Persona 4, Confidants are ranked from 1 to 10. Mechanically, they work exactly like the social stats do - you have a number of ways to gain points and once you reach a breakpoint the Confidant ranks up.

: Every time you rank up, there will be a cutscene kind of like this one. You’ll usually get asked questions that you have to answer a certain way for more points. Now, here’s the kicker - you get bonus points if you have a Persona in your stock that’s the same arcana as the Confidant when you meet with them. You do not need it equipped.

: This presents a unique challenge in that we have to keep certain Personas around because of their arcana. The bonus rule does not apply to certain confidants that rank up automatically with story progression.

: Now, let’s talk about some of the challenges in the All-Confidants run. First off, we need to max our social stats as early as possible because a lot of Confidants are gated by them - this can include rank-ups within a Confidant. We also need clear all dungeons in the minimum time possible. I believe in the original game you had something like four extra days at the end of the year in case you missed something.

: Second, Royal added TWO new Confidants. One of them has to reach Rank 9 before the end of October in order for you to access the new content that Royal added to the game - if you don’t meet that requirement, you get the ending from the base game instead and do NOT get the new content. This would fucking suck if you didn’t know this was the case, and I’m not entirely sure the game tells you this anywhere. Even though there’s more days in Royal and they made it easier to do Confidants, we’re still going to be a VERY tight schedule.

: “I mean, that’s not the point. I guess it’s how we’re treated like a pain in the ass by the people around us, like we don’t belong.”

: “I did something stupid at school before, too.”

: “The place you’re livin’ now is in.. Yongen, right? It’s rush hour on the subways. I suggest you kill some time before headin’ home.”

: “What the hell, man. You barely touched your food.”

: “Just lemme do it. I gotta thank you for helpin’ me. Anyways, I got your back like you got mine from now on.”

: “As long as we do something about Kamoshida, I’m sure we’ll both feel better about bein’ at school.”

: “Oh yeah! Tell me your number! Chat ID too.”

: Ahh, the ability to text. This allows our Confidants to spam walls of text at us because no one can just use a phone as a phone anymore.

: “Just you wait, Kamoshida.. we’re gonna start right away tomorrow. First, let’s hit up those guys that were kept as slaves.”

: “The volleyball rally’s tomorrow, huh? Shit’s recommended by Kamoshida. Makes me wanna gag. But thanks to that, we got no classes in the afternoon and we can walk around unnoticed.”

: “Well, I guess we can work out the details tomorrow.”

: John Persona is not hungry, because the only thing John Persona is hungry for.. is justice. And curry, apparently.

: You thought this day was over, didn’t you? Oh no, we’ve still got two more cutscenes and like five pages of text messages. I took roughly 1,250 screenshots for this day and the next one. Fully 80% of those are 4/12.

: I didn’t get a very good capture of this, but right after Ryuji says that, Sae and Akechi walk by. You can kinda see Sae behind Joker.

: This is Shiho. Shiho is Ann’s best friend that Kamoshida mentioned earlier.

: “I-I haven’t been sleeping well lately… whenever I close my eyes, I keep thinking about too many things..”

: “Shiho…”

: “Your skills have been recognized! It’s all because you work harder than anyone else.”

: “Yeah.. volleyball’s all I have, after all…”

: “More importantly, was that injury okay? It looked really swollen.”

: “No, it’s nothing. It’s normal.. especially since a meet’s coming up.”

: You know what I don’t get about any of this? Why wouldn’t the volleyball team just quit en masse? I get the whole thing about abuse and stockholm syndrome, but what’s he going to do if they quit? “You can’t quit, I need to be cartoonishly evil and beat the shit out of you!”

: “What does he want?”

: “…”

: “…”

“It’ll be fine! I bet it’s a meeting about the starting lineup or something!”

: “I take it you actually went to school today?”

: “I guess you learned your lesson after what happened yesterday. Eh, as long as you’re not getting into trouble, it’s fine by me.”

: “I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but trust me, you’ll be gone if you start causing problems. In case you forgot, your life is not a free one right now.”

: “Just stay away from bad influences, okay?”

: This is the day that never ends.

: “What are your thoughts? Are you becoming accustomed to this place?”

: This sucks, and no because fuck this day has gone on forever. I’m not sure 04/11 ever actually ended.

: “Ah, glad to hear it. It seems you have nerves of steel. The goal of your rehabilitation is to thwart the fated ruin. However, such a feat cannot be done by you alone.”

: “Today, you entered a partnership with someone who awoke to the same power, did you not?”

: “Involving yourself with others is an important foundation for your recovery. You’ve done well.”

: This sounds more like John Persona is talking to a life coach than anything.

: “That said, I am not advising the formation of superficial relationships. It must not be of frivolity, but a ring of those who would, by morals or faith, lend you their strength.”

: “In other words, they are bonds with those who have been robbed of their places to belong.”

: This entire cutscene could’ve been summed up in three words: “MAKE MORE FRIENDS”.

: “The expansion of said ring will, in return, help you mature as well.”

: One thing that’s always surprised me is that they haven’t tried to make a Persona MMO. SMT got one in the form of SMT Imagine, which died not long after it was made. The whole idea of social links would be perfect for an MMO.

: “Personas are the strength of heart.. the stronger the bonds that surround you, the more power your Persona will gain.”

: Translation - just like in P3 and P4, you get experience bonuses when fusing Personas of the same arcana as one of your Confidants.

: “There are countless people in the city who have talents that a weakling like you doesn’t. You better rack that noggin of yours and get them on your side. We’ll change that into power.”

: Fool is a Confidant that automatically ranks up with story progress, which is kind of hilarious when you consider that in Persona 1 and Persona 2 it was entirely possible to go an entire game without ever seeing a Fool Persona because of how bullshit hard they were to get. We can now do demon negotiations, because John Persona is not a clever man. He needs Igor to tell him how to make motorcycle noises.

: And with that…

: Next time, we’ll do the volleyball rally and hopefully get more than one day in at a time. I’ve actually already recorded the 13th and it’s a LOT shorter than the last two days.

: Oh, right. Here’s the music for this update.

: Take Over is another new song for Royal. It’s the obligatory new battle theme for the re-release, ala Time to Make History in P4 (probably my favorite battle song) and Wiping All Out in P3 Portable. It’s a good song, but it’s very different from the old battle theme. I’ve read that it always overrides the old theme if you get an ambush on an enemy (read: 99% of battles) which is kind of a shame. I should mention that despite the fact it’d make a better dance song than half the tracks on P5 Dancing, it was never released for P5D even as DLC.

: Last Surprise was the original battle theme, which still plays either at random or if you get into a fight that isn’t an ambush. It’s also a really good song and shows off how good P5’s music design is. The only weird thing is that while P5 sort of had this acid jazz theme going on, Royal kind of overwrites that with.. I don’t even know what you’d call Take Over. Fully a quarter of P5D’s song list is remixes of Last Surprise.