Click Here for Update 68
: We have a reading slot on the train, and Chinese Sweets is one of the few books that will still unlock something.
: “Everything from high-class, traditional cuisine to street food, like xiao long bao. This seems like a fun place to explore and try out all the different cuisine.”
: “There are a lot of students here at this hour. It’s refreshing to make the work commute at a different time every now and then.”
: “Hahaha… you caught me. On my way to work today, I ran into these old ladies carrying some heavy luggage. Three of them in fact. So I was offering to help carry their things, but then my back made this sound that it shouldn’t make…”
: “…Well, anyway! Have you heard the news from Yoshizawa-san? I’m so happy for her. It makes me feel like doing my best too! Of course, as I say that, I’m running late.”
: I was honestly confused as to what the shit he was talking about, and then remembered there’s a throwaway IM conversation in the last update about her doing another meet.
: “Well, hey, we all need to switch it up every now and then! So let’s do our best for today, shall we?”
: There’s a glorified tutorial here to let us know there’s new food available at the diner in Shibuya. We don’t care.
: “It seems so many of us have experienced this that a term has been created for it. The English name for that particular phenomenon can be abbreviated to ‘PVS’… would anyone care to tell me what that stands for?”
: “Mr. Kurusu! Let’s hear it. What is this phenomenon commonly called in English?”
: “Okay! Let’s remember what she said together. So ‘PVS’, referring to when you mistakenly think your phone is going off? What’s the P?”
: That’s not the only P we’ll be seeing this update. I’m not even kidding when I say we’re going to oneshot a boss later.
: “Right. It’s gotta start with ‘Phantom’, since you’re only imagining it. So next is the V part. That means it’d be ‘phantom…’ what?”
: “Yeah, that’s it! When your phone buzzes, you say it’s ‘vibrating.’ Last is the S. So if we have ‘phantom vibration’ so far…”
: I really wish they would’ve done this in reverse, where they ask you about a Japanese word instead for English players.
: “The correct English term is ‘phantom vibration syndrome’. If you’re anxiously waiting for someone to contact you, your brain will apparently trick you. This is an affliction that can only affect a modern society, where being connected 24/7 is commonplace.”
: There have been a number of studies on PVS and an associated syndrome called “Phantom Ringing”, but from casually looking it up, it seems like PVS was something talked about a lot in the sort of mid-2010s and kind of peters out after that.
: “When I was a student, I’d get all worked up waiting for my S.O. to call me at night. Nowadays people complain if you don’t reply to a text you just saw. Kind of obnoxious, if you ask me.”
: “Think it’ll ever get to a point where we’ll be able to read each other’s minds? …I’ll pass on that, thanks.”
: If Joker had telepathy, he’d build that big dumbass brain machine from the X-Men movies and broadcast air horns into the minds of the horny.
: We grab a money reading from Chihaya and head in. This was kind of a waste, because the one-turn-kill bonus from Hifumi will apply far more often.
: “Oh, just one moment! I can fight too! Please, let me join you in battle!”
: “Your Persona is too weak to fight safely at the moment. Just leave that side of things to us for now.”
: I think you mean just leave that side of things to me.
: There’s enemies in this first area now, which is what I was farming in that last update to get fusion alarms.
: Okumura’s palace is kind of ass-backwards from a design perspective in that the toughest enemies appear at the start. We know what Arahabaki is capable of.
: I didn’t have Mara for this first part, even though I could’ve. Instead, I wound up using Bugs for almost the entire first half of the dungeon. Bugs can singlehandedly deal with most of the enemies here.
: By the way, do NOT attempt to do the Greatest Weapon on an Arahabaki. Kill these fuckers immediately.
: Notice how low Joker’s HP is. This is because if you knock down Arahabaki and do not immediately follow up with a kill, it will cast Makarakarn on itself, reflecting the next magic attack to hit it.
: Since Arahabaki reflects Physical and Gun, this makes it effectively invincible unless you somehow have Makara Break or are willing to take a hit. That’s what happened to Joker here, and why I used Kougaon instead of Psiodyne, as Psiodyne would have been a game over.
: The other enemy type are these floating orbs.
: Any fight like this, where it’s just Decarabia, you can win in a single button press - that button being the “RUSH” button.
: Hitting an enemy who is weak to physical gives you an automatic crit, where the party member involved will follow up with a gun attack.
: There’s a chest in one of these early areas before the biometric door, which I don’t think you can get the first time you’re here. Most of the chests here contain Physical or Magic Ointment, which provide Tetrakarn and Makarakarn for physical and magic reflects, respectively.
: “Looks like a hamburger to me. I mean, we’re dealing with Big Bang Burger here.”
: “I’m sure it’ll become clearer as we proceed. Come on, let’s go.”
: “So, for the door in question…”
: “Leave it to me.”
: “Haha! That biometric scanner’s useless now that we’ve got his actual family on our side!”
: “Was that an act Mona put you up to? Y’know, the beauty thingy?”
: “I was trying to be a heroine of justice.”
: “Uh… is that a joke?”
: “You moron!”
: “Ever since I was young, people have never seen me for who I really am. They would be kind to me just to please my father, and would get money and presents in exchange. Adults, teachers, even friends… it seemed like everyone smiled at me for their own personal gain.”
: “That’s why you kept the details of your family a secret at school…”
: “But the female superheroes I used to see on TV were great! They always fought for others, not themselves… and they were always happy. I wanted to be just like that! Even though I knew it was a fantasy… I still looked up to them.”
: “Everyone goes wild over heroes at some point. It’s fine havin’ someone like that on our side, right, Joker?”
: You know what was a total waste? Having Okumura not be voiceacted by the guy who did Dessler in the Yamato remake. Funny enough, he also does Inspector Zenigata in the newer Lupin stuff.
: Instead, they got some no-name actor. His biggest credit to date is being about 30 different minor villains in One Piece. He was also in Policenauts.
: “This is insane on so many levels!”
: “Him!? Did he come into the Palace too?!?”
: “No! He might look the same, but that isn’t the real person. Remember what I explained to you earlier?”
: “You mean about the cognition thing?”
: “Do you recall what I said before? That I would do my best for you? This is my answer to that!”
: “Are those… the rumored Phantom Thieves? …I see!”
: Just like Sojiro, Discount Dessler has exactly two facial expressions. We’ve seen the first. The second… is MAXIMUM OVERSMUG.
: " ‘Overcome failure at any cost, even if it means betraying others’ … You truly embody the Okumura motto!"
: “Why do you only ever think about gains and losses!? That’s why the company has a bad reputation… all because you treat people like they’re tools!”
: “To gain, you must give… one must be resolved to give even more if they wish to stand above others.”
: “The cold reality of kicking people down is a part of business! Virtue and sentiment are for losers. chuckle Okumura foods shall be the foundation of my victory!”
: If we actually had Mara at this point, I would have made a joke about firing the wave motion gun.
: “His company is just a stepping stone…”
: “She needn’t be your lawful wife anymore… take her as your lover, or whatever it is you desire.”
: “Lover? I was raised under this company’s wealth… I even accepted a political marriage for you. This is not what we discussed! Father! You want me to be that man’s plaything just to satisfy your own ambitions?”
: “Hmph, why fret? You should be overjoyed that you’re fulfilling your role as an Okumura daughter. This is the only value you’ve had since the beginning.”
: “So… even his own daughter’s life is a commodity to him.”
: This looks like a Daft Punk music video.
: So here’s what I don’t like about this. With Kamoshida, who was the last boss to have a construct of a person, you knew that his portrayal of Ann is completely different from how Ann actually is.
: That’s why it made sense that his Ann looks the same but dresses differently - because what he had was basically Ann with a different personality slapped on.
: The thing with this is that we know this is how Yoshikage Kira actually is. There’s really no difference between this version of him and the real one, so it doesn’t really make sense for him to be a giant robot.
New Persona: Milady
Origin: The Three Musketeers
Persona 5 Original
Full name: Milady de Winter. Villain from The Three Musketeers.
: Time to cuckold a robot.
: “So this is Haru’s true power…!”
: “Haru… all right, let’s do this! Time to pummel that scummy jerk!”
: The big robot is weak to Psychic, while the small ones are weak to both Fire and Wind. I also find it funny that Haru replaced Makoto.
: Because Bugs is so fast, I managed to do this fight without the robots ever getting a turn. This is what you want to do even if for some reason you aren’t using Caroline and Justine’s confidant to break the game.
: If you don’t kill the small robots fast enough, they’ll use a spell that reduces their HP to 1 to heal each other or the big robot to full.
: Not entirely sure how the table lands like that, given that you can see the teapot loads underneath it.
: Makoto learns Nuke Boost. We’ll be swapping Yusuke out for her, because physical damage is the one thing you do not want to use in this dungeon.
: Here’s Haru’s Persona. She’s a Gun/Psychic hybrid, and learns Psy Boost pretty quickly.
: “I did it, Mona-chan!”
: “What were you sayin’ about her Persona bein’ weak?”
: “Ah! He disappeared! Is that okay?”
: “Are you sure you taught her how things work in here?”
: “I did… or so I thought.”
: “What’s the point if she doesn’t get it?”
: “Don’t worry. Cognitive beings have no correlation to their real-world counterparts. You’ll see when we get back. I guarantee he will be okay.”
: “Then, he’s not dead?”
: Don’t you just love cutscenes where they re-establish shit we’ve known since the beginning of the game?
: “That’s right.”
: “Dude, does this mean we got a new teammate? Good to have ya… uh…”
: “She already has a code name.”
: “I’d like to be a heroine of justice, but the Phantom Thieves are on the darker side of the law. I chose the name Noir to remind me of that.”
: “…There you have it.”
: “As long as she’s into it…”
: “She created quite an elaborate backstory…”
: “Noir. I like it. It conveys a dignity that won’t bow down to others, as well as a rebellious spirit toward society.”
: “Thank you.”
: “Don’t let your guard down, Noir. Our trip through the Palace doesn’t end until we steal the Treasure, after all.”
: “Hm, that seems quite far off… it is difficult to ascertain the shortest route there as well.”
: “We’ll just have to keep going on whatever path we find for the time being… let’s go.”
: There’s a save room to the left and a hallway to the right. This first part has nothing but Arahabaki and Decarabia in it, but during one fight, something interesting happens.
: We get a follow-up crit from Morgana.
: “No, this one isn’t a biometric authentication… but it might be hard to open it from here. We’ll probably need to look for a server or a terminal if we wanna break through.”
: “A server, huh…”
: There’s a small raised platform just to the right of the locked door with an air vent on it.
: This is the first dungeon outside of Mementos where we start getting these party chat things in real-time in the top right.
: “Mwehehe… watch this… all right, that should’ve opened up a buncha doors! I managed to grab a map of the place, too.”
: “I dunno about that… there are three more areas ahead: the barracks, the factory, and the airlock area…”
: In the base game, it was, and absolutely no one liked it. This is that dungeon I mentioned earlier that was reworked for Royal because it was the single most hated thing in the game.
: They also significantly nerfed the enemies - except for one, who we’ll meet in a bit and was the cause of two or three game overs, which were admittedly my fault.
: “Yeah, and what’re they makin’ in that factory? Burgers?”
: “Actually, I found one other interesting file when I was cracking into the system. It’s called ‘Project: Escape to Utopia’. There was some kinda blueprint inside too. It looks like whatever they’re making for it is ginormous. That factory can’t just be for burgers.”
: You’ll notice if you look at the minimap that the server rack is halfway through the room. If you go all the way through, Morgana will warn you about a nearby Will Seed.
: Two grappling hooks later and we’re at the seed room.
: “Hah. Seed room.”
: And now we can move past that locked door.
: “But it doesn’t seem to be completely out of order either. Perhaps it’s on another floor. Let’s try coming back later.”
: “That bastard really doesn’t trust anybody, huh?”
: “Skull!”
: “It’s all right. Father is clearly guilty of some horrible crimes… that’s why we will stop him.”
: “We’ll still need to think of a way to get past here though. Can you figure something out, Navi?”
: “If it’s not a normal lock or a biometric one, I think it might use rank-based authentication. Basically, you’ve gotta be at least a chief director to get through here.”
: Oh boy was this one of the worst parts of this dungeon in the base game. It’s so bad that I believe the speedrun skips it entirely by clipping through a wall.
: “Oh, you mean an employee ID! Those are used to authorize entry in the real world company as well.”
: “You two are so smart! That’s gotta be it!”
: “Then it’s decided. Let’s find an employee with the rank of chief director or higher and take their employee ID!”
: “Look, there’re a ton of ‘em… you wanna start takin’ their IDs?”
: “Not yet. If we go instead to their origin, there should be even more ‘employees’ for us.”
: “Oh, great idea. That should make it even easier to find a chief director! Let’s head over there, Joker.”
: “I did a scan of the area, but there are multiple large readings around here. They’re definitely different from normal robots, so it’s prolly one of them.”
: “So we’ll need to find which one is the real one? But how exactly will we do that?”
: This is where the new design for this area really kicks in. In the base game, you kind of stumbled on these robots in a room and that was where things went to shit.
: “By all appearances, that massive red robot must be quite important.”
: “True. Even if it isn’t a chief director, it might have some intel.”
: In the base game, there were several rooms like this one with a larger red robot in them. You had to eavesdrop on the small robots (which was VERY finicky) and then get clues to identify which of the big robots was the Chief Clerk.
: Once you had that, there was a dialog puzzle with each big robot where you had to determine which one matched the clues you were given. If at any stage of this process you got caught or fucked up, you got a security level increase and all the doors would lock until you fought an encounter.
: Royal’s version of this dungeon says “fuck it” and cuts out the middleman. This is truly one of the biggest improvements it made gameplay-wise apart from the reloading gun ammo.
: I almost feel like they’re trying to insult me by repeating it three times.
: “Dude, we don’t even work here.”
: “Skull, would you mind staying focused? Excuse me, we have a matter to discuss with the chief director.”
: “Well, it was worth a try.”
: “Sounds like this guy REALLY doesn’t like the section chief. Let’s try and pump him for information, Joker!”
: There’s still kind of a dialog puzzle, in that if you pick the right option you get some information about what the next big robot is weak to. The base game didn’t give you that information at all.
: I laughed so fucking hard at this when I read it. I actually like the way this robot is written, because it amuses the shit out of me that there’s a robot who does nothing all day but be stressed and scream about his boss’s elemental weaknesses.
: I’m just picturing the little robots going “Dammit, there he goes about the wind powers again.”
: “Mweheheh, so the section chief is weak to Wind, is he? We didn’t get any deets on the chief director, but this is still good! Looks like this guy’s done chatting, so let’s clean up, Joker!”
: I promptly nuke the small robots down in a single hit with Agidyne, and then completely forget what I just read about the wind powers.
: You know what, let’s try that one again.
: The larger robots have Endure, so they’ll withstand a single killing blow. I should mention that in the base game, these robots had access to third-tier spells of their element. That was removed for Royal.
: “Oh, this must be an employee ID card! Let me see… it says chief clerk on it.”
: “But we’re looking for one that’s chief director or higher, yes?”
: “This one should be okay for now. At the very least it’ll help us get to some new places.”
: Localization fails!
: Right down the hall, there’s another save room and then our first red shadow.
: The red shadow here is Girimekhala, who only seems to spawn in the first half of the dungeon. Girimekhala is absurdly lethal.
: Through some combination of shock and just being amazed at how bullshit it was, I didn’t record the two or three deaths I had to him.
: Girimekhala’s gimmick is that he reflects physical and has a spell called Wage War which targets the entire party and enrages on hit. This means that your party will automatically use a physical attack next turn and die to the reflect.
: The door we need that ID to open is right behind the Girimekhala.
: Little premature there, Haru.
: “Agreed. Let’s go about this one step at a time.”
: “Hey… are those two giving orders to the other robots? You guys think they might be the chief director or the section chief?”
: “Prolly the section chief. I’m sensing something big further down. That one’s gotta be the chief director.”
: “Ideally, we should secure the ID of the highest-ranking one here.”
: " Yes… we can’t reach the chief director with the ID we have now."
: “Then let’s just beat one of 'em and swipe what we can!”
: “Hold up. The reading’s not super clear, but I’m pretty sure only one of them’s a section chief…”
: “So only one of them has our key. What’s the plan? Shall we simply crush both of them?”
: This was something a lot of people wound up doing in the base game, because it was just that annoying to deal with.
: “There’s no need to waste energy like that. If we can talk to each one and compare what they say to the intel we have on hand… that way, we might be able to tell which one is the section chief.”
: The game even has it so you’re facing the actual section chief when you come out of the cutscene.
: “Hold on a second. We’re…”
: We already know that this is the right robot, given the whole giant red “USELESS” in all caps. In the base game, picking this option failed the dialog puzzle. In Royal, however…
: “It looks like fighting is our only option now. Let’s go!”
: I have questions about how Futaba manages to take those goggles off in time for battles. Do her glasses magically morph into the goggles like a magical girl? Is she wearing them underneath? Does her UFO have a glasses storage bin specifically for this kind of situation?
: “Well! Sounds to me like he’s got some beef with the chief. Joker, if you play him right, he might dish some useful details!”
: This becomes kind of hilarious when you outright tell him you’re John Persona.
: “Nice! A classic slip of the tongue! I don’t think he has any more useful dirt, so let’s just mop the floor with him real quick!”
: “Any boss that lets their employees suffer deserves the same thing!”
: If this was a good game, they would have had a scene where the chief clerk comes running in after you get the section chief into a hold up (or force him to use endure) where he runs in holding a table fan and screaming “Taste my WIND POWERS!” before turning the fan on and using the breeze to do the last point of damage.
: “It’s an ID! This should get us through the gates.”
: “So that one was the… Section Chief? Or somethin’? Ugh, why can’t the big boss just come to us…?”
: Makoto won’t even let you fight the other robot, which is kind of a disappointment.
: “Great! This one’s open as well!”
: “We’ve gotta be close to the end, right? Chief director is usually directly above section chief!”
: “Probably safe to assume there aren’t any high-rank robots in there.”
: “Well, sounds like there’s no point checkin’ it out.”
: “Not quite. If we don’t have any bosses watching, that might just be an opportunity to get something good.”
: “Good point. Joker, let’s sneak by them and listen in on their conversation.”
: The actual eavesdropping text box is on screen for like five frames. It’s so fast that I could barely read it, let alone screenshot it.
: I took this on a second run after dying in the next area to a Girimehkala.
: In a very strange move, they’ll only say it once, and after that any robot you eavesdrop on will just say this over and over.
: “Huh… so we’re basically eavesdroppin’ on 'em…”
: “It’s a divine skill of mine.”
: “Impressive. I can see how you managed to wiretap Leblanc for so long…”
: “That? Oh, that was nothing! Someday I’ll show you what real wiretapping is. Mwehehe…”
: Makoto and Yusuke will suggest eavesdropping on a different group of robots, but we have all the information we need.
: It would’ve been really funny if they made the second robot in this section have near-identical responses but he’s like, a marketing intern.
: Again, they should’ve had the section chief come in screaming “MIND POWERS!” and then have him pick up a chair and throw it at the chief director for the last point of damage.
: Then he looks at the party and goes “What? That totally required the use of my mind. Mind powers.”
: “Perfect! We’ve finally found the chief director’s ID card!”
: “This means we can go in that rank door downstairs now!”
: “Welp, let’s go check it out! Time to make like a banana and split!”
: And that’s it for this section of the dungeon. The map is about half the size of the base game’s, and really this dungeon lost a lot of its length because of it. If you do everything right the first time, this dungeon is way shorter than Futaba’s was.
: “Perfect. We have the employee ID card we were after, so let’s head downstairs when we’re done here!”
: The doors to the save room lock after you kill the chief clerk, and you need the chief director’s ID to unlock them.
: “Of course! Well… probably.”
: “You know, it’s a little odd… I thought Okumura might be behind the mental shutdowns… but we haven’t found anything even remotely pointing to such a secret so far.”
: “Something that important might be deeper in. Let’s just keep going.”
: “If it’s seriously that close, can’t we just go from outside? No point goin’ through there.”
: “Hm… that might be worth a try.”
: Solidifying the fact that this palace is just Space Colony ARK from Sonic Adventure 2, we grapple onto a… thing… that then shoots us across the map.
: There’s an elevator platform you can use to get back to the start, where there’s a save room I missed.
: Strangely, Arahabaki basically stops showing up here, so the fights are actually so easy we can use Insta-Kill on them.
New Trashsona: Mothman
Origin: West Virginia
First Appearance: Devil Summoner
Creature supposedly seen by a number of people in West Virginia in the 1960s. Conspiracy theorists at the time believed that Mothman was a bio-weapon that lived in an abandoned World War 2-era munitions plant near Point Pleasant. In reality, Mothman was likely a sandhill crane (a bird not native to West Virginia) that had been knocked off its migration route.
: Insta-Kill is kind of a pain to do, because you have to dash into an enemy and hope it doesn’t ambush you. Mothman, by the way, is very good for using the Greatest Weapon on as he is weak to guns.
: The start of this area is a semi-circle surrounded by platforms. You can skip all but the last one, which has the grapple spot to get to the next set of platforms.
: The grapple spot leads right to the door to the next area. There’s some optional bits here which are largely not worth it.
: After getting fucking mauled by a Girimehkala, I change tactics. Yusuke is out, Makoto is in.
New Persona: Girimehkala
Origin: Sri Lanka
First Appearance: Megami Tensei II
Giant demon elephant said to be the steed of Mara. Has one eye that kills anyone who looks at it.
: Look, I wanted an elephant with laser tusks and bling. Turns out I suck at the whole creation thing. You have any idea how hard it is to throw out a ten-foot tall elephant demon once you’ve made it?
: We encounter a Koh-i-noor, the treasure demon for this palace. Futaba then immediately holds it up for us.
: In the base game, Koh-i-noor was a demon you had to knock down with either a technical or Down Shot from Shinya. Royal gives it a weakness to Gun to make it like all the other treasure demons.
: The real Koh-i-noor is one of the British crown jewels, and is currently on display in the Tower of London. It’s one of the largest existing diamonds in the world.
: Naturally, the British got it after annexing India, which had gained and lost it several times between when it was first mined in the 13th century and 1849, when it came into British possession.
: Four countries hold claim over it - those being Iran, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. All four have demanded the return of the gem from the British government.
: “Just past this building. We’re definitely getting closer.”
: “I find it somewhat odd that we have still yet to see anything about the mental shutdowns…”
: “Well, this Palace is on the site of the corporate HQ, remember? If he never told any employees about it, we may not find any hints toward his involvement.”
: This part doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. Why would it matter if Okumura told anyone when he would be the one who knows about the murders in the first place?
: I mean, that would make sense if the palace was made from the thoughts of his employees and he just happens to rule it - but that’s not the case, this is entirely in Okumura’s brain.
: “Worst comes to worst, we’re just gonna have to get that info outta the Shadow himself.”
: “Anyway, let us hurry inside… I believe the factory comes next…”
: I got into another fight with a Koh-i-noor and as it turns out, they’re worth a shitload of money if you kill them with an All-Out.
: There’s two ways you can go in here - the obvious progress route, and then a second route up a small staircase onto some catwalks that doesn’t seem to go anywhere.
: You can jump onto a catwalk from the stairs and grab a chest, and also find a vent that will take you to the second Will Seed room, except…
: Why would we even need to? The party can kill most of the enemies here without even fighting them. Oh well, let’s go the other way.
: “Do you think it’s related to that ‘Escape to Utopia’ thing?”
: “Hold on a sec. Ain’t the guys in here movin’ kinda weird…?”
: “…Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of how you would imagine a utopia to be.”
: “These conveyor belts and the positioning of the workers… this is almost identical to the company’s bun factory… I can’t believe this.”
: “At the very least, this is how Okumura views his workers. My apologies for saying so, Noir, but this is truly atrocious.”
: “Well, it’ll all be under control if we can trigger that change of heart in him, yeah? Let’s go!”
: You’ll immediately notice that big blue cylinder on the left. We’ll come back for that.
: “Is this gonna be another one of them authenti-whatever things?”
: Didn’t he know the word “authentication” in one of the earlier updates? I’m too lazy to look.
: “No, there’s no authentication here. Kinda anticlimactic, huh?”
: “Well, the easier, the better, right? Let’s go!”
: “Whoa! We almost got crushed!”
: “That freakin’ hunk of metal broke way too goddamn easy!”
: “There is no point in complaining at this point. We will be forced to search for another route.”
: “You’re right. Let’s find something that will get us past here.”
: “Hmm, do you think we’d be able to make use of these fragile arms somehow?”
: Now we can go back to the cylinder.
: “Hah!”
: “Huh… this is the control panel for that robotic arm. It seems we can use this to set it to either 3x, 5x, or 10x normal speed.”
: “I bet it’d break if it was stuck on 10x speed for a long time.”
: “It was dead like, instantly. I know it was 10x normal speed, but still… that’s weak.”
: “That just proves how truly overworked these machines are.”
: “It seems any increase in workload would have led to its collapse…”
: Yusuke is right in that it doesn’t matter what you pick, the arm still breaks.
: “Wait, but don’t you think we might be able to walk on the broken arm? We should check it out, Joker!”
: A couple of new enemies show up here, one being Lilim. Bugs can easily instakill her with Kougaon.
: If we cross the broken robot arm and go back toward the elevator instead of forward, there’s a server rack.
: From there, all we have to do is grapple twice and we’re back at the top of that staircase from earlier.
: If we go the other way, there’s a tunnel underneath some blocks we can use to progress. It’s right around here that I got the fusion alarm that let me fuse Mara.
: Kumbhanda is also encounterable in this part of the dungeon.
: And here’s that alarm I needed.
Returning Persona: Mara
Origin: Buddhism
First Appearance: Shin Megami Tensei I
Demon in Buddhist mythology who is essentially the Buddhist equivalent of Lucifer. Considered to be evil itself, they control people through lust and their fear of death. Is considered the ultimate obstacle to achieving nirvana. Penis imagery comes from a Sri Lankan story in which Mara tempts the Buddha with their daughters.
: In some variations of the myth, I’m a goddess instead!
: Mara also isn’t the only giant penis demon anymore. Royal added a Persona called Mishaguji, an ancient Shinto god of sex that is basically a giant sperm with legs.
: I then itemize Bugs into a weapon for Makoto. A lot of the high-level Personas itemize into very good equipment, and it is in fact possible to break the game even more by doing so.
: At 90 more attack and a crit bonus, we won’t be replacing these anytime soon.
: Naturally, Makoto gets a ridiculous looking pair of bear gloves in combat.
: The cylinders are color-coded, and we can see the arm it controls in the background.
: Before we make progress, there’s a third cylinder that controls an arm way off in the distance.
: The yellow arm leads to a new weapon for Haru.
: Belphegor starts showing up in this room, and I believe it’s the only one in which he appears. Of course, we have Mara now, so…
: “We will not be able to reach it without passing over what appears to be a hydraulic press…”
: This is starting to sound like the intro to Legends of the Hidden Temple.
: “We gotta do somethin’ about those before we get to the press.”
: “It’ll probably be a hassle, but I have a feeling it’s our only option. We need to turn off those infrared lasers and deactivate the hydraulic press. Let’s try to find some sort of controls for those.”
: I don’t remember if the base game did this or not, but all of the switches in this palace get marked with giant check marks on the map so long as you’ve seen them - you don’t even need to interact.
: “Wait… break is an option!?”
: A Press Shift is that thing that Mot does in Nocturne where he gives himself infinite press turns.
: Oh, so this is like Naughty Dog. Got it.
: “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up! What the hell did it mean, ‘constant’!?”
: “Working unpaid overtime is just how these workers live, so setting it to that changes nothing.”
: “What a nightmare…”
: “…”
: “There is no benefit to us if nothing changes. We can likely ignore that option entirely.”
: Ryuji looks at the machine. “Where’s my lunch!? I pressed the lunch button, where’s my lunch!?”
: The timer on this is pretty generous as long as you’ve cleared the area out.
: They also got Shoji Meguro to do a fucking theme for when the timer is going, but couldn’t be bothered to do one for the three days Joker spends alone at home. Fuck this game.
: Crossing the nearest press brings us to another switch.
: “Should we set it to ‘Lunch’ again?”
: “Yup. Actually, I did some research into these… and the other two options are meaningless. ‘Break’ only lasted for like 5 seconds…”
: “Five!? What the hell’re you supposed to do in five seconds!?”
: “Take a deep breath?”
: “Regardless, those options are no use to us. It’s probably best we simply choose ‘Lunch’ from now on.”
: “Hold on, it looks like you can disable the infrared on this too.”
: “Aha! So this room is actually the one with the main console in it. We should prolly disable the infrared before setting it to ‘Lunch’.”
: This seems ridiculous, but this actually happened in one place I worked at. The company was tanking so they got rid of all the security guards… which promptly caused them to lose the certifications they needed to keep their contracts with their clients going.
: “Well, now we can get over to that hydraulic press, right?”
: We get over with about 10 seconds to spare.
: This door is one that you can clip through, which avoids a series of really easy fights. I was going to attempt it, but then in my hunger for fusion alarms I accidentally killed all the enemies on the floor.
: The clip involves getting an enemy to chase you into geometry, fighting them, running from the battle and then using a smoke bomb to get the dalek thing to clip you into the floor.
: “Hm, that is how it appears on the map as well. However, with the infrared sensor as it is, we cannot proceed.”
: “Wait a moment. Don’t you think those robots over there are acting a little strange?”
: “They’re still respectin’ him even though they prolly see coworkers collapse from gettin’ overworked…”
: “It’s mind control. They’ve been purposely driven into a state of overadaptation.”
: “Over…what?”
: “When a person is continually faced with oppression, they come to welcome its presence. Such psychological trickery is being used here. I… experienced it first-hand for many years.”
: “Fox…”
: “So these robots exist because Father is aware that he’s exploiting his employees…”
: Hashino, I get it already, please stop beating me over the head with it.
: “Yes. We should be careful though. I doubt we’ll be able to communicate with these ones. We’ll probably go straight into battle when we approach them. I suggest you prepare beforehand!”
: We have all the preparation we need. Their name is Mara.
: This opens a path near the arm we knocked down on our way in.
: It doesn’t stop the yellow press, which we have to do a bit more work to get to.
: There’s a weapon for Ryuji over here.
: “But we have to do this. I smell the Treasure somewhere past where they are. Brace yourselves!”
: These robots are different from the ones we fought earlier in that they’re weak to psychic.
: There’s three waves of these robots, and Joker destroys them in one hit with Mara.
: “The heck? That was easy as hell…”
: “Well I mean, they’re overworked, brainwashed, AND forced to go up against an impossible enemy. I hope nobody ever treats me like that after I turn back into a human.”
: These robots have learned the hard lesson that there is no winning when your opponent is a giant penis.
: “…”
: “C-Come on, let’s keep going! Don’t look so down, Noir!”
: “The employees are being dumped in that incinerator!”
: “No… they’re turning all of the worn-down robots into fuel… that means the power source running this factory…”
: “It’s… people’s lives…”
: Dammit, Hashino! I fucking get it! Japanese work culture sucks! Doing this kind of shit is why I checked out on the plot when I played this the first time!
: I’m also wondering who had to restrain Hashino from having it so that Okumura is using the robots to make crystal skulls.
: “Noir… are you okay?”
: “I’m not…”
: “Huh?”
: “I’m not going to forgive my father for this! I can’t believe this is how he sees his workers! Let us go, everyone! We will change his heart, no matter what!”
: “Right! We’re with you all the way, Noir!”
: And now we’re in the last area. I feel like this one was also made shorter in Royal, but I’m not so sure.
: “Putting it lightly, I believe such an action would lead to our extermination.”
: Nah, if Space Station 13 taught me anything it’s that all you need is a firesuit, an oxygen tank, and some coffee and you’ll be fine.
: “Wellllll, apparently you’ll be okay for like thirty seconds if you keep your eyes and mouth shut. Which is weird, because honestly, I woulda thought we’d just explode out there.”
: “Don’t scare us, dammit!”
: At this point, we’ve had an alarm sitting around for a while and I wanted to use it. Kali has fallen a long way from Innocent Sin, where she used to be what was essentially Yukino’s ultimate Persona.
Returning Persona: Kali
Origin: India
First Appearance: Megami Tensei I
Hindu goddess associated with death, time, and destruction. An aspect of Durga, who was Yukino’s Ultimate Persona in 1 and Innocent Sin. Modern Hinduism changes her portrayal as a violent goddess who represents time and change.
: We then fuse Kali with Mara to make Baal, who I’ve somehow wound up using in every Persona game I’ve LPed.
Returning Persona: Baal
Origin: Syria
First Appearance: Megami Tensei I
Baal is a Semitic word meaning “lord” or “master”, and does not refer to a single entity. The portrayal of Baal in the Megami Tensei games is actually a Canaanite god called Hadad, who was associated with rain, agriculture, and fertility.
: Baal is basically a better Mara. Ayamur is his signature skill - it’s a single target physical attack that hits three times and has a 95% hit rate… which is better than a lot of similar skills.
: He also starts with Panta Rhei, which is the best single-target wind spell in the game. I made a mistake here by not sacrificing to him to get Vacuum Wave instead.
: I also replaced Matarukaja with Wind Amp and re-summoned Mara because I still need him for Mapsiodyne.
: During a fusion alarm, Baal itemizes into what is probably Haru’s best gun. We will be doing this in November, because we’re already low on money and the palace sucks for farming.
: The only door in this area is locked, so it’s time to do the Final Rush thing.
: The console here lets us unlock the doors and progress.
: The side room that we passed by earlier has an itemized tetrakarn in it. We’ll be making good use of that later.
: “To think we’d end up flying through space…the awe I felt at seeing that flying bank feels like a distant memory at this point.”
: And this is where we find this area’s gimmick.
: “I hope we can reach our goal with just the ones that are on…”
: “Hmm… we need to get past here, though. Guess we can’t just sit around. Let’s keep going.”
: Welcome to the gimmick. The airlock field has two types of airlocks: Alpha and Omega. The switches control which one of those is active.
: However, what’s not immediately obvious is there’s a third airlock type - those being orange airlocks. Orange airlocks are unlocked at specific switches (which still function as the ordinary alpha/omega switches) and stay unlocked even if their letter is turned off.
: Two new enemies show up here: Mithras (seen above) and Kaiwan, who we fused a while back.
New Persona: Mithras
Origin: Rome
First Appearance: Soul Hackers
Roman sun god about whom little is known. His worshippers, known as Mithraites, were persecuted by the early Christians and very few written records about the religion remain. Believed to have been born out of a rock and is often portrayed slaying a bull. Worship of Mithras was popular in the Roman army.
: We want Mithras because he itemizes into Nuke Boost and Nuke Amp.
: “There is something written above each one. These symbols…”
: Here’s a map of this first area. It’s not too complicated.
: This little dead end room in the middle has the switch that controls the airlock we need to progress… and also the one that lets us access the last Will Seed.
: “Don’t give us that! Your so-called training is nothing more than torture! Let’s go, everyone!”
: When I got here, I hadn’t really used Mara a whole lot - at least, not for the purpose I built him for. You can see that even tossing out Agidyne, Ann is barely registering damage.
: Melchizedek gets one hit off, casting an enemy-only spell that causes Hunger. Hunger is pretty much exclusive to Okumura’s dungeon, is very hard to fix, and cuts damage by like 75%.
: My plan was to use Mara to charge and then do One-Shot Kill to see how much damage it did.
: The answer is roughly 2500 damage, killing Melchizedek in one hit. Despite the name, One-Shot Kill is merely a high damage gun skill, and Melchizedek is not weak to gun damage, nor did I have a baton pass active.
: I would’ve used Baal instead, but I think I just kind of forgot I had him.
: The special switches are highlighted in orange, which is a detail I did not notice in the base game and as a result made everything take longer.
: “That was simple! Let’s keep blazing a path through here!”
: “Once we pass through this airlock, the Treasure’ll be right in front of us.”
: “Sweet! …Uh, but this one ain’t workin’… I guess we’ll just hafta find another switch, huh?”
: “That could very well be the only way. Let’s do what we can.”
: There’s only one active airlock in this room, so let’s go for it.
: This part introduces the final gimmick of this dungeon - green airlocks. These are basically Persona 5’s version of those one-way doors you see in the mainline SMT games and Persona 1.
: They’re on a separate cycle from the regular airlocks and switch when you go through one - so in this case, going through the Alpha airlock would close all the green Alpha airlocks and open the green Omega ones.
: One thing I think is kind of badly designed about this part is that if you don’t notice the orange switches, there’s no reason to touch them because you can get pretty much anywhere without them.
: Here’s a map of the floor. The orange switch is the one at the very top, where you can see the footsteps coming out of.
: “So this is where they’re being used.”
: “But what are they…? It’s hard to tell just from looking…”
: “Dude, let’s leave the factory tour for later. We gotta focus on the Treasure right now!”
: “Huh. It’s rare to hear Skull say something sensible…”
: “But we haven’t found any information about the mental collapses. That bothers me…”
: “Oh yeah, you’re right.”
: “Maybe he’s hidin’ it? We got this far. Wouldn’t it be better to just squeeze the truth outta the guy?”
: “That plan is fine by me.”
: “Let’s send out the calling card and take his Treasure then.”
: The update’s going to abruptly cut off here, because I didn’t do my due diligence. Actually, the guide author didn’t. Have I mentioned that I reported them to GameFAQs for plagiarism and was told it’s perfectly acceptable to steal entire charts from a Japanese guide without credit? They only seem to give a shit if there’s an actual copyright issue.
: Anyway, there’s an optional scene with Hifumi that is supposed to happen tonight… but even without that extra reading, we wouldn’t have gotten it. In order to get it, you have to be Rank 8 and have no extra points with Hifumi beyond those you got from the Rank 8 event, unless that was changed in Royal.
: Fortunately, I was able to find a recording of it from the base game on Youtube. You can see that here. You know what? I’ll download the video and take screenshots too.
: That’s not the only scene with Hifumi that’s extremely hard to get. There’s a second one on 10/10 that requires you to be Rank 9, on the romance route, read the “Theme Park Escort” book to unlock Destinyland, and to have zero extra points with Hifumi. This one’s also on Youtube: you can see it here. The guide doesn’t even acknowledge that this scene exists.
: This means that what I actually wound up doing in-game was Hifumi’s Rank 10. I’ll have to make a minor schedule change to accomodate this: we’ll be doing Sojiro’s confidant on the night we’d normally do her Rank 10, because he has no optional events.
: Next time, we’ll discard the one lesson we learned from Ni no Kuni 2 and do a boss fight on Extreme… because it’s so badly designed that it’s actually easier that way.
: “This means at times, retreating is an effective strategy in order to attack with your next move.”
: I hope you’re ready to see the QUALITY translation the base game had.
: “I’ve read all my textbooks… where can I gain knowledge that I have yet to discover…? Oh, never mind. May I request a match?”
: This is why I didn’t like Morgana in the base game, because holy FUCK are his portraits bad. Royal improved them and I appreciate that.
: “Indeed, that place may have knowledge that I have yet to discover… well then, let’s go there right away.”
: “…But look at all these books. It’s not going to be easy to find.”
: “Yes, you’re right. I have no intention of giving up easily. I’ll do my best to look for it. It would make me happy if you could assist me.”
: “…Rather than search blindly, we should study the shelves and come up with a strategy. First, let’s get an idea of how books are arranged here. Is it by title, or by author…?”
: I like to think that there’s a stack right behind Hifumi with a giant shogi piece sign on it reading “SHOGI STRATEGY GUIDES” in five different languages.
: “Let’s take a good look around the store to fully understand the layout. I’d also like to find a book about shogi problems as well. I’ll explain while we search.”
: “Now then… if we approach this methodically, we’ll find them. I appreciate your assistance.”
: “Stores will use whatever reasons they can to pull in customers. This season in particular. Ah yes… people also say that autumn is for sports.”
: “Pretty hard stuff for the second boss… it’s gonna be even harder knowing there are people there too… welp, ain’t no time like the present! Come on, let’s go!”
: “You’re going to school!? Oh, um… never mind. Just go have some fun.”
: “Wh-what are you doing here!?”
: “Don’t you get it!? You can’t just shoot all over the place!”
: “Hmph… fine, I’ll take it. By the way, your Personas are super weak - not that I’m interested, inmate. Though I guess you deserve at least some praise for finishing your penal labor.”
: “In order to promote that process, we would like to offer you the use of a new facility.”
: “Does something trouble you?”
: “It’d spell the end of this country if kids started wanting to become more like the Phantom Thieves. You’re already in your second year of high school. You should have a clear vision of your future.”
: “Oh? I’m the first one here?”
: “But she’s new to the team, right? Shouldn’t we do what we did for Yusuke and Makoto?”
: “Someone’s excited.”
: “Ah, and the version of me at the museum was a painting, not even a person.”
: “Your success and global fame exists due to the tyranny you rain over your employees. Thus, we have decided to make you confess all your crimes with your own mouth. Hmph.”
: “Okumura was not fit for the political world to begin with. He should have just behaved himself… of course. Without fail, sir. I’ve requested that he handle the matter.”
: “Now, go. I gotta take care of some business with Tsuda. I’ll be there after I handle that. See ya soon.”
: “Stamina is important for public speaking as well. You’re still young, but take care of yourself. I’ll be giving a speech again today. I’d also like you to come with me somewhere after the speech. What’s your availability like today?”
: “Stealing hearts? Social reform? Don’t give me this Phantom Thieves nonsense. It’s all so unscientific. I mean, how could they target Big Bang Burger and Okumura Foods? They’re criminals!”
: “I’m sorry, I just now noticed that you tried to reach me. My smartphone seems to be acting up again. You found my good luck charm, right?”
: “It’s my fault…”
: “I can’t… be weak anymore…”
senpai
: “I’ll shmack you if it’s not good enough…”
: “Oh crap, and you’re with a girl?”
: “Having executed the royalty, the revolutionaries proceeded to take the courts under their control… all who opposed the revolution were executed. However, the revolutionaries, too, were then reviled as despots and executed by the public.”
