Mark Danced Crazy - Let's Play Shin Megami Tensei: Persona

[Timrod]

: As soon as we enter the Black Market, we pass the casino.. and then a room with no sign or description.

: Most of the shops that were here in the real world are still here. We have to head to the Peace Diner to progress the story, but just like Ikebukuro in SMT 1, the prices are out of control.

: You might notice that both of the weapon shops we’ve been to only sell guns. This is actually a reference to SMT 1 - once the apocalypse hits in that game, you can’t buy swords anymore. A lot of these guns are upgrades, but at that price it’s just not worth it. Let’s head to the diner.

: “What’s this foreboding?”
: “This stale air.. smells like the windows here haven’t been opened for a month.”

: Oh hey, it’s The Master. Where’s Torgo?

: We can go back to that door from earlier, and now we’re in Kama Palace. Kama Palace sucks. Kama Palace is SMT1 dungeon design at its worst. Let me just post the map, from the same Japanese site I found the SEBEC building map:

: The black numbered squares are holes that go from floor to floor. Basically, unless you have a map, this dungeon is pure trial and error. You’re going to want to go out and buy a couple of emergency exits unless you have a Persona with Traesto. If we want all the items, we have to make a minimum of three descents. Only two, I swear.

: For our first run, we need to skip the elevator (which you can see on the map I posted above) and instead go down a bunch of holes.

: I grabbed as many spell cards as I could - these are mostly enemies from the subway that the party (well, more like Mark, Maki, and Nanjo) were too low-level to negotiate with.

: Kama Palace fucking sucks. There’s a dungeon in the Snow Queen quest that is notoriously bad, but I’d say this is even worse. It’s long, it’s tedious, I’m sitting here rotating my automap to face the same way the Japanese map is so that I can tell which hole I have to go down. The whole thing is a fucking slog.

: Eventually, we fall down Hole #10 (on the map) and wind up at a treasure room.

: This room has probably the best treasures in the entire palace: two Beads (full HP restore), two Balm of Life (revive with full HP) and a Dexterity Incense that boosts Dexterity by one. I didn’t wind up using it on anyone, but if I do use it it’s going to most likely be on Mark or Maki to make them less bad.

: On my way out to cast Traesto (Nanjo still has Quetzalcoatl and that has Traesto) I ran into one of these fuckers. Teketekes are reverse-Lilims, being immune to physical and gun damage but severely weak to magic. Mark was actually racking up EXP because of Megido. Most things in Kama Palace are weak to Nuclear, and what Mark has is a fuckload of Nuclear damage. Teketeke apparently does not give a spell card, because I successfully negotiated with it using Jihei (who was P-level 26 at the time) and didn’t get a card out of it.

: Our next run was to B9F using a different set of holes to reach a treasure room that is also out of the way from where the route to the boss is.

: There were some new enemy types along the way - Haokah and Malphas. Haokah is pretty weak, except they can cast Shibaboo. If you’ve played any of the SNES SMT games, you know how bad Shibaboo is. Shibaboo inflicts Bind, which prevents you from moving. Thankfully, Shibaboo doesn’t last like eighty rounds of combat and persist through encounters in this one. Malphas has a charm spell, but that’s about all it has. Again, we can’t negotiate with them because people are too low level.

: More new enemies. Pairika has the same resistances Lilim does (absorbs magic, reflects status effects, weak to physical) and is generally really easy to deal with because they don’t have the annoying skills Lilim does.

: The best part is, the treasure room here is fucking pointless. What’s in it, you ask?

: Common fucking healing items that we could buy at any item store, that’s what. We still have some 90 chewing souls sitting around in our inventory. Traesto again, fuck this garbage. Thankfully, I remembered to save, because something very bad happens pretty soon that made me need to reset the game.

: This time, we take the elevator down, because the remaining treasure room with actual items in it is on the way to the boss.

: We actually take the elevator down to B4F, and then jump into hole number 5, and then hole number 9 on B5F.

: This is the wrong way! Don’t take the C, kids!

: We get down to B7F on the correct side (the other side leads to a save room and Trish’s spring) and then something very bad happens.

: I actually forgot to capture it, because I was so pissed at the RNG, but here’s what happened. The harpy-looking monster in the back row here is called an Ocypete. They’re palette-swapped versions of a much more harmless demon called a Megaera.

: The main difference is that Megaeras have shit for HP and take 2x damage from all the common elements. Ocypete, on the other hand, is a piece of shit. They have Maragion (tier 2 AOE fire spell) and we have two people weak to it: Mark and Nanjo.

: So what happened? Well, notice how in these screens, Mark and Nanjo’s Personas are at Rank 1. I got into a fight with four Ocypetes, and got slammed trying to escape after a bad negotiation. Mark and Nanjo died.. and then I found out that their Personas inherited a special ability that’s dependent on moon phase when they’re fused. What happens is that if they die, their Persona takes the hit for them and returns them to full HP.. in exchange for the Persona de-ranking back to Rank 1. This shit was unacceptable, so I had to reset.

: Finally, after a fourth time down here, I got to the first treasure room on B8F.

: “What, Chisato Kasai’s? I thought they said she went missing.”
: “Wait.. Chisato’s painting is here, and they’re saying it’s the Queen’s?”
: “But why? Does this mean.. Chisato is being held captive by the Harem Queen?”

: If the portraits in this game weren’t so ultra-compressed, I’d probably do a Slowtaku edit because god dammit Maki how have you not already caught onto this shit?

: The manga foreshadows the fact that Chisato is the Harem Queen WAY earlier than this - I think it happens in like Chapter 7 and the actual Harem Queen fight is Chapter 19.

: There’s some items in here as well. I didn’t wind up using the Agility Incense, but if it’s going on anyone it’s probably going on Mark or Maki - Jihei was at well over 80 by the time I finished recording this.

: There’s another art gallery on the floor below, but we don’t want to touch any of those boxes. They’re all trapped with “heavy damage”, which takes off roughly half of Jihei’s HP.

: Finally, after over an hour of fucking around in Kama Palace, we reach the save point immediately before the boss.

: There’s also a final art gallery with a Luck Incense in it. I’m not entirely sure what Luck does in this game, since negotiations aren’t totally random the way they were on the SNES (where Luck was only a useful stat for the main character because no one else could negotiate). It probably raises critical chance, in which case I’ll just use it on Jihei.

: And here it is. The last door before the Harem Queen. Let’s just go in and get this over with.

: “Same to Jihei, and the rest of you, too. Welcome to my palace.”

: Gee, it sure is Persona 5 around here.
: “Ch…Chisato! It really was you…!?”
: “No..!”
: “…Knew it. Yo, Jihei, did Chisato always have that many moles? Didn’t she always used to brag about how clear her skin was?”
: “C’mon, Chisato! There’s an explanation for this, right? Is the real Queen threatening you?”

: I feel like Maki would fit right into Ni no Kuni 2. By which I mean she’s as dense and annoying as any of the characters in that game.
: “You’re not really the enemy… that’s a lie, isn’t it?”

: “An angel in black lent me a mirror that grants my every wish! All this.. from my mirror.”
: “An angel in black.. is that Aki!? Chisato, listen, she’s no angel! I mean, didn’t she kidnap you?”

: Given that most of the angels in the SMT universe have the sole goal of subjugating humanity into their slaves, Aki is probably an angel.
: “That’s what I thought at first. But that’s not how it went. She was looking for someone who could use the mirror.. it happened to be me.”
: “…Okay. So you’re the Queen. Isn’t it about time to put an end to this? Let’s go back together! Yosuke’s hurt! He needs you, Chisato…”

: “…Y’know what, Maki? I don’t need Yosuke anymore. I didn’t really like him anyway.”

: I feel like that’s a line a lot of those Persona 4 yaoi doujin authors said when they saw Persona 5.
: “Huh? What did you just say?”
: “I don’t like Yosuke. In fact, I never did.”
: “That’s a lie! You always bragged about what a wonderful boyfriend he was…”

: By the way, dumb high school girls with dumb mid-90s TV show drama issues is an ongoing theme in this game.

: SOMEONE JUST FUCKING SHOOT HER ALREADY FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK NO ONE CARES THIS IS SOMEHOW WORSE THAN YIIK
: “In the beginning, you know, he liked you better. And I couldn’t allow that…”
: “I mean, I was the pretty one! I’m the one he should have gone for. So I made my move, and that feebleminded moron was powerless to resist.”
: “No… why would you joke like this?”
: “It’s no joke, Maki! It’s the truth! My art was better than yours, and you got all the attention!”

: I thought about it just now, and I realized that this entire segment of the game has no reason to exist. It’s not furthering the party’s goal of killing Kandori, and Chisato has already shown that she’s so basic that you can use her as a household cleaning agent.

: “So that’s why you stole Yosuke.. and why you forced people to praise your artwork. …? Wait, Chisato. You should be aware that this isn’t the Maki you know.”
: “Shut up! This has nothing to do with you! Just stay out of this! You must’ve been howling with laughter, right Maki?”
: “I bet you made fun of me behind my back, wearing that innocent face of yours! Well, I won’t let you do it to me anymore! I’m much better than you now!”
: “Sure… thanks to the power that girl in black gave you. Right?”

: “Chisato.. you hated me that much? I never knew…”

: I honestly could hear Richter Belmont (the original PS1 SOTN version, none of this PSP/X360 remake shit) saying this. “Your art is as empty as your soul! Mankind ill needs a queen such as you!”
: “You were so caught in the throes of envy over Maki, you never made a real effort.”
: “And this is where it brought you… forcibly enslaving people. You think this is you at your best? You’re a Queen with no clothes!”

: I bet he wishes she was naked because that’d probably be the first and only naked woman Nanjo would ever see. Anyway, we’ve got to be getting close to the boss fight.. right?
: “You’re deluding yourself if you think their praise means anything. They only humor you out of terror!”
: “…Me? A Queen with no clothes?”
: “You heard him, Chisato! I can’t stand the way you hurt Maki because of your stupid complex! I’ll say this as many times as it takes, so listen up!”

: Can we be done with this? I feel like none of the Persona 4 shadow cutscenes went on this long without someone saying “that isn’t me!”
: "I think you need to have another look!

: You might ask why I bothered to make a dipshit meme image. Here’s why:

: What. WHAT. FUCK YOU, GAME! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOUR FUCKING BULLSHIT!

: I like to think of Kama Palace as the game designer behind the SNES games coming into the design room for Persona 1 and screaming “What the fuck is this shit? Where are all the damage floors? Why isn’t this a maze that takes hours to clear even with a map? Why aren’t we forcing the player to do it twice?”. Eventually, they got their way and that’s how SMT 3: Nocturne came to be.
: “Hey, yeah! I bet that Aki girl is controlling her!”
: “Mm.. Chisato’s eyes were clear. To me, at least, they didn’t seem to be the eyes of one under someone’s control.”

: So if you’re playing through this game with savestates, you might think you did something wrong. You might think you needed to go inspect the paintings in the art galleries or something before trying to fight Chisato. Nope! This is completely intentional. You have to go through Kama Palace a minimum of twice. Before we go back in, there’s some things I wanted to do. I did quite a bit of grinding to get Jihei’s P-Level to 28, and also got Mark/Maki/Nanjo up a few levels to around 25.

: The first thing I did was go to the Velvet Room and fuse Macha for Jihei. Lilim is still completely overpowered (to the point where her stats are better despite her being level 21) but Nanjo was still using Quetzalcoatl so I gave Lilim to him.

: The first thing you’ll probably notice is that Macha is very weak to most of the common elements. This is a downside.. but in exchange, we get access to Zanma and Mazanma, which do Blast damage. Very few enemies are capable of nulling Blast.

: I also used the money we got from doing multiple runs of Kama Palace to upgrade everyone’s guns. Jihei’s in particular is a fucking beast: its attack stat is 10 lower than the MP5 he was using before, but hits six times guaranteed.

: Not pictured: me running back through the entire dungeon to make it to the Harem Queen again. Thankfully, the game shows you which route you took to get there, so it’s much easier this time around.

: “Chisato!”
: “Ah, you’re back! Well, what did you think? Weren’t my paintings better!?”
: “Chisato… just end this already…”
: “I know now that your paintings are better. And.. and your moles…”
: “Shut up! Don’t say things you don’t even mean! You probably think I deserve these moles!”

: You can’t see it here, and I don’t want to show the manga’s version of it, but I will give you the title of the painting: “The Gate to Paradise”. I should mention (and I’ll show it off at the end of the update) that the manga’s version of Kama Palace makes way more sense. It looks like Versailles on the inside, and rather than having to go through a bunch of shit trash garbage dungeon, the party gets captured and brought to the boss room.
: “My.. my painting!”
: “Alright, Jihei. You saw my paintings in the gallery, right?”

: Again, so many opportunities where we could’ve put a bullet in her.
: “Maki’s painting is a million damn times better than yours!”
: “I don’t think I asked you, monkey!”

: So now we get to what the Harem Queen’s gimmick is.

: Mark, Nanjo, and Reiji are all turning to stone. I’d like to think that Reiji really wanted to just pop Chisato in the head with his gun, but since he has a rifle it’d be the hardest to do quickly.
: “Dammit! Even more moles! Turning them to stone was too nice.. I should’ve made them suffer more!”
: “I’ll give you, and only you, one last chance, Jihei… which is better? My breathtaking painting, or Maki’s piece?”

: This is another one of those stupid “alignment” choices. We need to answer that Maki’s is better.

: However, there’s another thing this choice does. There’s actually two forms of the Harem Queen. The first happens if you say her painting is better. She’ll release the rest of the party, but has a slight stat boost and around twice as much HP. If you say that Maki’s is better, her stats are lower and her HP is cut in half.. but you only get Maki and Jihei to fight her with. This is not going to be a problem.
: “I thought you would understand, Jihei, but I guess I was wrong. I’ll return this humiliation tenfold.. you can turn to stone like the rest!”

: By the way, the manga makes this somehow more stupid by introducing the protagonist’s evil twin brother. I wish I was kidding, but I think even the manga artist realized how bad this shit is and was just making fun of it at that point.

: “Hey Queen, if you beat these guys up, I’ll fix your face back to normal!”
: “Really!? All right, I’ll do it! If that’s what Miss Angel wants, then the plan has changed. I’ll kill you all myself!”

: No matter which option you pick, the Harem Queen is a fucking joke. I took this first round using a bad formation (this is how the game puts you by default)..

: Before going into auto-battle and just having Maki and Jihei shoot her to death. The Queen’s only real attacks are a couple of spells and a physical attack that did a whopping 7 damage when she hit Jihei with it.

: That’s what you get for having your Persona be Goatse, you stupid bitch!

: “If you can’t win, I’m not gonna fix your face! Though I was never gonna do that anyway! Pbbbbt!”
: “Huh? Hey, wait.. what do you mean!?”
: "Daddy called you a ‘ginnee pig’ and a ‘useless pon’! He said ‘even if Chisato loses, she’s not worth our trouble.’ "
: “So you can have fun staying that way as long as you live! Bye-bye!”

: “Chisato..! Just wait here for us. We’ll go catch that girl. And when we do, we’ll make her put your face back the way it was!”
: “Maki… you’re lying! Don’t feed me that crap! I know you think I deserve all this!”
: “I’m not lying, Chisato. I still like you.. even now.”
: “You… like me…?”
: “Yep! You’re energetic, beautiful, fashionable, and self-possessed. I can tell what Yosuke sees in you.”
: “No! I’m.. sure Yosuke still has a thing for you, Maki.”
: “…I’m sorry. I was so jealous of you, Maki. You say I’m self-possessed, but it’s just an act. The real me is helpless.”

: You know, Chisato has gotten more screen time than Reiji at this point. Also, she envied what? That Maki was dying of anime disease?
: “Chisato…”
: “Yosuke will hate me now. Then, you and him will…Yosuke…”
: “Oh… you’re so stubborn! Deep down, you really like Yosuke. But you don’t have to worry about me getting in the way. See…”

: Persona 1 definitely does not pass the Bechdel test.
: “Ack! What the…”

: “What happened to your face!? Did you get hurt!?”
: “No! Don’t look at me!”
: “Umm.. what happened was, Aki put a curse on her, and..”
: “Maki! Are you trying to cover for me? No.. not this time!”

: "I did terrible things.. I was so cruel to Maki. This is my punishment!’
: “Chisato!”
: “I don’t deserve you, Yosuke! I’m a terrible person.. even the face I was so proud of shows it.”
: “If people see you with me, they’ll laugh at you too. That’s why it’s okay if you want Maki instead! You always liked her, right?”
: “Yeah, I did like Maki… but that was in the past. I like you now, Chisato!”
: “Argh, listen to me…! This is so embarrassing! C’mon, let’s go.”
: “But… these moles will never come off, you know.. you don’t care if your friends laugh at us?”

: Has it occurred to her that she could use the mirror to wish she didn’t have any moles?
: “Let 'em laugh! See if I care! You said you’re a bad person? Well, I’m no saint either. Don’t worry about it.”
: “Just be honest with me, like you were a second ago. I’m your boyfriend, Chisato… I don’t care what you look like, as long as you’re you.”

: I’d just like to say that the way the manga handled this was ALMOST better than the game. They were so goddamn close. Instead of the whole “love conquers all” bullshit, Chisato grabs a shard of the mirror (which the protagonist breaks) and slits her throat with it. That would have been a fucking perfect ending.. except then Maki wishes so hard that she summons Tensen Nyannyan, a Persona whose level is so high that even Jihei’s too low to use it right now. Tensen Nyannyan then casts Samarecarm and saves Chisato, which pisses me off because god fuck. Way to make the death have an impact.
: “You’re right! This is wonderful… and I’m not talking about my face. I.. always thought you still liked Maki, Yosuke.”

: Enough with the goddamn romance novel bullshit! Enough! Fuck! Fuck this game!

: “Whoa! Yosuke!? Hey… did your moles fall off, Chisato?”
: “Hrm.. it seems things moved quickly while I wasn’t watching.”
: “Yosuke…? Hm. I see Chisato’s back to normal, too.”
: “I’m sorry, Maki.. I was the one lying. Like you said, deep down, I like Yosuke.”
: “I’d hope you could forgive me.. but I doubt it. I did want us to be friends again, though…”
: “Oh, come on! What’s to forgive?”

: “It seems Aki escaped.. Chisato, do you know anything about a man named Kandori? He’s in league with Aki.”
: “I don’t know anyone named Kandori… but you know, that girl said that she lives in a castle.”
: “A castle? Say what?”
: “It’s not all that surprising. Though still a child, Aki’s powers are immense. Making a castle would be easy.”

: “Oh, I forgot to tell you, Chisato, but that Maki isn’t the Maki we know.”
: “Huh? …the real Maki is trapped inside the hospital. Is it right for me to be so blessed while Maki suffers?”
: “I’m sorry I was the cause of so much trouble for everyone. If I’d been a little more reliable, this wouldn’t have happened.”

: I like to think this is the developer apologizing for how much Kama Palace sucks. Speaking of sucks..

: Guess what? We get to walk all the way back to the start of the goddamn dungeon! Worse, I accidentally unequipped Quetzalcoatl while moving stuff around, so I couldn’t even use Traesto to escape.

: Thankfully, we still had that Emergency Exit I bought a bunch of updates ago. Next time, we’ll do something that hopefully sucks less than Kama Palace did.

: The manga does things a little differently - in the manga, the party isn’t aware of who the Harem Queen is right away because she wears a mask for no reason. The manga implies that Chisato isn’t aware of what the mirror is doing to her because it only shows her what she wants to see.

: This is the manga’s rendition of the boss room.

: And finally, Chisato as the Harem Queen. If that’s the best she can do, it’s no wonder Jihei was able to blast her down in like ten seconds.