: What we’re doing here is going up the stairs labelled with a 2, in order to reach a room that has a Vitality incense in it. : It was around here that I found out how demon negotiations actually work. : Yaksini here is level 38. Jihei at this point is level 42, with a Persona level of around 40. We should absolutely be able to negotiate with Yaksini… except I couldn’t. This is because as it turns out, your negotiation level limit is not based on the level of the character doing the negotiating (which would make sense) but on the average level of your party. : Now, let’s do some math. I believe that at this point, the levels were as follows:
- Jihei: Level 43, Persona Level 40
- Maki: Level 33, Persona Level 34
- Nanjo: Level 34, Persona Level 34
- Mark: Level 31, Persona Level 31
- Reiji: Level 39, Persona Level 39
This gives us an average party level of 36, and an average Persona level of 35. The problem here is Mark. Everything here can kill Mark in one hit, and Mark is a total piece of shit all around: his gun sucks, his Persona sucks, he’s slow as shit, and there’s very little I can do to make him suck less as all the Personas I can fuse are garbage. This will improve somewhat in the next dungeon, but for right now we have to suffer.
: Unfortunately, the text dump I have doesn’t have any of the text that happens in this room, so I have no way of getting the alternate party member dialog for this spot. I also didn’t capture the party’s dialog because I assumed it’d be in the dump, but I can tell you that it’s mostly Nanjo asking why none of the scientists here are taking responsibility for the whole alternate universe fiasco and everyone else repeating him. : By the way, there’s also a new chest trap for this room, just because. : Just outside the treasure room, since I walked back to try and get some more EXP for our non-Mark party members, we run into more new enemies. Zombie Painter is immune to guns, but weak to most elements. : There’s also Sumizome, who mostly just sits back and spams single-target magic. They’re very weak to status effects, meaning our charm bullets work pretty well against them. : Finally, there’s Alastor. Alastor is a piece of fucking shit and the reason this dungeon sucks to grind in. Alastor has an attack called Hell Eyes that attempts to instantly kill the entire party. Nanjo is immune to it because of Lilim, but no one else is. : Going around the right side of the first floor, you go past a save room and then into one of the three dark areas in this dungeon. These aren’t too bad - if you look on the map you can see that they’re pretty linear. : I really want to know how Kandori convinced so many scientists to go through the Deva System. You’d think after the first group doesn’t come back, the second group wouldn’t go in. : The second floor is largely more of the same: you have to take the long way around and there’s a dark room in the middle. : Finally, the third floor is a small dark room maze before reaching the boss room.
: “Did you just hear it say ‘Maki’? Hmm… it sounded rather like Maki’s mother to me.”
: “I’ve been telling you, I don’t have a mom!”
: “The door doesn’t seem locked… what should we do, Jihei? It may be a trap. Should we go in?”
: “That voice.. there’s no mistaking it. It’s Maki’s mother!”
: “Maki! It’s no use.. it seems that the demon is controlling her… I know the voice is unquestionably Maki’s mother’s… but you can’t trust that! Let’s get the first strike, Jihei!”
: “Dude, Jihei, what do we do!? That demon’s gonna kill Maki! We gotta defeat it, now!”
: “Well, what’s it gonna be, Jihei!? That monster could kill Maki! Let’s get it already!”
: Anyway, to understand why it’s the correct answer (apart from the incredibly stupid twist), you’d need to have played SMT 1 or 2. In both of those games, one of the options that comes up during negotiations is to lower your weapon. This almost NEVER works - with most demons, doing this is a surefire way to fail. Hariti was one of the demons (at least, I think she was) where this option worked.
: I should mention as well that this is a reference to the mythology that Hariti comes from. Originally, Hariti was a child-eating demon in whatever form of paganism they practiced in Pakistan. When Buddhist missionaries arrived in Pakistan, they changed the Hariti myth to a story where the Buddha kidnaps one of her kids and hides them under a rice bowl, causing Hariti to convert to Buddhism and become associated with child-rearing. Shit’s weird. : Hariti then becomes Setsuko Sonomura, because.. I dunno.
: “Oh, it’s the haunted mansion. I was just having a dream about this place…”
: “See? Maki’s mom doesn’t exist in this world, so this has to be her! But what’s she doing here…?”: “You okay, lady?”: “Yes… I’m all right.. Maki used to get lost at this haunted mansion often when she was little..”: Even Maki’s mother wants to get rid of her. This strikes me as a “Oh, hello officer, yes I’m aware Maki is probably at the haunted mansion again, no I don’t know how she keeps getting out or where she finds the money for the bus or why there’s a sign saying ‘if lost, please send to nearest orphanage’ sign on her back” situations.
: “I’m used to looking for her here. I was just dreaming about those days…”: “I was searching for her in this huge mansion, and I heard Maki call to me. I don’t remember anything after that.”
: “But why don’t I exist here…?”
: The next time you’re having an awkward conversation with a family member about why they don’t exist, just tell them the dimensional passageway is about to disappear.
: “I’m sorry, lady, but we have to chase down Kandori.”: “Alright. Just give me one moment! The dimensional passageway is very unstable right now. Someone has to stay here and operate the machine.”: “What? No…! We can’t leave anyone here!”: “I’ll do it! Don’t worry… go ahead on your own. Though I’d be grateful if you came to get me when this is all over with.”: “Miss..”: “Yes? Speak quickly, there isn’t much time.”
: “Yes.. please do. Thank you..”
: So now we’re in Deva Yuga. I’d like to skip the next cutscene (you’ll see it next update) and talk briefly about how I’m planning to try and grind a bit to get our party level high enough to negotiate again. : The first floor of Deva Yuga is all shops: there’s a Velvet Room (second door on the right), Trish’s Spring, and General Store all in this hallway. The most important part of that is Trish’s Spring, since most of the Personas we have equipped right now have a very high SP cost for what they do. : The first thing I realized is that we had a better Persona option the entire time that I never bothered to look at for some reason. Azrael is basically Lilim, only he nulls magic instead of absorbing it. I fuse him immediately and then pass down the older Personas: Nanjo gets Hermodr and Mark gets Lilim. The challenge here is that Azrael has a really shitty moveset, but I offset this a bit by giving him a Megidola stone I found, which will allow him to make use of that relatively high magic stat. : My goal here is to get Azrael to Rank 7, then make an auto-battle setup that consists of Jihei using Tarukaja and then letting Mark and Maki get all the kills. Azrael is also compatible with Nanjo and Mark, so we can pass him down once we can start negotiating again.
