Persona 3 FES: An Asocial Experiment

:siren: :siren: SPOILER POLICY: Lenient. If we haven’t seen it, tag it. Be realistic though; no point talking about the ending after update 1! :siren: :siren:


Burn My Dread | Soul Phrase

So, let’s take a look at a Game That I Like. I promise!

Persona 3 was released in July 2006, August 2007 or February 2008 depending on where you live. It’s a pretty damn good game, and I’m pretty sure if you’re reading this you’ve probably played it and enjoyed it. Or haven’t played it at all.

Or played it and hated it. That works too.

It has had a couple updated rereleases (FES(tival) for the PS2 and Portable for the PSP), a manga, a 4 show stage play (yes really), a talk show (YES, REALLY), a 4 film OVA anime adaptation, a sequel that is a midquel, a pair of sequels that are fighting games…

It’s real dumb. We won’t be looking at most of these because they’re not important. We will be looking primarily at two of these things. One of them will be obvious really quickly.

Table of Contents

01. 04/06/09 & 04/07/09
02. 04/08/09 & 04/09/09
03. 04/06/09 - 04/09/09: The Butterfly Effect
04. 04/17/09 - 04/20/09
05. 04/21/09 - 04/24/09
06. 04/25/09: Thebel The Garden of Worldliness (Part One)
07. 04/26/09 - 04/30/09
08. 04/19/09 - 04/30/09: The Butterfly Effect
09. 05/01/09 - 05/02/09: Thebel The Garden of Worldliness (Part Two)
10. 05/03/09 - 05/04/09: Thebel The Garden of Worldliness (Part Three)
11. 05/05/09 - 05/08/09
12. 05/09/09: In the Shadow of a Full Moon
13. 05/10/09 - 05/13/09
14. 05/14/09 - 05/17/09
15. 05/18/09 - 05/23/09: Arqa The Third Land (Part One)
16. 05/24/09 - 05/26/09
17. 05/27/09 - 05/29/09
18. 05/30/09 - 06/02/09
19. 05/07/09 - 05/28/09: The Butterfly Effect
20. 06/03/09: Arqa The Third Land (Part Two)
21. 06/04/09 - 06/07/09
22. 06/08/09: In the Shadow of a Regal Moon
23. 06/09/09 - 06/12/09
24. 06/13/09: Arqa The Third Land (Part Three)
25. 06/14/09 - 06/16/09
26. 06/17/09 - 06/20/09
27. 06/21/09 - 06/25/09
28. 06/26/09 - 06/30/09
29. 06/01/09 - 06/18/09: The Butterfly Effect
30. 06/18/09 - 06/27/09: The Butterfly Effect
31. 07/01/09 - 07/03/09
32. 07/04/09 - 07/06/09
33. 07/07/09: In the Shadow of a Loving Moon
34. 07/08/09 - 07/11/09
35. 07/12/09 - 07/13/09
36. 07/14/09 - 07/19/09: Yabbashah The Dry Land (Part One)
37. 07/20/09
38. 07/21/09
39. 07/22/09 - 07/25/09
40. 07/26/09 - 07/28/09: Yabbashah The Dry Land (Part Two)
41. 07/29/09 - 08/01/09
42. 06/29/09 - 07/09/09: The Butterfly Effect
43. 07/10/09 - 07/29/09: The Butterfly Effect
44. 08/02/09 - 08/05/09
45. 08/06/09: In the Shadow of a Warring Moon
46. 08/07/09 - 08/09/09
47. 08/10/09 - 08/18/09
48. 08/19/09 - 08/21/09

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Reserved for later if its needed

The Voice Someone Calls

So, Persona 3 is a pretty good game even if its middling for its particular subseries. As mentioned in the OP, the FES is short for Festival (yes, really) and it’s gonna be a long one.

See, The Journey is what was in vanilla Persona 3 and what we’ll be covering first in two different ways (because there’s some special things that can only be done that way). The Answer is a direct sequel and what we’ll be covering afterwards.

Because I make nothing but good ideas you see.

…I sure hope you know the deal by now. Of COURSE I’m putting it on Hard. It means I get to hemorrhage a ton of money, and increases damage received, reduces damage dealt, makes it harder to escape from random battles etc. etc.

In The Beginning
so there’s some really sensible audio things here so just watch cutscene videos if you can/want to very highly recommend

Silence

Requisite disclaimer. I think at this point it’s weirder to see a thing that DOESN’T have this.

The first actual thing we see is a blue butterfly. This is an important symbol within the subseries as it’s a signifier of a major character who… as far as this update cares is only appearing as a butterfly.

Also I hope you like the moon. We’re going to be seeing the moon. A lot.

In this case, it’s just used to make that clear before it uses a pretty sweet match cut…

To zoom out of a giant TV presumably in Tokyo somewhere. There’s also A LOT of incidental NPC chatter in the background here. A lot of VAs pull double duty for things like this, and a lot of it here is really inconsequential. I could transcribe things like Liam O’Brien getting transferred to a new department at [job] or I could, y’know, not.

Burn My Dread

As soon as this guy walks on-screen, the background music kicks in but is a little dulled, starts midway through and has different quality to normal.

Because he’s listening to it himself, and we’re just getting it as a side-effect. This is implicitly the way all the audio works which is cool.

…ATL Audio System is a real company that makes real headphones by the way. The “P” is just for Persona and PE-03 is because this is Persona 3.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, in between shots of Blue Hair McProtagonist walking somewhere, we get snippets of someone freaking out about… something.

Every time the camera cuts to this, the music gets interrupted for obvious reasons. It’d be annoying to deal with here, so.

That timestamp on Blue Hair’s player is a complete lie. Burn My Dread is barely a minute and a half long! It doesn’t even make for good extended versions so don’t even try that excuse.

Back with Lady Freakout, she’s holding something, is somewhere or maybe even someWHEN we definitely aren’t (see: sunset) and… isn’t wearing any pants? What?

Obligatory shot of the inevitable mascot from later. This IS an anime after all.

pretty sure we never see this thing again

Okay, so, she DOES have a skirt on it was just a bad camera angle before.

Also she has a gun.

Somewhere was accurate; that sure ain’t Japan.

Meanwhile, with the walk-montage we get to see some weird ass things.

…At this point, the music stops switching between on/off if you were actually doing that. (you werent dont lie)

And suddenly her freaking out made some degree of sense. I can’t say I’ve played too many games that begin with a high school girl committing suicide. Bold move there.

A train speeding down the tracks somewhere is our intermediary shot this time. Is this symbolic?

But, of course, she couldn’t quite pull the trigger. I imagine even as niche as this was when it first released, that would’ve caught a fair amount of negative attenti–

ahaha no it wouldnt have made a damn difference

Attention passengers, we apologise for any delay. The next stop is Iwa–

And the train from before comes hurtling to an off-screen stop to pick up Blue Hair.

He even sees and reacts to the butterfly!

Iwatodai. Iwatodai.

This is the final train bound for Tatsumi Port Island. Please make sure you board in time for departure.

And then as the clock hits 12 exact…

Silence

Huh?

Yeah, so, the main character isn’t QUITE 100% silent. He has very, VERY minor voiced “dialogue” (I’m being generous) in these cutscenes. He’s voiced by Yuri Lowenthal. That name should at least sound a little familiar in this context because he also voiced Serph in Digital Devil Saga. I can’t wait for Steve Blum to turn up again, oh man!

…Y’know, I don’t THINK clocks should bleed. Calling that one a hunch.

Hmm. :sigh:

Not quite the reaction I’d have but, uh, sure. You do you.

He’s not even remotely fazed by the DOZENS OF COFFINS just floating around like it ain’t no thing. I guess this passes for normal in the far future of 2009.

He’s looking around a bunch because he’s following this flyer and looking for something that’s marked on it.

Dude is so nonchalant about all this, he doesn’t even notice or care that he walked through a puddle of blood. Damn, son.

After all, he’s found his destination…

And heads on in.

As he proceeds to do the unthinkable and remove his headphones (yes, really!)…

You’re late.

I’ve been waiting a long time for you.

Creepy kid teleports in out of nowhere, and starts actual dialogue. He’s ALSO voiced by Yuri Lowenthal (this saves money you see).

Now, if you want to proceed…

Please sign your name there. It’s a contract.

Don’t worry, all it says is that you’ll accept full responsibility for your actions. You know, the usual stuff.

End

So there are three “canon” names for the MC here depending on the adaptation. Minato Arisato is the most commonly known coming from the manga, but the 4 show stage play The Weird Masquerade gives him the name Sakuya Shiomi.

These are both pretty bad so we’ll go with the name from the OVA films, Makoto Yuki. It’s the least worst one.

The Night Before
no really just watch this i will say that every single time i link one

No one can escape time.

It delivers us all to the same end.

You can’t plug your ears and cover your eyes.

And so it begins.

The Beginning

Who’s there?

Gasp

So, remember how she was hesitant shooting herself with it? Yeah, there’s a reason for that and all…

But she seems to eventually have no such compunction when it comes to shooting Yuki!

Takeba, wait!

Silence

Burn My Dread

Track 135 is quite impressive, but Burn My Dread still isnt 5 minutes long!

This Mysterious Feeling

Mitsuru here is voiced by Tara Platt. I am going to presume you recognise these names, yes.

…Who’s he?
He’s a transfer student. It was a last minute decision to assign him here.
He’ll eventually be moved to a room in the boys’ dorm.
…Is it okay for him to be here?
I guess we’ll see…

Yukari is voiced by, uh, Michelle Ruff. She sounds like Every Michelle Ruff Character Ever.

She’ll be a junior this spring, just like you.
…Hey.

So, during a lot of events (A LOT), the MC gets dialogue options. Most of them actually matter somewhat, so I’ll worry about maximising correctness as far as the game cares.

Why do you have a gun?
Huh?
Um, well, it’s sorta like a hobby…
Well, not a hobby, but…
You know how it is these days… It’s for self-defense.

It’s getting late, so you should get some rest.

Oh… I’ll show you the way. Follow me.

It’s a shame that we’re going to leave this dorm pretty soon. I mean, this is a lot of effort telling us where our temporary room is and going out of their way to show us it and all.

Pretty easy to remember, huh? …Since it’s right at the end of the hall.
Oh yeah, make sure you don’t lose your key, or you’ll never hear the end of it…
So, any questions?
Does that kid live here too?

What are you talking about? …C’mon, it’s not funny.

Yukari doesn’t seem to know what you’re talking about.

Um… Can I ask you something?
On your way here from the station, was everything okay?
Yeah.
I see…

Well, I better get going…
Um…
I’m sure you still have other questions, but let’s save them for later, okay?

Right now, I just want to do the sensible thing.

…Hole up in my bedroom and pretend the crazy lady with a gun doesn’t exist.

For today, and today only, we’ll see what these transitions are. By which I mean I’ll signpost them.

Iwatodai Dorm

But now we have the real important things to deal with…


Hello! Please answer the door, or I’ll get in trouble!

You decide you had better not ignore her.

Mitsuru-senpai asked me to take you to school.

So, I don’t care what your personal feelings are on the use of honorifics here. It’s a conscious decision that, regardless of the reasons, definitely exists. Would it be better to not have them? Sure. Is it a problem that they’re there? No.

It’s getting late, so…
Are you ready to go?
I can find it myself.
Oh, really?

Just hurry up and get ready!

So, uh, yeah.

Silence

Makoto gonna take a train to high school. This is just a thing that happens here.

So, that’s it. See? There it is.

Huh…?

I do like how it’s really obvious even here where Makoto and Yukari are. Little design things make them stand out.

…As does Yukari wearing pink and not dark blue, yes.

Well, this is it.
We’re here. Welcome to Gekkoukan High School.

Hope you like it.

Want To Be Close

You should go see your homeroom teacher first.
The Faculty Office is right there to the left.
…And that concludes the tour. Do you have any questions before I go?
No, not really.
Hey…

…See ya later.

End

Okay, so this represents something that’s going to be a bit rare (all things considered) for a while…

Actual control over things. I know, I’m shocked too! Personae 3-5 all have really, REALLY lengthy introductory stuff.

And I’m not helping here because I’mma bug EVERYONE worth bugging.

Starting with these two.

School just started!
You really oughtta find somewhere to change into some normal clothes!
Ehh, I guess…

Hey, where’s the bulletin board with the homerooms posted…?
It’s RIGHT THERE! You’re in Class F, Kaz.
I’m in a different homeroom, so I can’t keep an eye on you… sigh I worry about you sometimes.

Taught by… What!? Ms. Toriumi!?

I’m already not sure I like where this guy is going to go with this.

I was hoping for Ms. Kanou…

Just gonna ignore him for now and instead check what class we’re in. Hopefully it’s not 2-F!

Oh. I guess we just don’t know right now, huh? That sucks.

Ah well, over here we have a school shop. Might as well check it out.

It doesn’t sell much but that Book Cover could be useful later. Sadly, we only have 3000 Yen so we can’t afford it.

So, we’ll head to the one hall we can right now. There’s some things to do here, along with the whole “teacher’s lounge” deal.

But first, it’s nice to see a game that answers the jokey question of “but where do they poop??”

…And then takes it a step further anyway.

Using the bathroom is a potentially Very Good Thing to do. Especially early on, when it actually has a chance to help. You’ll see. Later. Eventually.

At this school, we teach students to become samurai, so they can succeed in society and…

Yes! That’s it, that’s it! That’s the spirit! You might not be from here, but we’re on the same page!

The two of them seem very excited…

That’s strange… I saw the map, but…
Where am I…?

You just said that this is the library, so… the library?

A sort-of kinda maybe importantish thing here is this. It might be useful at some point to know about at least?

That’s all there is out in here, so we’ll head on in.

New School Days

Makoto Yuki… 11th grade, correct?
Wow, you’ve lived in a lot of different places…

I’m sorry… I’ve been so busy, I didn’t have time to read this beforehand.

Ms. Toriumi DOES have an English VA but she’s uncreditted. Figures.

Oh…Thanks.
Have you seen the classroom assignments? You’re in 2-F; that’s my class.
But first, we need to go to the auditorium. The Welcoming Ceremony will be starting soon. Follow me.

I’d like each of you to remember the proverb, “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”
When applied to student life, this means…

The Principal continues with his speech…

The student behind you is trying to get your attention.

You came to school with Yukari this morning, right?
I saw you two walking together.
Hey, I have a question.

…Seriously?

I don’t know.
I see.
I thought you might know, but… I guess not.
…So, how well do you know her?

I believe it’s someone in Ms. Toriumi’s class…

You hear lots of people talking…

So, what about something actually sort of maybe more relevant? That sounds good.

How’s it goin’?
What do you want?
Oh, come on. Let me introduce myself, at least.

Junpei’s voiced by very prolific anime man Vic Micgogna. You’ve probably heard him in dozens of things, really.

I transferred here when I was in eighth grade.
I know how tough it is bein’ the new kid…
So I wanted to say, “hey.” …See what a nice guy I am!

I didn’t think we’d be in the same class again.
sigh At it again, huh? I swear, you’ll talk to anyone if they’ll listen.
Did you ever think you might be bothering someone?
What? But, I was just bein’ friendly.
If you say so.

It’s just a coincidence.
I know, but still… I was a little surprised.

By the way, I heard you two came to school together this morning.
What’s up with that? C’mon, gimme the dirt!
Wh-What are you talking about!?
We live in the same dorm. There’s nothing going on, okay?

Hey… You didn’t say anything to anyone about… you know what, did you?
You know what?
Don’t tell me you forgot already!

Yukari, you are REALLY bad at keeping secrets.

Wh-What?
L-Last night…?
W-Wait a minute! Don’t get the wrong idea!
Listen!

Geez…

…Given everything that happened in Persona 2, you’d think they would. It’s kind of a big deal.

She’s so paranoid…
But, hey! It’s your first day here, and people are already talkin’ about you!

Heheh, this is gonna be a fun year. I can feel it!

End

I guess Makoto makes good decisions of his own volition.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

This is a minor transitory scene that doesn’t really NEED to exist.

But it does serve a bit of a purpose anyway.

Even if its just letting us see other folks going about their days.

The gentle spring sunlight is warm…

Iwatodai Dorm

Fancy as this sure might seem, it’s just a save point.

Now we can hang out at the dorm for a bit and talk to, uh, whoever’s here.

We can’t leave though. Not like we have any reason to right now anyway.

Anyway, you must be tired. You should get a good night’s rest.

Just looking around.
Well, there’s not much to see…
You’re probably pretty tired, huh? Maybe you should go to bed early tonight.

Our next story is about the cherry blossoms. It’s springtime, and they’re all over town now.

The blossoms this year were a little late compared to other years, but they’ll be at their peak this week.

So, the TV here updates daily. Daily. I’ll try and check it out as often as possible but I don’t expect to remember every day.

Anyway, yeah, there really isn’t much to see in the dorm right now…

So we’ll just head on off to bed. We should have more freedom to do things in the morning…

04/07 ~ Night

This Mysterious Feeling

…Hm?
Didn’t you see the newspaper?
There’s a lot going on.
…I know.

I’ve seen it in the news quite often lately.
They say it’s due to stress, but…

Ah, yes, it must be “THEM”!

Otherwise, it’s not worth my time…
You have a one-track mind… Will you be okay on your own?

Don’t worry. I’m just getting a little practice.

And the award for “most cliche line of the update” goes to…

Anyway, yeah, Akihiko was voiced by Liam O’Brien who is Cool and Good.

Now we actually get to continue on to the next day at last. Freedom is inching closer…

1 Like

Granted, Pharos and the Male Protag have a pretty good reason to share VA… -shifty eyes in case of new people-

Anyway, man am I up for a P3 LP! Portable happens to be one of my favorite games of all time so I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.

Want To Be Close

A lot of days start with a mini-scene at the school gates. They’re usually important or relevant for… something.

Listening: Oh, um… something about… a bathroom?
Gossiping: N-No! Not that one! I mean the one about the first-year student!

Gossiping: If her mother tries to talk to her, she only mutters to herself, "It’s coming… It’s coming…!"
Listening: Huh. How about that.
Gossiping: You don’t believe me…?

The first bell has rung.

Ugh… why him?
I’d rather teach Utsubo Kubota.
He became famous as a singer, but he’s also produced fine literature.
I wonder why it’s not in the textbook. Well, I’ll just bring Kubota’s book next time.
…Hey, Junpei! Were you listening?
Who did I say was my favorite author?

(Psst! Who does she like?)
(Utsubo Kubota.)

Eheheh… Well, you know how I like to pay attention!
(Man, you saved my bacon, Makoto!)

You hear your classmates whispering…

You became slightly more popular.

…I think we all know for one reason or another that this does not work like that at all.

But what makes it more relevant and worth caring about is that the classroom segments are a free and easy way to increase our Social Stats. We’ll want to raise these pretty consistently because they’re very, very important.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

Makoto gets to walk home alone today. Junpei’s over there hanging out with that one guy from in front of the notice board yesterday.

The strip mall is lively in the evening…

The real purpose of these scenes are to let you get an idea of where things are located. It’s not GREAT at it by any means, but it’s nice to have.

04/08 ~ Night: Chairman of the Bored
this covers, uh, the entire rest of the day so probably just watch it

Iwatodai Dorm

Good evening.

“Ikutsuki”… Hard to say, isn’t it?
That’s why I don’t like introducing myself. Even I get tongue-tied sometimes…

Ikutsuki is a gigantic dork, it’s pretty great. He’s voiced by Dan Woren, who is maybe the least prolific VA out of everyone who’s been creditted.

Please, have a seat.

However, it may take a while longer before you receive the proper room assignment.
Is there anything you’d like to ask?

We get to ask as many/few of those three as possible, so let’s just do the lot.

Why are you here?

Well, to be honest, I do have other business here.
Speaking of which… where’s Mitsuru, Yukari?
She’s upstairs.
As diligent as always. Although, it doesn’t hurt to come down and say hello…
Is there anything else?
Who else lives here?

you, Yukari here, Mitsuru,

I hope you all get along.
Any other questions?
The other night, I saw…


You were probably just tired. I wouldn’t worry about it.

Something doesn’t seem right…

Do you have another question?
No, I’m good.

Now, if you’ll excuse me…
You must be tired from all the excitement. You should go to bed early.

…Please forgive the bad pun.

…Y’know what? No. I don’t think I will. That was awful!


…You’ll get used to his lame jokes.

Silence

So, that was weird and goofy. How about a tonal shift? That sounds good. Let’s do that.

Fearful Experience

So, how’s he doing?

Mr. Chairman, do you think he’s…?
Well, let’s wait and see for now.

The Dark Hour
if you skipped the link before, DEFINITELY don’t now!!

Silence
like not really, really but its just dialogue stuff technically so

Right now, we’re just… elsewhere.

Wherever this is exactly, there’s a lot of people who clearly don’t want to be found for one reason or another.

Pretty easy to extrapolate that much from how this is clearly a back alley of some kind.

The preceeding program was brought to you by Kirijo Electronics, bringing you the future.

At the sound of the tone, the time will be 12 o’clock AM.

Beep Beep Beep

I gotta say, THIS guy with blue hair reacted much more like you’d expect in this situation.

He’s actually panicking and sweating and everything. It’s not just “oh this is a thing I guess.”

Sure on the one hand, from this guys perspective suddenly “EVERYONE IS COFFIN!”

On the other hand, Makoto still experienced that, random blood pools, no electricity… almost everything this guy does.

This being the sole exception. Makoto didn’t have this.

Whatever this is, it’s kinda creepy. It looks like the Venom symbiote except also totally kind of not.

What makes it for me, personally, is that it’s leaking into/out of the guy’s eye sockets aughhhhhhh

The Voice Someone Calls

During this time, an ordinary person Transmogrifies into a coffin, and is oblivious to all that occurs.

I don’t know why Ikutsuki is expositing to people who should already know this. There’s a better spot for this to happen later if they really need to explain it.

Then, he must be…
As you can see, he’s retained his human form.

The only question that remains is whether or not he has the potential.

Scary…
In any case, we should continue to monitor him for a few more days.
Yes, Sir.
I feel kinda bad, though, spying on him like this…

So while this is happening, there’s something else occurring.

At the end of a non-specific location, there sits a single blue door…

Which opens into a blue elevator.

Welcome to the Velvet Room, my dear young man.

The Poem For Everyone’s Soul

The two members of the Velvet Room here have VAs pulling double duty. Igor is voiced by Dan Woren and Elizabeth is voiced by Tara Platt.

This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter…
It’s been years since we’ve had a guest.

Only those who have signed the contract can enter this place…
Henceforth, you shall be welcome here in the Velvet Room.
You are destined to hone your unique ability, and you will require my help to do so.
I only ask one thing in return…

Is this a dream?
Precisely… You are fast asleep in the real world as we speak.
This visit of yours is merely a dream.

Hold on to this…

'Til we meet again…

End

Silence

However, it’s time to go to school.

That was all fun and games alright, but now it’s time for what really matters: high school!

Want To Be Close

The sky is blue… We’re young… What more could we ask for!?
I think you need rest.

Forget the ol’ Junpei…!
This is the REAL me!
You should cheer up, too. After all, you’ve got ME as a friend.

I’ll be teaching you about good old Japan all year.
Some people say Classic Lit isn’t relevant to everyday life, but oh, how they’re wrong!

You feel tired…

It’s very - VERY - important to always stay awake here. We COULD sleep and have a 75% chance to get that Great condition thing from before, but…

Wake up, children! Now open your textbooks, class.

It’s a very interesting story. You youngsters might call it, “da bomb.”
sigh I can tell you people are “zoning out”…

You stayed up and listened to the lecture…

This is VERY important to get as often as we can. All the social stats are required for things but Charm and Courage (the third and final one) go up quickly. Academics is a slow, SLOW grind.

To get Charm or Courage a single level it takes, I think, 18 points. Academics takes about 60. Yeesh.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

As far as the walk back to the dorm here goes, uh, it’s this one screen and that’s it. Welp.

The station is bustling with students on their way home…

04/09 ~ The Dark Hour

This clock gets to turn up, hit 12 and break apart a lot. A lot. It’s honestly kinda tedious and annoying after a while.

…Be thankful you won’t see it as much.

Living With Determination

…The same as last night.
Hmm… Very interesting.

Memory loss… disorientation…
But, this subject is rather unique. He hasn’t exhibited any of the common symptoms.
But… we’re treating him like a guinea pig.
I understand your concern, but it’s imperative that we recruit new members. I heard he’s your classmate…

Yeah, I guess. But, still…

…Is that you, Akihiko?

Crisis

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to talk… It’s chasing me…
I wanted to let you guys know. I’m almost there.

Does that mean… he’s bringing that thing here!?
Mr. Chairman!

…R-Right! Be careful!

Senpai!?
I’m alright.

This is no time to joke around!
It’s one of them, Akihiko?

Screen shakes a lot from here, so…

Shadow

What the…!? …You’ve gotta be kidding me!
Mr. Chairman, please head for the command room!
Takeba, go upstairs and wake him up! Then, escape out the back.
But, what about you two?
We’ll stop it here.

What are you waiting for, Yukari? Go!
I-I’m going!

You hear a commotion down the hall.
You decide to go take a look.

Sorry, I’m coming in!

Okay.

Big ol’ screen shake again. This is gonna happen a looot more still.

Wait!
…Take this, just in case.

Not gonna ask questions about this. Mercifully, it’s even automatically equipped.

…Okay, let’s go!

Y-Yes! I hear you!
Be careful! There’s more than one enemy!
The one we’re fighting isn’t the one Akihiko saw!
What!?

gasp L-Let’s pull back!

End

Do we have any choice but to go further up?

Not really, so that happens automatically and then the screen shakes. Again.

What are we going to do!?

That’s a good question, since we have actual control over Makoto’s actions now. How nice.

We can talk to Yukari but, uh, this is all she has to say.

Downstairs… They’re fine, right?

Not really anything else on this floor, so we’ll head on up to the 3rd people.

What was that!?

More shaking…

It’s getting closer!
K-Keep moving! Hurry!!

Following Yukari’s idea, the pair do go through that door…

The Magician & The Fool’s Awakening
Yeah, so, absolutely 100% highly HIGHLY recommend just watching this

I think we’re okay for now…

It’s at this point it becomes clear that the screen shaking was because whatever we’re dealing with here, it was shaking the entire building itself…

Back to the anime-zone we go, and we start with Yukari freaking out even harder.

What?!

Persona Invocation

At the start of the journey, the Fool met the Magician. The Magus is the represenation of the active, conscious awareness and creativity. He has power, confidence and determination.

When The Magician understands what they want, their determination is a signifier of their commitment towards achieving/completing/obtaining it.

Those monsters… We call them Shadows!

Having found determination herself, Yukari draws her gun and attempts to shoot… herself… with it.

Though it achieved something, the mess of tendrils and a mask, the Shadow, was not exactly affected by it. Mostly because she missed with… something.

So, she tries again…

Silence

And gets cut off by the Shadow knocking the gun from her hand.

And the gun lands in a puddle of blood, right next to Makoto…

Go on…

There!

Mitsuru and Akihiko, using that weird surveillance system, find Yukari and Makoto on the roof and begin to head up there.

Wait.

Makoto, uh, is understandably worried about what’s going to happen when he pulls the trigger…

But very quickly calms himself and does so.

Per… so… na.

:siren: :siren: Unavoidable Battle :siren: :siren:

Thou art I…

And I am thou…
From the sea of thy soul, I cometh…

I am Orpheus, master of strings…

As we suspected…

Makoto looking confident in this scene looks incredibly sinister, huh…

Grk… Ghhh… Aaaaa…

…Pretty sure that’s not meant to happen!

But, hey, whatever just happened doesn’t really matter too much right now. It’s still 100% on Makoto and Yukari’s side and is kind of a giant badass.

It just bisected this thing in one shot, jeez.

Silence

Another one doesn’t even get the courtesy and instead just gets crushed like a bug.

And just as quickly as this thing appeared…

Orpheus reforms and it’s gone.

The Voice Someone Calls

What on earth is that!?

Orpheus regained its original form.

Not quite…

Two more, much smaller ones, managed to avoid getting obliterated?

I. The Magician ~ Cowardly Maya

Mass Destruction

[i]First fight and it’s the main character solo against two things, huh?

…Sorry, I just got the weirdest case of deja vu right now.

There’s not much we can do right now, but it’s fine. Bash is the only skill we have and it’s more than good enough for this fight.

It costs 8% of our HP and is an easy, easy one-shot.

Even if it misses, it’s not the biggest problem since the Cowardly Maya can only do a basic melee attack.

Our basic attack is nearly a one-shot, even. It’s not quite enough, though, since they have 42HP. Hardly matters, really![/i]

After The Battle

They give more than good enough EXP for the moment, and don’t drop anything here. It’s fine though.

That 20EXP is enough to get Makoto to level 2. Notably this only increases HP and SP.

But it also lets us make level 2 Personae whenever we get the opportunity to do something with that.

More relevant in the immediacy is that Orpheus hits level 2 as well. I’ll cover what stats mean and all that stuff later, don’t worry.

For now, all that matters is that Orpheus learns Agi (single target Fire spell). For a brief moment, you see after this that he learns Tarunda at level 6 and then nothing else.

Silence

Fight over and adrenaline gone, Makoto simply collapses presumably from exhaustion.

Come on…!
Say something!

Can you hear me!?
Please…!
Answer me!

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What if…

Soul Phrase

Soul Phrase

What if one thing were to change? Just one detail… what would that affect?

End

What if we found a way to play on a difficulty higher than Hard?

Well, we’d lose the ability to watch animated cutscenes for a start. That’s kind of disappointing, but understandable really.

[i]Yuri Lowenthal would be (mostly) gone and instead replaced with Laura Bailey.

I am completely okay with that happening.[/i]

The contract would include a clause that may or may not have been there before. It’s only spelt out this time.

[i]The only available “official” name would be from The Weird Masquerade stage play.

…Lady Protagonist gets immediately ignored by Atlus for some bizarre reason and it’s the worst decision ever.[/i]

At least we can “navigate” our room. The PSP isn’t exactly the most potent machine so we don’t get to actually move around beyond a floating cursor.

Getting to actually check out everything in our room is red herring though. We can use the bed, the calendar and technically the mirror. We’ll see what’s in here for real in the future.

But there is unique content in here and so…

Time

This is my favorite part… when it feels like you’re gliding over the sea.
Our stop is Port Island Station at the end of the line. From there, we walk.

Oh, look, you can see it now!

Welcome to Gekkoukan High! You’re gonna love it here!

Well, I’ll be the judge of that thanks.

So, the whole no actual movement thing applies across the board. It might be disappointing but it’s an improvement in some respects.

[i]Plus we have quick travel here. That helps a bunch later on, for sure.

There’s a couple new things at the school to check out, so let’s do just that.[/i]

Well, she sure wasn’t here before.

Eh, whatever.

There’s even something new in the store, huh? It’s not really anything exciting right now but it’s something alright.

…Oh hey, she’s new as well!

But I was just in one down the hall…
…Was that just another classroom?

…Would you believe I forgot the Principal had a “proper” portrait in this version? Because I did. Oops.

The random gossip this time isn’t some kid asking you if Yukari has a girlfriend. Rather, it’s a couple folks talking about you.

And, of course, for clear and obvious reasons Junpei’s scene is fairly different now too.

Who are you?
Me?

I transferred here when I was in 8th grade.
I know how tough it is bein’ the new kid…
So I thought I’d check up on you, make sure you weren’t freaking out on your first day.

Did you ever think you might be bothering someone?
What? But I was just bein’ friendly.
If you say so.
Anyway, some coincidence that we’d be in the same homeroom, huh?
I’m glad to have a friend.
A friend? Oh… you mean me.
Yeah, I… I’m glad we ended up in the same class, too.
Um, hello? Did you forget I’m in this class too? C’mon, lemme in on the fun!
By the way, do you guys know each other? I heard you two came to school together this morning.

Ugh… Could you just cut it out? I hate dealing with rumors like that.
I mean, I’m used to it, but she just got here, you know? Don’t you feel bad, spreading rumors like that?
…Well, I’ve gotta go take care of some archery team stuff. Don’t try anything funny, you got that, Junpei?

Well, just to clear something up, I seriously didn’t come over here to hit on you or anything.
If you ever have a problem, you can tell your ol’ pal Junpei about it!
I’ll remember that.
Heh, cool. Well, I’ll be seeing you around, then.

This being here is so weird and pointless. It’s too early to be meaningful.

Girls can join too, so why not do it if you’re interested?
You’d be joining as a new member, though, so you won’t be able to apply for a little while.

You made small talk with Junpei while walking back…

[i]A lot of scenes are identical, save for pronoun changes. That’s why I’m glossing over so much here.

This guy’s hanging out in the alley alone now, for system limitation reasons.

…Though this kind of takes a lot of the sting out of this scene.[/i]

The Poem For Everyone’s Soul

But I’ll make sure you two are properly introduced. Another time, perhaps.

There’s no Elizabeth in the Velvet Room here, this time around. Just Igor and no one else…

Time

In times like these, it’s best to sleep during class!
You ever notice how sometimes taking a nap in class makes you feel more refreshed than sleeping at home?
Don’t sleep in class.
Whaaat? Why do you have to be all serious?
That feeling of being completely recharged is awesome… But I’m screwed later since I didn’t hear the lecture!
Oh, but we have classic literature today… That means we’re stuck with Mr. Nasty ol’ Ekoda…

And we do, and you knew that already. The question in Portable is the same as in FES.

A Way of Life

Y’know, this is different. Makoto hasn’t been here yet.

A lot of Gekkoukan students come here after school.
There’s a karaoke box and a CD shop. Oh, and a really great cafe, too!
There’s also a nightclub, but that’s kinda not for us yet.

The Paulownia Mall is crowded with students on their way back from school…

Iwatodai Dorm

It might be nice to read a book by moonlight once in a while.

Unusually, Kotone gets to actually hang out at the dorm on the 9th. How strange.

Gonna definitely take advantage of that, though!

Their main purpose is to send the school reports about daily life here in the dorm.

It’d be great to have somebody like that doing stuff for us, don’t you think?
You’re right.
I mean, I’m not a good cook, and Mitsuru-senpai just doesn’t do things like that…
You know, if you’re handy around the kitchen, I bet you could really do something with this place!

[i]Today’s TV segment is one of the times the game sort of decides to acknowledge that Persona 1 and 2 exist!

Trish herself is a fairy who is absurdly greedy and totally has a money fetish who was in Persona 1 as well as both Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment who runs the healing springs and associated junk. Here, she runs a talkshow.[/i]

Today’s subject is a very dependable-looking 20-year-old woman.

…Next is news. Pain, pain, go away!

Her guest today is Yukino Mayuzumi who was a playable character in Persona 1('s opening sections and the Snow Queen route) and in Innocent Sin. She was originally a tomboy criminal, basically, before a teacher at St. Hermelin helped her out. In Persona 2 she turns up as a photographer who assists Maya, the deuteragonist of Innocent Sin and protagonist of Eternal Punishment. Yukino’s main Arcana was the Empress and her default Persona in both games was the Roman Goddess, Vesta. She IS in Eternal Punishment but just as a (really cool) NPC.

Skipping ahead now to the middle of the Dark Hour, rather than hand us a sword this time, Yukari gives us a naginata.

Out of all the things to include actual animation of as part of a scene, they went with Arcana Magician climbing up onto the ceiling.

Yukari gets to try and do something cool here, and there is a way that this is done as a cutscene as well…

I. Arcana Magician

Just make it run through the combat engine instead. That works.

Master of Shadow

Here goes…
pant

[i]This time around, Yukari doesn’t even get to come close to doing anything.

Rather than dick around with melee attacks, Magician just chucks a fireball and sends Yukari flying. Welp.

Still leaves the gun lying at Kotone’s feet at least.[/i]

Per… so…

…na.

I have one (real) complaint about this…

And it’s not really related to this not looking as cool.

Though it doesn’t, even if the Magician still gets obliterated with no input on our part.

End

And it’s right here. This was the perfect opportunity to go for Eurydice, but instead just “Orpheus but he’s got longer hair and is wearing gold”. Booooooring!

But, whatever. That’s just my own personal complaint and not one that I see get floated much ever. Let’s beat up some Cowardly Maya again!

I. The Magician ~ Cowardly Maya (Portable)

Wiping All Out

[i]The actual fight itself is unchanged, really.

Still only have Bash as our sole skill…

Still a very comfortable one-shot, doing roughly the same amount of damage as it did on Hard in FES for that matter.

Even take basically the same amount from its attacks too.

I’m beginning to question if Maniac is in fact harder than Hard, or if it’s just FES hard with more easier difficulties added. That’s really kinda disappointing.[/i]

After The Battle

But maybe not quite as disappointing as this.

Portable is just straight up easier in general compared to earlier versions of the game. Even discounting secret not-secret difficulty level shenanigans, it gives more EXP from the word go for some reason too. And, yes, this IS on Maniac. Why would you doubt me?

[i]Add to that a new mechanic designed to make things more streamlined, convenient and easy and we have a bad sign for difficulty down the road in this alternative Journey.

But I think for now we should return to the Main timeline and follow it along until we reach our next real divergence…[/i]

1 Like

Honestly, I prefer the fact that Orpheus is the same for both. To me, it strikes me as, despite outwards appearences, both of them are pretty much the same character.

Also, I accepted no Fem!Protag in 4 but I’m still rather disappointed there is none in 5. That was a selling point and key for me picking up Portable and getting into this series as a whole.

A New Morning

So while who-knows-what is happening, after Makoto collapsed he found himself back in a strange corridor(?) leading to a blue door…

The Poem For Everyone’s Soul

You became unconscious after awakening to your “power.”
…It’s nothing to worry about, though.
So, just relax.
By the way…

That power is called a Persona… It is a manifestation of your psyche.
I don’t understand.
It may take some time to fully comprehend.

Considering that IS literally what the word means, and how it is used in psychology, that’s a pretty good way to think about it.

That being said, your power is still weak…
Whaddya mean ‘weak’?
When you use your Persona ability, you must channel your inner strength.

Only took 3 updates, but we finally got told about the real main gameplay mechanic. Social Links are going to come up a lot - A LOT - in the future after all…

The stronger your Social Links, the more powerful your Persona ability.
Please remember that.
Now, then…
Time marches on in your world.
I shouldn’t keep you here any longer.
Next time we meet, you will come here of your own accord.
Until then…
Farewell.

Silence

You wonder how long you’ve been asleep.

You feel someone’s presence beside you.

Tranquility

Um, how do you feel?
Where am I…?
Thank goodness. You finally came to…

It’s been a little over a week, even! It was the 9th and now it’s the 17th, jeez.

…I was so worried about you…

The doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with you. He said you were just exhausted…
But, you kept sleeping and sleeping. You know how worried I was?
Um…
I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything…
Even though I was supposed to protect you, I…
But, your power… It was amazing.
What were those things?

They’re what we’re fighting against.

We’ll explain everything later. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before…
I, uh…
I wanted to tell you that…
I’m sorta like you.
Why’re you telling me this?

I didn’t think we were already at the “here’s my tragic backstory!” level in our relationship…

And my mom and I aren’t exactly on good terms…
You’re all alone too, right?
To be honest, I already know about your past…
But, it didn’t seem fair, so I wanted you to know about mine…

There was a big explosion in the area.
Supposedly, my dad died in the blast, but nobody really knows what happened…

So, I’m hoping that if I stick around long enough, I’ll find out something.
That’s why I’m going to Gekkoukan High, and why I was there when this happened to you.

I’m sorry… You wouldn’t have to go through all this if I wasn’t such a coward…
It’s not your fault.
Thanks… but still…
And here I am telling you all this the minute you wake up.
While I was waiting, I thought to myself,

So, thanks for listening. I’ve been wanting to share that story with someone for a long time.
…Alright, I’m gonna get going.

Take it easy, okay? Be a good patient!
And don’t hesitate to call the nurse.
I’m sure she’ll take good care of you.
…Bye.

End

Well, that was a productive day. Let’s see what new things we have in store now.

Want To Be Close

Damn, Makoto was asleep in a hopsital bed for 8 days and is already up and right back to school. That’s pretty impressive for so many reasons.

Yeah, I’m alright.
That’s good.
Hey, sorry to hit you with this first thing in the morning…
…but Ikutsuki-san wants to talk to you today.

[i]It’s really kind of a shame how it seems like we should be getting free reign any day now, but we’re still actually in the introduction sequence technically.

…I told you it was pretty long![/i]

And that wraps it up for the Stone Age. sigh… I’m tired of lessons about stones.
I’d rather talk about the Sengoku era! Japanese history’s not that exciting until then.
Though I’m paid to do this, so I’ve gotta… It’s tough being an adult.
Next is… the Jomon period? When do the samurai get their day in the sun!?
I’ll just ask a question at random and call it a day. Hmm… hey, Junpei!

Uhh… How am I supposed to know about something way back then?
(Quick, Makoto! What the heck is he talking about!?)
(Mud huts.)

…It’s no use. I can’t get interested.
Ugh… I wanna get to the age of katanas. Everything else is so dull…
(Hey…! I answered right, and I don’t get any credit?)
(Tch… Oh well. Thanks, Makoto.)

Oh, I forgot to mention it before but each correct answer is worth 2 points of Charm. Likewise, staying awake when we get that opportunity is worth 2 points of Academics. It’s pretty unfairly balanced against Academics, yeah.

You decided to go home early.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

[i]Well, hey, it’s a little later than before but at least Makoto gets to take a random detour through Paulownia Mall now.

Not sure why, since he’s alone. Probably just getting used to where everything is or whatever.[/i]

Iwatodai Dorm

[i]Unlike what you’d expect, we aren’t thrown straight to the fourth floor.

There’s no one here to talk to, so we can just watch the news instead.[/i]

The attraction will continue in operation until May 5th.

…Ahh, there seems to have just been an earthquake.

I repeat, there has just been an earthquake. We have no further information at this time, but we urge our viewers to be watchful for tsunamis.

I repeat: there has just been an earthquake. We have no further information at this time. Please continue checking the weather warnings for possible tsunami updates.

[i]I think we can take a bit of a detour while en route to the fourth. Just gonna grab a drink while we can.

There’s some… memorable soda also available but this’ll do for now. Gotta get some of that caffeine![/i]

The Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad

This Mysterious Feeling

I’m glad that you’re okay.
The reason I asked you here is because I needed to talk to you.
Please, have a seat.
Oh, before that.

Okay, let me start off by asking you this…

No.
Do you remember the night you came here?
You had to have noticed the signs…

Didn’t it feel like you were in a different time…?

I don’t get it.
I know how you feel. Who would believe such a story?
But, the Dark Hour occurs each night, right at midnight.
It’ll happen tonight, and every night to come.

But, that’s not what makes the Dark Hour so interesting.
…You saw those creatures.
We call them “Shadows.”

It’s our job to defeat them. …Sounds exciting, huh?

You just got hurt the other day!
Now, now. He does his work well.
Long story short,

How on Earth is an Execution Squad a school cl-- actually, y’know what? This doesn’t really matter that much. Just gonna go with it.

Mitsuru is the leader. I’m the club advisor.

They’re responsible for most of the incidents on the news, if not all of them.
How do you fight them?

Some may even awaken to a power that enables them to fight the Shadows.

The Shadows can only be defeated by Persona-users.
Which means, it’s all up to you guys.
So…?

We’ve prepared an Evoker for you. We’d like you to lend us your strength.
Alright.
sigh I was afraid you’d say no…
Welcome aboard!
Thank you so much. I’m really glad.
Oh, I almost forgot… About your room assignment…

I don’t know what the holdup is, but I guess it worked out in the end. chuckle
Holdup? But, wasn’t that–
Oh, never mind…
It doesn’t matter anymore…

The Power of the Heart

A mysterious voice rings in your head…

Along with a non-specific mysterious voice, this card kind of appears…

The Fool is our first Social Link, is represented by the SEES group as a whole and is Makoto’s primary Arcana. Orpheus’ Arcana is The Fool after all.

You feel your inner strength growing…

You recall what Igor said about the power of Social Links.

Strange Child

The Voice Someone Calls

And you are…?
We’ve met before.
Soon, the end will come.
I remembered, so I thought I should tell you.
I don’t care.
Really? …If you say so.

Then why mention it at all…?

Oh, looks like you’ve awakened to your power…
…and an unusual power it is.
A power that takes many forms, yet is bound by none…
It may prove to be your salvation, depending on where you end up.
Do you remember when we first met

I’ll be watching you, even if you forget about me…
Okay then, see you later.

Well, that was a scene alright. Not sure why it happened but hey. It’s… nice to know, I guess.

A New Housemate

Iwatodai Dorm

Can you come down here?

There’s someone I want to introduce.
…Hey, hurry up.

Hey, I know that voice!

Silence

Wait, don’t tell me–

Afternoon Break

chuckle Wazzup?
He’s staying HERE!? You’ve gotta be kidding me!
I bumped into him the other night.
He has the potential, but he just awakened to it recently…
I told him about us, and he agreed to help.
You have the potential!? For real!?

I don’t remember much, but… man, that’s embarrassing!
He said that’s, ya know, completely normal… in the beginning.
Like, bein’ confused and not remembering anything. Did ya guys know that?
Didn’t happen to me.

I don’t have that problem, goodbye!

Big deal.
It happens to everyone else.

I had no idea.
I’m glad I’m not the only one. It could get kinda lonely, ya know.

Huh?
Uh, y-yeah…
Well, enough with the introductions.
I think we’re about ready…
Ooh, we’re gonna go do somethin’?
Sweetness!

Tartarus…? What’s that? …Sounds like toothpaste.
We believe we can find the reason for the Dark Hour there.
I hope so…
The Chairman will give us the details tomorrow night, so be ready.

End

Alright, so, we at least have some idea of what we’re going to get done today. That’s nice, at least.

Want To Be Close

Listening: Yeah, me too. The only thing you can do is to sleep through first period.
Listening: Wait… tomorrow is when we have morning assembly!
Gossiping: Ughhh… I’m too lazy for that. I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear…

The first bell has rung.

The only thing worthwhile about this scene is how Mitsuru casually walks into our class. And immediately gets a ton of attention. In part because she’s an older student and in part because she’s Mitsuru.

Come to the lounge when you get back to the dorm. I have something to tell everyone.
Oh, are we having that talk?
I’ll save the details for later. See you there.

She’s probably busy with things like Student Council, unlike us.
Whoa, Yuka-tan! Do I sense some hostility?
Well, it’s not that I don’t like her… She’s just…

You decided to go home early with Junpei.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

We’ve already seen this area, so this is probably a good sign.

If it’s run out of new areas to deal with, then we must be nearly done with the opening segment at last.

You walked home with Junpei, talking and laughing at each other’s inappropriate jokes…

This time, we ARE thrown right onto the fourth floor of the dorm.

Tartarus

This Mysterious Feeling

I’d like your undivided attention.
For a long time, Mitsuru and Akihiko were the only Persona-users we had.
But, that number recently jumped to five.
Therefore…

Sorry… I asked this yesterday, but what’s this Tartarus thing again?
You haven’t seen it, Junpei?
Hm…?
It’s no surprise…

The Dark Hour…?
Just like the Shadows… Interesting, huh?
And it’s the perfect place for us to train.

Well then, I can absolutely get right behind this.

Whoa… Their nest, huh…?
But, Senpai… what about your injury?

…Yeah, I know.
Well, I’m sure he won’t complain, as long as you don’t go too far in.

I’m not so sure about this…
What about you, Mr. Chairman?
I’ll stay here.

So, let’s go see where Tartarus actually is shall we?

Why HERE?
Just wait a few minutes…
It’s almost midnight.

Silence

And back to the anime-zone we go…

As the clock hits 12 exact again, we enter the Dark Hour as expected.

And as we do, Gekkoukan High School begins to shift and change…

It rapidly grows and makes a horrific mechanical creaking noise.

The Voice Someone Calls

Labyrinth…?
What are you talking about!?
What happened to our school!?

This is the “nest” you were talking about!?
But, why!? Why’d our school turn into a giant tower!?

You don’t know, either?

I’m sure it’s complicated.
Who cares anyway? It’s not like it would change our minds about fighting.
Well, maybe now we’ll find out.
Mitsuru and I have only gone in to take a peek; this will be our first time exploring it.
Exciting, isn’t it?

Akihiko. I respect your enthusiasm, but you won’t be accompanying us today.
I know… You don’t have to remind me.

But, it sure is creepy…

First, we’ll have you three get a feel for this place.
Why don’t you go have a look around?

We’re not asking you to go very far, and I’ll be feeding you information from here.
So, you two didn’t plan on coming in the first place?
That’s right.

For real?
…One of us?

I like how you can tell exactly who Akihiko is talking to purely by where he’s facing.

W-Wait! Why him!? He doesn’t look like a leader!
But, he HAS fought them before…
Seriously?
That’s true, but there’s another reason.
You two…

I wouldn’t necessarily say “without difficulty,” considering how long he hesitated originally.

Y-Yeah, of course I can!
I think so.

I’m aware of that.

As Makoto heads towards the door leading to the Velvet Room, everyone watches him confused…

The Poem For Everyone’s Soul

The time has come for you to wield your power.
The tower that you are about to venture into…
How did it come to be? For what purpose does it exist?

That is why you must be made aware of the nature of your power.
The nature of my power…?
Your power is unique.

_…That’s not unique at all! Everyone in both Persona 1 and 2 could do that as well. _

But no one played them (they should!) so I guess they don’t count.

And when you have defeated your enemies, you will see the faces of possibility before you.

Your power will grow accordingly… Be sure to keep that in mind.
My spare time will soon be scarce.
But, please come again of your own accord.

Until then… Farewell.

The Voice Someone Calls

Yeah, what’s up? You look like a zombie.
Nothing.
Don’t tell me you just dozed off!

Come on, man. You’re s’posed to be our leader.
Cut him some slack. If nothing’s wrong, then let’s get going.

End

Now we have actual, proper control. We have party members and everything!

But first, we gotta see what everyone has to say. That just feels like the natural thing to do here.

You’ll be just fine.

I use it to transport delicate equipment necessary for gathering information.

I’ll prove that I should be in charge.

Alright, so! There’s a lot of things that are awkward as hell to do in this game for whatever reason. Checking characters stats requires you to talk to them and pick that option. Changing their equipment can also only be done this way when inside Tartarus proper. It is a pain in the ass, yes.

Aside from Makoto, everyone here has a specific strength that won’t be immediately obvious on account of being level 1.

We’ll see Junpei and Yukari’s Personae later, so don’t worry about that.

Y’know, it’s really weird that bows have such terrible accuracy. I dunno, that they have a 12% chance to miss is just strange considering Yukari is in the archery club and all.

Anyway, let’s head on in to Tartarus now.

tartarus_0d01
no thats not a weird metadata screwup or anything that is literally its name

I hope I don’t get lost…

Whoa! Is that you, Senpai?
I’ll be providing audio backup from here on out.
Wait… Ya mean, you can see inside here?

I’d like to join you, but the structure of Tartarus changes from day to day.

It’s a semi-randomised dungeon layout, oh boy. That sounds like fuuuuun…

That’s why outside support is imperative.
Well, THAT makes me feel a whole lot better…

They shouldn’t be too tough, but proceed with caution.
Practice makes perfect.
Right!
Got it.
(Why is she always like that…?)

Yeah, let’s. I’m just gonna interrupt Mitsuru at this point and get right to work. This is all tutorial stuff, so we’ll just get it done as quickly as we can.

First, though, I’m grabbing this. Getting as much of this as we can as quickly as possible is going to be important for the early game, I reckon.

Because it’s an SP restorative. Since Dia costs 3 SP and heals a bunch and all HP costs are proportional, SP is worth expontentially more than HP and it’s harder to recover as a result.

So, just like every RPG ever.

After that, we’ve got a fight up ahead, oh boy.

But now we get to deal with timing nonsense as we try to not get ambushed. It’s really easy though, so the only thing that potentially hampers it is my own incompetence with depth perception.

Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out

Every single fight here, all of them, starts with Mitsuru wanting to tutorialise you on combat. After we’ve already had a fight. I’ll pass, thanks.

But now that Orpheus is level 2, we picked up Agi and can see how well this does.

On the one hand, it’s actually a weakness. On the other hand, it’s not quite a one-shot.

But it’s fine though, because that knocked the Cowardly Maya down which is important.

Because it’s the core combat mechanic this time around. Knock every enemy down, and everyone piles in making a comical dust cloud animation happen.

This deals Almighty damage to everything and is usually the most efficient way to deal with fights. Since doing an All-Out Attack is optional, you can choose to not do so if you don’t want to.

There are times that’s a better idea, even.

After The Battle

We don’t get anywhere near as much EXP this time around, but that’s fine. What’s displayed here is only what Makoto gets as well so it’s also potentially misleading.

tartarus_0d01

_Our Tartarus excursion this time around is pretty limited, honestly. We can’t explore beyond the first real floor and trying to do so has Mitsuru repeatedly tell us we’re not allowed. _

So we’ll fight something else.

Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out

This time there are two Cowardly Maya!

Our tutorial this time is on the Press Turn analogue for this game. Knocking an enemy down by hitting its weakness (or getting a crit) gives that character another free turn. You can chain these by knocking down multiple enemies in a row BUT you do not get another for hitting an already Downed enemy.

Right now we don’t have to worry about anything else other than “cast Agi, make dust cloud.”

Oh, fun fact. The press turn symbols for Nocturne are in the game files here. That’s either a holdover from building off the engine or the original intention was to use a straight Press Turn system instead.

This excursion through Tartarus is basically just “fight four Shadows!” which boils down to “have Makoto cast Agi on every Maya and then the other 2 contribute by boosting All-Out Attack damage.”

It’s a pattern that I can absolutely get behind, even if it is fairly SP intensive. We have more than enough, though.

Fight 3 introduces another new mechanic, and this one is semi-important but only in specific situations.

After The Battle

Since we don’t fight normal demons and we can’t negotiate with Shadows, we need some way to recruit new Personae with minimal hassle. Enter, Shuffle Time(!!) which lets you do just that among a few other things.

It’s basically a shell-game of sorts, with rewards that scale based on your location in Tartarus, etc. etc.

You can get 5 things out of this, though a free Persona is usually the best option.

tartarus_0d01

It’s mildly annoying but you don’t even get told when people other than Makoto level up. They get a thing back here and then you have to talk to them to check their stats to see what changed. It’s kind of a pain in the ass.

Before we get to our next fight, Mitsuru tells you how to heal if you don’t already know. Use an item, have a Persona that knows a Dia-line spell or just ask Yukari since she has it as a dialogue option.

After that, we get a fight against 4 Cowardly Maya and Mitsuru finally decides to tell us about All-Out Attacks.

Her tutorial for the 3rd fight was how to get 1 Mores. She’s really bad at tutorials.

This one also proc’d a Shuffle Time so I took the opportunity to grab a free weapon. I was hoping for a bow, honestly. Well, not like it REALLY matters right now anyway.

The Imitation Katana is Junpei’s default weapon and is considered a two-handed sword. Junpei can only use these things and Yukari can only use bows. In vanilla and FES, Makoto can use almost everything. In Portable, he can only use one-handed swords like the Rapier and Kotone can only use naginata.

Now that we’ve beaten every Shadow on the floor, Mitsuru tutorialises us about a mechanic I will never use again.

Press square and you can split the party and have everyone run around randomly to collect treasure, find stairs, whatever. But they will more often than not run face first into enemy Shadows. And require you to bail them out. Or they will get promptly trashed and drop.

But this is a tutorial where it’s required, so whatever. Junpei can find a thing, then we’ll reconvene by using that menu again and use that green thing to leave.

If we didn’t group back up before leaving, we wouldn’t actually get the item that Junpei found. It’s a really dumb mechanic, yes.

…Y’know, I coulda swore this was just a Medicine but I guess not.

The Voice Someone Calls

So, how was it?
No problem.
I see. Well if you gained confidence, that’s the best thing you could have achieved.
Wow… I never knew I had that kind of power!
We kicked some ass!
But damn, I’m beat…

You look pretty tired yourself, Yuka-tan.
I’m still trying to catch my breath, actually…

Don’t worry, though, you’ll adapt.

This IS an actual mechanic, but it doesn’t get a chance to come up here so we’ll worry about this later.

But, I’m surprised… You all did much better than I expected.
At this rate, they’ll catch up to you in no time,
Heh, we’ll see about that.

A mysterious voice rings in your head…

Thou shalt have our blessing when thou choosest to make a Persona of the Fool Arcana…

Your power to create Personas of the Fool Arcana has grown!

Well, that was nice and easy at least. We’ll worry about what that means a little bit down the line though.

We have to bug everyone again to see what they have to say now!

Tch! If only I hadn’t gotten injured…

I’ll explain the details some other time.
Tres bien! You did well today. Now, let’s head back to the dorm.

I’m starving…

Let’s go back…

There’s nothing else we can do in Tartarus right now, so I’m fine with leaving. We’ll save Velvet Room stuff for later, and all. This also causes the day to end; there’s no time limit when you’re in here. Well, not an actual one.

But before we turn in, we should consider an important question…

:siren: What is the best sport: Kendo, Swimming or Track? :siren:
Answers on a postcard to win!

1 Like

We swim! Be one with the water and all that jazz.

Track so we can run from all our problems and never look back

We must get better at the art of the sword! Kendo it is!

Run to the hills! Run for your life!

Kendo, so we can cut anything with a katana later in the game.

Let’s go with Kendo so while everyone else parties we can study the blade.

Kendo: |||||||||||||||| Swim: |||| Track: |||||

Alright so I’m gonna call it here. Hopefully get the update done and ready for Monday but no promises. It does kind of depend on how often I fall into the Metaverse after all.

Today is a very important day… Very, very important.

Want To Be Close

Yeah, why?
Man, I knew it. I heard from Junpei that you’re pretty close with Yukari-san.
…What’s up with that?

There’s a morning assembly, so we better hurry.

Next, we’ll hear a word from the Student Council.

Thank you.

Well… I guess she IS the most popular girl in school.
You can say that again! There’s like some kinda aura around her…

Yeah, I try not to think about that.

It is my firm belief that each of us must accept the responsibility of bettering our school.
However, change cannot occur without sustained effort and an unprecedented level of commitment.
That is why we must restructure our daily lives to accommodate this lofty goal.

…To imagine a bold new future without losing sight of the realities around you. That is the key.
I am certain that many of you have your own visions of the future… For us to reap the full benefits of our education, your participation, ideas, and enthusiasm are essential.
Thank you.

So… Do you have any idea what she just said?
Sort of.
Sure didn’t sound like somethin’ a high-schooler would say…
If it was anyone else, we’d be laughin’ our asses off.

…You know what? I’m tired of these textbooks. I just went over this novel in the last class.
I’ve got a great poem we can cover instead. Close your textbooks, everyone, and listen…

All right, Kenji, you’d better not be sleeping back there! You should be ashamed of yourself, taking a nap while I pour my heart into reading this poem!
For that, you get another essay along with your regular assignment tonight!
I’ll expect a slice of cake when you turn it in, too! And don’t cheap out with the store-bought stuff like last time!

This is nice and all, but what makes today so important?

This train be off the rails at long last! We’ve finally got the freedom to do whatever we want during downtime. Hurray!

…There’s not much we can do today, though. That’ll very quickly change, but we’ll deal with that when we can. Same with looking around the school proper. For now, let’s just leave and see what we find.

And what we find… is a cutscene. Great.

Where!? …Oh, there he is!

I didn’t use to talk to him much, but now I’ve got a good excuse.
I know he’s the captain of the boxing team, but… Who woulda thought he’d be such a chick magnet!?
I mean, come on! You don’t even see girls flock like that on TV! I wonder where they’re going…

Normally I’d truncate this and combine the latter 2 into one image like before, but that heart icon over Junpei’s head is kind of hilarious I dunno.

I want the two of you to meet me at Paulownia Mall.
You know where it is, right? I’ll be at the police station. See ya there.
Th-The police station? You mean, we’re not hangin’ out with your friends…?
Who, these girls?

Anyway, I’m gonna head out. …Don’t keep me waiting.

…Oh well, let’s go.

Akihiko asked you to meet him at the Paulownia Mall police station…
You decide to head over there…

Fortunately, we’re not forced there immediately so we can do something else first.

Namely, talk to this guy. We’ll probably be seeing him around a lot. Call it a bit of a hunch, there.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

We could try and do other things, but we’re sort of not allowed (…free time…) and it’s a good idea to get this out of the way quicker anyway.

Paulownia Mall

Oh, these are the guys I was talking about earlier.

I was waiting for you guys. This is Officer Kurosawa. He helps keep our squad well-equipped.
And, this is from Ikutsuki-san…
R-Really!? Sweet!

You can’t fight something empty-handed, so find something you like. Officer Kurosawa has connections…
But, these things still cost money.
Of course they do. Nothing in life is free.
I realize that.
Well, I’ll see you later. Thanks again.

My job is to maintain peace in this city, regardless of the circumstances.
I’m just an ordinary police officer, but it doesn’t take a genius to know something strange is going on here. I’m only doing what I think is right.

So, Kurosawa here runs the Weapon/Armor store out of the Police Station.

We can buy an upgrade for anyone/everyone if we have the funds but thats 9600 Yen for the weapons alone and we’d have 8000 flat if I didn’t buy soda so…

Instead, I’m just not gonna buy anything right now. They’re all upgrades across the board, sure, but we can get anything he sells for free in Tartarus and we can find BETTER stuff in general too.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

I’m gonna take off, since I’m in a bad mood now…
Later.

Junpei has left.

So, NOW we have actual real free time. Finally.

_Since we’re already here, we might as well look around the mall a bit first. _

Since Kurosawa won’t sell accessories, we need to find somewhere else to buy them. Fortunately that’s next door! I do appreciate here how the HP/SP increases are proportional and not what they do in later games when it’s just “oh this thing gives you a whole 10 points of SP!” or whatever.

That said the other stat boosters are just +1 and that’s real bad so whatever.

…Honestly, for the most part I kind of forget that the actual stores in the mall exist after a while.

Speaking of forgetting, every shopkeeper has normal dialogue too but it’s not exciting or anything. Kurosawa just tells us his “store” is only open during the day, for example.

I guess since we’re going clockwise, we’ll finish off that way too. Gonna make a note of this to come back in about 2 months when it’s open.

…So, basically, there’s no point to shopping at the Pharmacy when it’s not a Saturday. Gotcha.

_Being a Pharmacy, it sells restoratives… and hoity-toity cat food. _

I dunno, I just love that this is here and it describes the cat food as being snobbish.

Nothing else in the mall worth our time right now (sadly Tower Power Records is not a store we can buy things in), so we’ll just leave and go… somewhere. The station over by our dorm seems like a good first stop. We’ll go everywhere here repeatedly over time, don’t worry.

For sensible reasons, it drops us off at the train station but that’s not why we’re here!

No, off-screen to the south-west we can find a path to the strip mall here. We’ve seen it twice already so we have an idea of what’s out here. I’m sure we’ll see what’s in all these stores later but for now…

I feel like grabbing a cheap and easy snack. It’s only 400 yen so the Chairman’s paid for this already, if you think about it.

It’s weird because it doesn’t have octopus in it. At all. I would think that means it isn’t even takoyaki but I guess I’m wrong.

Moving swiftly on, we’ll head over to the other station. This is a small area with one important thing in it.

_This guy right here. _

It shows movies on a bit of a rotation with each one increasing a social stat. This is our first chance to boost Courage and it only costs 1500 yen!

It does use up our afternoon free time but that’s okay. There’s not really much else we COULD do with it anyway.

More important is that since right now our Charm and Academics are at 4 and our Courage is at 0 it might seem like it has a bit of catching up to do.

It’s already done so. The movie theatre is a pretty nice bonus for social stats since it IS a +4 gain. It’s just… not actually worth using outside of the really early stuff because we have better things to spend time on soon enough.

Iwatodai Dorm

Regarding our exploration of Tartarus…
Akihiko is still on the mend, so for now, I’d like you to lead the team.
You never know when a powerful enemy might appear, like the one you faced the other day.
It’s best to be prepared, or else you may find yourself in a difficult situation.
So, whenever you’d like to explore Tartarus, just let me know, and I’ll gather everyone there.
Also, since I’m sure there are other things you will need to take care of, you may go out at night if you need to.
Well, that’s it. Keep up the good work.

Simply put: we can leave on an Evening now.

But first…

Tell me, what did you think about it?
It was w a piece of cake.
Why, that’s absolutely remarkable! Would you like to apply to become the next chairman?

But, he knows about us and helps out when he can.
Why does he help us?

But, he’s a police officer, so he’s dedicated his life to helping people.
Plus, he’s a pretty cool guy.
Does everyone go there?

How did you meet him?

He’s someone you can count on.
Anything else I should know?

…so you won’t be able to buy equipment during those times.

They appear as coffins.
Shadows are quite enigmatic… They only attack thoe who have not been Transmogrified.
Shadows feed on the minds of their victims, leaving them unable to speak.
We call this Apathy Syndrome.
And those who suffer from this incapactitating afflication are known as…
The Lost.

I feel like I spent all day hiking up Mount Fuji.
What about you, Makoto-kun?
I feel fine.
Really? You don’t look like you have that much endurance.

Well, I was thinking, why does it have to look like a gun?
I mean, you gotta be a little nutty to point a gun at your head and pull the trigger, ya know?

Investigators are facing a difficult case, since there were no witnesses. This is the 12th instance of the mysterious incident. A team of investigators is working hard to track down any leads.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

_Welp, no point in hanging around the dorm if we don’t have to. We COULD go to Tartarus right away but I’ll give it a bit of time first. _

Our nighttime exploration options are even more limited than normal. I guess we’ll be spending a lot of time in the mall.

So, there’s a thing back here that I skipped over earlier since I didn’t think it’d be relevant right now. It still isn’t, but let’s just get it out of the way now.

Silence

It’s the door to the Velvet Room! This will prove pretty dang handy to have quick access to later, since this is the only spot it turns up in outside of Tartarus.

The Poem For Everyone’s Soul

Welcome to the Velvet Room.
Well… I suppose it’s time for me to explain what I really do here.

But in order to do so, I must fuse your Persona cards together…
In other words, I shall merge them into a single Persona.
The number of Personas you have buried within you is approximately 170…
We’ve never seen a visitor with this many possibilities before…

Heh heh heh… This should prove veeery interesting,.
So, as you accumulate cards, please bring them to me.

We could fuse Orpheua and Pixie but right now that wouldn’t be the best idea. So, we’ll just leave for now…

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

And check out the Arcade. We’re gonna be spending a lot of money and time here, for a simple reason.

Every day, there are two different game available. We’re gonna be focusing on the more expensive one almost exclusively.

So, for today we’ll be checking out the, uh, Haunted House I guess.

Mainly because it gives us a Courage boost. We want to get as much Courage as possible in as short a time as possible, so…

Silence

Provided we don’t go to Tartarus, we can spend extra night time Studying if we really want to.

Needless to say, yes, we’re going to study here very often. There’s little reason not to, really.

It’s an easy and consistent Academics increase, after all.

Although, sometimes this happens which is a good thing in itself. I just wish it happened later than the first possible day…

Because it lasts through to Wednesday and that’s not a good thing but only in this particular instance.

Want To Be Close

Dude, I thought the rumor about you and Yukari-san was true…
It is what it is.

You keep saying that, Kenji. I think you do care.

But, you’ve sure had some bad luck since you transferred here.
…You know, dude, all the weird stuff that’s been happening…
How everyone’s been saying they’re hearing strange voices…
Well, I guess since you’re always listening to your headphones, you probably haven’t heard anything.

Afternoon Break

It’s the classmate you were talking to earlier this morning…

Why are you asking me?
No reason, really. I just don’t have anything to do later…
…and I thought we could finish our conversation from this morning.
So whaddya say, man? Let’s get some ramen and talk.

You accepted your classmate’s offer.

Super unsubtle ulterior motive… makes sense here, really.

You have decided to go with him.

…Whew! Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!
…Well, was I right, or was I right? This ramen tastes great, doesn’t it?
I bet they put a special ingredient in it–something no other ramen shop uses.
It’s probably some sort of secret spice…
Oh, sorry. My bad. I get all geeked up when I eat here.
I agree with you.

…Wow, you don’t look like the type of guy I’d normally hang around with… But I guess looks aren’t everything.
…By the way, man, I hear you and Yukari are close.
Damn, boy, you move fast! I mean, you just transferred here.
…I can’t blame you, though. A man’s gotta be aggressive nowadays.

Even in 2009, huh? I guess there really is nothing new under the sun. Hopefully Kenji is going to end up being more likable than most people with this mindset…

Hey, let’s hang out after school again sometime.

Kenji seems to like you…

You have become friends with Kenji.

The Power of The Heart

A mysterious voice rings in your head…

Well, I guess today could’ve been used less productively…

Afternoon Break

What, it’s already nighttime? …Damn, I missed my favorite TV show!
Man, you’re one serious dude… Oh well, let’s get going.

You decided to return to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

Exploring Tartarus can be very tiring. If the exploration becomes too long, you might get exhausted.

There’s a chance you might not be able to recuperate fully before whatever’s going to happen.
The others’ conditions will vary as well, so make sure you take that into consideration before you begin exploring.
If you want my evaluation of everyone’s condition, don’t hesitate to ask.

Mitsuru remains so consistently bad at tutorials in this instance she outright got it wrong. Good job, Mitsuru.

You should return to your room and rest for the remainder of the day.
Don’t push yourself too hard if you’re not feeling well.

Right, so we’re currently Tired from getting a bad RNG when Studying. It happens. Since we can only check our own status easily (because while it makes sense in terms of plot, Persona 3 is a mechanical pain in the ass), Mitsuru exists to at least make this part somewhat easier. Bascally, we could talk to everyone separately when in Tartarus or we could talk to Mitsuru. One of these is the better option, yes.

But we’re not checking stats since we’ve only been in Tartarus once and that was a tutorial and so it didn’t even count anyway. We’re just going to normally Talk.

there is a possibility you may falter.
However, continuous attacks with a sword will inflict a great amount of damage.
Contrarily, there is no danger of stumbling when you use a far-range weapon such as a bow.
However, a bow is nowhere near as powerful as a sword.

And not just because Yukari has low Strength. Though that doesn’t help.

No, see, ranged attacks don’t have a penalty for missing so they deal shit damage AND miss constantly because of their massively reduced accuracy (12% miss rate is a lot). Balancing!

I see that you can use both types of weapons.
it is importantto think about these advantages and disadvantages when choosing between the two.

And if you don’t get up fast enough, you’ll become the enemy’s main target.

I’m not wearing a nurse’s uniform, but you can come to me if ya need healing!

What, is that funny?
You need to be hot to pull off a nurse’s uniform, and you’re definitely–cough–NOT.
Why you little–!

…Moving ever so swiftly on.

Everyone else can only use one type of weapon. For me, it’s the two-handed sword.
That’s because real men fight with katanas!
With a katana you can sometimes hit an enemy over and over… and it’s super strong!
Consider me the main attacker of the team! I’m one baaad mutha!
Although, sometimes I fall down when an enemy dodges my attack… but don’t worry about that.

The man has regained consciousness, but due to his condition, has been unable to speak. Police are awaiting the man’s recovery before questioning him. And that’s the news for today.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

Well, there’s no reason to stay in the dorm at Night. Being Tired doesn’t mean anything out here, so we’ll be going to the mall every night except when we go to Tartarus for obvious reasons.

Although, today we’re not playing arcade games. Instead, we’re checking out the place with the empty orchestra sign.

800 yen is relatively cheap for what this does, really.

Even without the arcade machine, there are ways in the mall to increase Courage and Charm which is nice.

Silence

There’s basically no reason to not study so…!

…Well, okay there is this. Since we’re Tired, we can’t actually get anything out of studying right now. This was just a waste of time, really.

And now we’re no longer tired, and that’s a bad thing right now. It ISN’T bad normally but there’s something special you can do in a bad condition at school.

Want To Be Close

Listening: You’re talking about the Apathy Syndrome, right? My neighbor has that… He grosses me out. Sometimes I think I might have it too, and it depresses me.
Gossiping: Maybe you just need some exercise.

The first bell has rung.

_We could go and join a school club right now, or we could, uh, not. _

_Kenji’s right here and though I don’t exactly like it, he did tease us with something of maybe interest. Plus he’s a Social Link and we probably should deal with those. _

_We can still decide to not spend time with him though, or we can get reminded what our rank is. Which is also in the menu, so that’s just pointless here. _

…Still, we’ve got no real reason to bail.

Afternoon Break

Contrary to its simple appearance, the soup has a complex flavor that is accentuated by the noodles.

Hey, dude, your dorm’s co-ed, right?
So, can you, like, go into Yukari-san’s room and stuff?
No.
…No, huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

So, a lot of dialogue choices in most S.Link scenes matter. They affect how quickly you’ll reach the next rank, which is kind of important for a couple reasons. We’ll get to those when we get to those though.

Well, I’m not interested in girls her age, anyway.
When it comes to women, I like them to be older than me. What about you?
I like girls my age.
…Psh, you don’t know what you’re missing, man.
Older women are smart, sexy, and sophisticated.
Damn, dude. I thought you’d understand.

Anyway, so, the music note from before is how you know you picked “right” and this one is a clear sign of choosing the “wrong” option. In this instance, it doesn’t even matter though. You need 1 point to get Kenji up from here and getting either one correct gives 5 points (7 if you use a semi-hidden mechanic).

…Well, to tell you the truth, I–wait, this is just between us, okay?–I have my eye on someone.
This is the “secret plan” I was talking about. I’m going to ask her out.

Anyways, I want you to be there when I ask her out. But you gotta promise you won’t tell anyone, okay?

…On the one hand, I so want no part of anything that’s going to happen from here. On the other hand, I cannot wait to see (and most likely laugh at) everything that happens out of this.

Cuz if people find out they’ll be all like, “That’s inappropriate” or whatever…

Kenji told you his secret plan…

Your relationship is stronger now!

The Power of The Heart

And this scene plays every single time we get a rank up in the S.Link it’s dumb. I’m just gonna cut it out from now on, honestly.

Your power to creat Personas of the Magician Arcana has grown!

It’s not like you’re going to forget who represents which Arcana anyway.

Afternoon Break

You decide to return to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

…Y’know, I do wonder if Junpei knows about Kenji’s “secret plan” or not. He has to, right?

He said you’re a pretty cool guy…
Are you two friends too?
Well, sort of… I’ve known him for a long time, even though we don’t usually hang out.
He’s a good guy… and, man, he has no fear when it comes to the ladies…

Understatement, yes.

By the way, let’s go to Tartarus tonight…
I hear the Lost are increasing, so we better kick some Shadow ass.

Eh, there’s no need to go to Tartarus just yet. We’ll be fine if we leave it a couple days more.

By the way, have you joined any clubs?
Sure have.
Good, I hope you enjoy it.
It’s tough to attend all the time, but you’ll really get a lot out of it if you do.

Teammates who are sick or tired should not be permitted to explore the tower.

That’s why mine only learns physical skills.

Among others, though since we’re only like level 3 you don’t know that yet I guess.

…Because dudes are supposed to fight with their fists! Mano a mano!
Oh, that’s right… I use a sword.

I’d have thought those two things would be the other way around, but whatever.

What’s great about a bow is you don’t fall down if an enemy dodges one of your arrows.
Although… a bow doesn’t do very much damage, and it misses a lot…
But, you can always balance those negatives with your Persona.
So, no worries.

Hey guys, do you maybe get it yet? There are mechanical differences between weapons! And not just the fact that there are three different Physical elements!

Our next story is about the release of the spring carp. Over 10,000 were released into the river this year. The next carp-release ceremony will be held in June.

As interesting as carp is, let’s see… today is Thursday, so that means…

Karaoke, I guess. Let that Courage sour ever-higher!

And then late night studying for good measure. Academics is slowly, slowly creeping up to where we’re going to want it.

Don’t worry, I have a stupid plan for certain things in mind anyway.

Want To Be Close

Gossiping: I got seriously hooked on that punching game.

Yeah, so, uh, the games that I’m not bothering with at the arcade don’t increase Social stats. They increase your actual Stats.

Listening: That’s at Paulownia Mall, right? Game Panic has a good selection, but it’s always packed.

Gossiping: Oh, really? Let’s go see what cabs are open today.
Gossiping: That is… if you can spot me some change.
Listening: No way! You still owe me for that game of Super Neo all the way back in 2003!

The first bell has rung.

So, this is probably the first and last time we’ll see this here. I’ll see it a lot though…

Afternoon Break

You doing anything after school?
Maybe.
Oh…
Well, if you’re looking for something to do, come talk to me, man. I’ll be at my desk.
Well, I guess I should go study…
…NOT! Who needs to study, right? Hahaha…

Maybe you should talk to him after school…

Maybe, yeah. This scene just means he’s going to rank up if we hang out with him. If this scene plays, that’s definitely going to happen but the reverse is not necessarily true. It should be obvious why I’m going to skip this whenever it plays in the future.

Want To Be Close

Anyway, we COULD hang out with Kenji again but we’re sure not gonna today.

We’re not really going to check out much of the school, but there’s one specific area we’re heading to.

…First though, I see someone we didn’t do anything with yesterday.

Um, why am I telling you this?
Well, whatever… You have to admit, he IS a hottie…

Oh yeah, dude, she’s DEFINITELY checking me out…

This isn’t exactly the only NPC mini-threadline but it’s certainly one that exists right now.

But what I do know is that we’re off through this door next to the bulletin board that we couldn’t before.

It’s hard to read… It doesn’t look like English…
And if you listen close, you can hear mysterious voices inside…
It’s one awfully mysterious home economics class, let me tell you.

Huh, that’s a little too specifically odd. Wonder if it’ll come up again.

We’re going to be going through this fire exit, but those stairs there? Lead to our classroom, basically. We could’ve come down there and be done quicker, but then we’d miss out on Creepy Stalker and… whatever is going on with the home ec class.

Out through the fire exit, there’s this… tree. That really does stand out, alright.

_And since this is a Japanese high school, this path also leads to the Gym. _

From here, we can pick which sports club we join. Track is the door dead ahead, swimming is to the left and kendo is to the right.

Now, let’s see…

Kendo: ||||||||||||||||_ _ Swim: ||||_ _Track: |||||

Alright, that works for me; kendo it is.

Afternoon Break

This is Yuko, our manager.

You’re a junior, right? SInce we’re the same year, you can just call me “Yuko.”

…That might be one of the most Japanese sentences I have ever seen in an official English release of a thing, wow. See, basically, just referring to someone by their first name is either a signifier of closeness or that you’re absurdly ridiculously rude. Yuko’s cool though, so she don’t mind which is nice I guess.

…Hey! Kazushi!

This is the future captain of this team. He’s a great athlete and scores well in competitions.
You two are in the same class, right? Kazushi, keep an eye on the new guy here, okay?
You got it.
You’re the guy who went out with Yukari Takeba on the first day of school, right?
You’re practically famous.
I’m Kazushi Miyamoto. You’ve seen me around, right?
Yeah.

Just because you joined mid-season, don’t think I’ll go easy on you!

You have made friends with Kazushi…

You joined the Kendo Team and befriended your new teammates.

The Power of The Heart

Afternoon Break

I’ll make sure your uniform is ready for next time.

After looking around, you decided to go back to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

Nope.
Well, don’t wait too long, cuz they fill up quickly.
Oh, by the way, maybe we should go to Tartarus tonight…

Plus, I didn’t have practice today, so I could use the exercise…
Just don’t take it lightly, okay? It’s dangerous there.
I’m aware of that.

We’ll leave Tartarus be for the moment, of course. Before we consider doing anything else…

Equipping one of them will affect your status, dude!
I think only Persona-users can use them, though.

Hmm… I wonder why you don’t notice you’ve been infected until after the battle…
Must be because you’re concentrating so hard on fighting… Well, anyway, just don’t come near me if you get sick.

Let me rephrase that… WE don’t have weaknesses, our Personas do.
My Persona seems to be weak against electricity, but strong against wind. sigh She’ll probably never learn any electricity skills…

Our next story is about a strange animal from overseas.

The platypus, an animal native to Australia, is an egg-laying mammal. And behind the male playpus’ feet are poisonous spurs! What a strange animal!

…Why is “hey guys, platypi exist!” a PS2-era Persona running joke? It’s here and it was a big deal in Persona 4 for no apparent reason. I don’t get it.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

So, we can’t go to Karaoke right now. That’s fine though, let’s see…

Okay, good, the arcade does have what we want. But we can’t afford it (and that’s not because I bought Soda and Takoyaki either). Hrm. Gotta flip some of this stuff from our first Tartarus run I guess.

It’s worth it though. Because not only does this give us a Courage boost…

It pushes our Courage up to Rank 2 already! We can actually do something with this in the future now.

…Still not good enough, though.

Academics is just a tedious, long grind that isn’t even close to rank 2 yet…

Plus we’re out of money now. I guess we should go to Tartarus tomorrow.

1 Like

We’re nearly done with April already, but we won’t be making much progress on that front today.

Want To Be Close

Gossiping: Huh? A bookstore?
Listening: Yeah, leave Iwatodai Station, go straight for a while, and it’s after you cross the crosswalk. We’ve been at this school for a while… You should explore more often!

The first bell has rung.

In terms of the actual day, a lot of them are going to go like this for a while. Fixed start of day chatter, maybe a small scene for class stuff, day over have fun.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

I will gladly take it up on its offer to do whatever. 'Cept today is a Saturday, so we can’t hang out with Kenji or Kaz. I know, it’s such a shame. Suppose we’ve got no choice but to check out the new bookstore or something.

Oh, but Kenji’s here, huh…?

I was just about to head home, but I don’t really feel like walking.
…Hey, that doesn’t mean I’m looking for an unlocked bicycle, alright?

Oh don’t worry Kenji, I totally believe you.

More importantly, we have the bookstore just over in the strip mall. Nice that this one opens up pretty quickly, at least… one day, Antiques Store. One day…

Joy

An old man and woman are behind the counter.

What would you like today? We have fresh mackerel…!

Hey, you’re a student, aren’t you? You must be from Gekkoukan High, right?
That means you’ve probably seen the persimmon tree there…
Huh?

It was planted right beside a walkway in a courtyard at the school.

But, it’s not clear how the tree and this old couple are connected…

I’m sorry. He’s rambling on like an old man. Just ignore him.

After saying goodbye to the old couple, you decided to leave the bookstore.

Want To Be Close

Well, that was a scene alright. It didn’t give us anything and it didn’t even advance time…

But we’ve seen a tree at the school before, briefly. It was just by the gym, so it’s right through here.

It must be the persimmon tree that the old couple at the bookstore were talking about.

You found a leaf on the ground.

Despite having the regular item icon, the leaf is actually a key item. Hmm, I wonder… is this really the right tree?

Joy

How many guests? Smoking or non-smoking?
Hm? Excuse me, but may I see that leaf in your hand…

It must have grown quite a bit to produce such splendid leaves…
…Wait, so you didn’t come here to buy books? Did you come here just to show us this?
Um, no…
Nah-uh, I don’t believe you.

The old man is showering you with praise.

I’ve been meaning to go see that tree for a while now,
but I’m not sure if these stumpy old legs will make it that far…
…That wasn’t meant to be a pun. You know, “stumpy,” “tree stump.” Catch my drift?
Very clever, dear.

If you don’t mind, would you tell us your name?

Then, we’ll call you Makoto-chan from now on!

You got to know the old couple a little better.

The Power of The Heart

A mysterious voice rings in your head…

Joy

Come visit us if you get bored.

After saying goodbye to Bunkichi and Mitsuko, you decided to go back to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

If anything happens, it’ll be you guys who have to deal with it.

Hm, I don’t see anyone around except Akihiko. I suppose that makes sense…

But, if you stumble across an enemy, you might have to fight it by yourself.
That can be pretty dangerous…
But if you’re strong enough, the enemy will be afraid of you, so you won’t have to worry.

I still don’t really see anyone else around here.

It’s a popular vacation choice this year, it seems. Airports are filled with air travelers…

Well, that makes sense. Hawai’i is apparently pretty great. I’ve heard especially great things about Waikiki.

Anyway, there’s clearly no one else around and we have no money (a whopping 10 yen!) so I guess we’ll just go study and slee-

Oh, well, Yukari and Junpei are up on the second floor at least.

When you’re tired, you don’t hit as hard, so it takes longer to beat an enemy. Plus, you get hit more easily.
“You youngin’s don’t know what’s good fer ya… Back in my day, we knew when ta rest!”
I understand your point, but what’s with the corny impersonation…?

Oh, that’s the room up on the fourth floor. We’ve been there twice before, technically.

Oh, but if you wanna go to Tartarus, she said it was alright.

It’s the only way we’ll achieve our objective in Tartarus.

Okay, so folks ARE around but we do have no money at all left. This presents a problem.

Fortunately, Tartarus exists and so we can hopefully fix a bunch of problems at once.

The Voice Someone Calls

So, this place at the base is the ideal spot to change equipment and check stats for everyone that isn’t the main character. Since, y’know, they’re static and aren’t getting in the way.

We’ll also briefly check out our allies’ Personae. Unlike Makoto, they both are stuck with one each. Yukari only has Io, who is really not that great early on. Low Agility, overall worse Strength on average, and no offense until level 5 presents a problem for the moment. Her resistance to Wind is semi-useful and weakness to Elec doesn’t matter at the moment. Yukari also happens to have the lowest HP out of everyone period which is going to be especially nasty in the long-term.

Junpei, meanwhile, has Hermes and he’s very much the opposite. Generally tankier and much more of a Strength based offense. He has nothing BUT offense for a while, and Cleave doesn’t vary his elements at all unfortunately. He can only uses 2h Swords and Cleave also deals Slash damage, but at least if/when it misses he won’t eat shit. His resistance to Fire will boost his already fairly good survivability even further but that weakness to Wind might prove to be a big liability in this first trip.

A few floots up, there’s a barricade preventing you from going any higher.
The tower seems to have a number of these interspersed amongst its floors.
I know I told you that the layout changes each day, but these barriers seem to be in fixed locations.

While this is VERY EASY to do in the first trip on Maniac difficulty on Portable (honest Maniac is absurdly easy…), it might as well be actively impossible to do so here. We’ll do as much as we can, before we functionally have to leave.

tartarus_0d01

So, the first time we step foot in a new floor (second time for 2F because of the tutorial), Mitsuru chimes in with something. Sometimes it’s to give you an idea of where the next boss fight it (like here), sometimes it’s even less useful.

Anyway, welcome to Tartarus! For real this time! It sucks and I dislike it. A lot.

Fortunately for you, this place being a randomised piece of shit means while I get to slog through it all, you get selected highlights instead.

So, despite being in Tartarus, the location listed is Thebel. As you might recall from before, this is the first block of Tartarus which is a worrying concept. Thebel is a minor mistranslation (albeit not from Japanese) and is intended to be Thevel, which is a Hebrew word that means “the world.”

This seems like a stretch, even with the Japanese B/V mess-up in the same line as L/R stuff, I appreciate. HOWEVER! It also has a subtitle: The Garden of Worldliness.

Since almost every floor is randomised, sometimes you get the stairs immediately. Sometimes you have to slog through a large area. Sometimes you don’t even get an access point and can’t leave easily.

Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out

So, let’s talk about the Shadows in this area. It’s very, VERY important to Analyse them as soon as possible.

Not necessarily for your benefit, although that too, but because it makes your party members better because they’re AI only. And the AI is… very inconsistent but secretly really unfairly good when setup correctly. See, from this they know not just the elemetal affinities but things like “does ailment work” despite that not being listed anywhere.

Annoyingly, Analyzing Shadows doesn’t list enemy skills or the like. Makes it a bit inconvenient to try and determine what Persona to have Makoto use, though you can generally intuit the broadstrokes from their Arcana and the elemental resistances. Also Analyzing isn’t an immediate thing either, so you generally have a round or so of waiting for it to kick in. It’s kinda dumb.

Like how the Cowardly Maya is weak to all primary elements except Ice and is a Magician so of course it uses Bufu.

A nasty thing that’ll become apparent here is that half the Shadows (right now) are Resistant to Fire. That means Orpheus can only be useful via Bash, which is also our only means of Strike elemental damage right now for if/when that matters.

That they also end up being weak to other elements doesn’t necessarily matter. We have no easy way of doing Elec damage until level, uh, 7 at the earliest for example. We CAN get Ice damage from an Apsaras but that requires getting rid of both Pixie AND Orpheus and it’s not worth it this early.

Though there IS a thing that isn’t the Cowardly Maya that is weak to Fire. It’s kinda weird that the two Magician arcana Shadows are weak to Fire, since Fire magic is what the arcana specialises in.

Oh and with this being on Hard mode, right now we take - from Neutral damage no less - around about half our max HP if we’re lucky from any given skill. This happens a lot right now, so I just reload whenever it happens for convenience.

tartarus_0d01

So, there’s nothing else exciting or interesting on 2F so we’ll head on up to 3. Maybe something useful will spawn or whatever.

Like this, this is nice. Sadly, this is pseudo-rogue-lite so while the general idea of the contents is determined fairly early, the specifics are determined when you open it. It’s weird and confusing, yes. This case, for example, would always contain Yen in this instance but it would be a semi-randomised amount; it could be anywhere from a little under 200 to around 3000.

…As REALLY NICE as seeing a Gold Shadow immediately is, it’s also a mean trap. Not only is it already aware of us and thus will get away, if we did catch it it’d escape then instead. Very tanky, lots of HP (100 flat for the one here), runs, gives good exp etc. etc. A Metal Slime in many regards.

So, let’s talk about one of my least favourite things about Hard mode. This Shadow spotted us at the exact moment as my sword hit it.

Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out

That means we get Ambushed. If you don’t get the Advantage, but you hit the enemy on Normal or Easy then no one gets the advantage. This CAN happen on Hard mode but it’s rarer. If the enemy is aware of you, even if you get the first hit on the map, you will still get ambushed. It’s really dumb and kind of annoying but we’ll get around it eventually.

Although, Junpei is not filling me with confidence. Especially with the way knockdowns work in Vanilla and FES…

tartarus_0d01

Skipping on up to 4F now and Mitsuru lets us know, albeit vaguely, that the first boss is on the next floor. There is a non-zero chance that we won’t even get to it this trip…

After The Battle

Not much on this floor right now either, so we’ll look over the Shuffle Time!! rewards. We can get new Persona this way, and for a little while is the only way to get ones we’ve fused away. But we can also get Minor Arcana cards which no longer have Persona attached to them (which they did in 2 and only 2 for some reason).

Honestly, the Suit of Cups is a nice thing to get just for general survivability and preserving SP. It’s not a GREAT HP heal right now, but it’s not nothing and can help make a difference.

Suit of Wands is pretty important because holy fuck do we get no EXP from fights here.

It’s a very, VERY small gain right now but it pushed that particular fight up to 5. From a whopping 4!

4 is the average from any and every fight right now, but we get 2 an offputtingly common amount of times too. This isn’t a Hard mode thing; this is just the early game kind of has broken EXP scaling. It gets better later on, thankfully.

Of course, this leaves the Suit of Pentacles, or Coins, which just straight up gives you money. Not great amounts right now, but money is money.

We already know about the Persona gains, and while it’s most commonly Pixie it can be other stuff too. Apsaras is a nice pull since she makes useful fusion fodder (though Pixie has better skills if you can get her up a level) and…

tartarus_0d01

She has Bufu! And better Magic than either Pixie or Orpheus! Her resistance to Ice is a nice boon too, though that weakness to Slash means if anything (except the Hand) hits Makoto, that procs a One More.

Through pure luck, we managed to get some nice footwear from a briefcase too. These are way better than our default gear, so I’m slapping them on Makoto right away. Increased Evasion is always a good thing.

…But that’s still a common pull. That, right there, is a gold chest. That means rare loot! These only have a real chance to spawn on specific floors but they can contain very nice things. This one is on 4F so it has something we’ll want 2 of maybe.

Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out

But it IS guarded by a random Shadow, through pure chance. Since we have Apsaras as our active Persona and Orpheus in our stock, they can let us use a special Fusion Skill.

If you’re wondering what Apsaras and Orpheus have to do with each other, the answer is nothing really. Sure, Apsaras is a non-specific Hindu woman because it’s a plural. Apsara is just the name for a nymph of cloud and water. Orpheus, of course, is a Greek guy who got tricked hardcore by Hades. The connection is musical, as an Apsara is usually married to a heavenly musician. Hence why the skill is called Cadenza, yes.

It’s half a Sukukaja with proportional healing that doesn’t help right now. The evasion boost is nice but I wouldn’t bother outside of weird niche situations. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the game having a way in which it tells you outright how to make every Fusion skill, you’d be forgiven for not realising most of them exist because they’re really dumb.

Portable mercifully adjusted the way Fusion Skills work and I greatly prefer its system, which we’ll get to later on don’t worry.

After The Battle

…And because I haven’t had good enough luck yet, the Shuffle Time drop included a weapon card. Which netted a Practice Bow instead of a Rapier again. Sure, this is Yukari’s default weapon but that’s not why I want it.

tartarus_0d01

The rare chest on 4F means it contains a Juzumaru. This is a useful 2h Sword that I’m giving to Junpei right away.

It’s stronger than the Imitation Katana AND increases his accuracy ever-so-slightly. That’s nice and all, but that +20HP is the real benefit here. Making the closest thing we have to a tank even tankier seems like a weird decision, but this could prove useful later.

Makoto, meanwhile, gets the Practice Bow. An odd choice but having someone with access to Pierce damage who isn’t Yukari (and thus will mess it up) is going to be useful later.

Floor 5 is a very special floor. It’s layout is predetermined, and it has no random Shadows crawling around. It has fixed locations for the stairs, entrance, chests… everything.

It doesn’t have an Access Point though. Not really. It has this thing, instead.

There is actively zero reason to ignore this since it helps with a couple things.

It’s a checkpoint within Tartarus and gives us a place to warp back to later on if we so choose, and it lets us warp to any other Terminal Points we’ve activated too.

The one on the first floor is always active, since it’s where access points kick us out after all. Oh and it’s not immediately obvious but returning here is an automatic full restore of all HP and SP. You can bet that was removed in Portable!

Gonna throw down a fresh save, get annoyed by the fact that I’m not level 5 in FES yet and then just roll with it anyway and take on the boss.

Empress Venus Eagle x3 b[/b]

Master of Tartarus / Danger Zone

Yeah, so this is absolutely true but Mitsuru is neglecting something important.

We have two people with bows. This makes the fight way easier, because they’re eagles. And that means in grand SMT/RPG tradition, they’re weak to being shot. Which means Pierce damage!

Although bows are bad and miss a lot. It’s kind of annoying but we’ll deal.

Really, the most annoying thing about the AI is that our control over it right now is limited. As a result they mainly focus fire on one target when attacking. Since one of the Eagles was Down, Junpei opted to Cleave her. Downed targets take slightly more damage than normal, you see, but in return they’re no longer prone.

These particular Eagles have this nasty trick up their sleeve. Garu in itself isn’t particularly strong, but…

This is what it does to someone who’s Neutral with decent Magic for this stage.

This is what it does to someone who’s weak. Not much of a difference, huh? Junpei having gotten a lucky Magic gain with his stats during the tutorial seems to helped him out here, I guess.

But this? This is what it does on a resistance. If we could actually rely on Yukari, she could probably solo this fight without really having to try. Sadly that’s not an option. And not just because her AI is rock stupid right now.

See, as a weird thing vanilla and FES have… interesting ways they deal with the way Down works as a mechanic. As a result of that, they are the only (modern-ish) Persona game(s) where you sometimes want to not do All-Out Attacks. It’s weird and feels backwards and wrong…

But when something gets up, that uses its entire turn. This was changed immediately for Persona 4 and thus was backported into Portable as well. This is insanely exploitable and you bet I will be using this to makes things go much easier and quicker.

The Eagles being, well, eagles slash dudes with their claws when attacking normally. So definitely don’t bring Apsaras as your main Persona for this fight, not anything with a Wind weakness (which while 100% possible here is unrealistic to get). They can also cast Magaru just to fuck with you further, but that’s rarer and didn’t happen on either the FES nor Portable fight so whatever.

Junpei gets “actually” tired now, which is annoying and a severe limitation to our Tartarus treks right now but because this is tied to our level will quickly stop being relevant later on. Around the second block or so, you can be forgiven for forgetting that this mechanic even exists.

After The Battle

Oh, uh, and the Eagles have 150HP ad 100SP each, and along with being weak to Pierce are immune to Wind, Bless/Expel and Curse (they use Wind and are a boss so you can’t instant kill them)… and drain Fire just because. That’s a nasty trick on the first boss/miniboss but that’s not even close to the nastiest trick in the first block alone.

Those Empress Masks will also come in handy sometime down the line. Don’t worry about it until then.

End

tartarus_0d01

Since treasure on this floor is fixed, we’ll always get a Bead Chain which is insanely nice and I’m already terrified about it being wasted frivolously. If we get low on HP but not in a situation worth using this, the AI will still use this. Yukari and Junpei might have their own item stashes we can’t touch, but the reverse is emphatically not true.

Going up to the 6th floor is a thoroughly bad idea without dipping back to the ground floor for our guaranteed full heal… but if we do that, Junpei will leave now that he’s tired.

So bad ideas it is! We won’t be here long, because Mitsuru is accurate here. There’s a couple new Shadows around from this floor onwards.

Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out

Like this guy, who I swore was from a higher floor… Well, we can’t hurt him easily, so we’ll decrease his defense for 3 turns at least.

He’s basically Reverse-Yukari in a lot of ways. Sadly, we can’t even take advantage of that Wind weakness right now. If we gave up Apsaras and Orpheus, then Makoto could have Garu but Yukari gets it at level 5 and the Eagles finally let her reach level 4, so…

It’s still not a difficult enemy normally, though it’s gotten more dangerous now. Since Junpei got tired, that’s going to snowball just as a matter of course. It’s sort of inevitable since our levels were identical when we entered and all.

After The Battle

Oh and the Grave Beetle gives 7EXP base, so I wanted to Wand it up to 8. The game had other ideas and decided to proc Wand’s secondary effect and give Apsaras a stat boost.

Later on, I decided to grab this now just to get it over with. Sometimes cards have this skull on 'em. That means they generally are slightly better for their rank than average…

But they’re also cursed to shit. This doesn’t do anything immediately, though.

tartarus_0d01

It does make Mitsuru spout this line earlier than normal, but it still doesn’t do anything. She says this twice or so, by the way.

And then she says this… and then in the audio, you hear constant chains rattling. And if you pay attention to the minimap, there’ll be a Shadow dot moving around. Specifically beelining right for you.

That would be this kind-looking fellow right here. Rather than a generic blob, his actual model is out and about on the map. Complete with his dual-wielded revolvers. Alright, let’s see what we’re dealing with then.

Death The Reaper

Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out

Because he’s always VERY aware of our presence, it is actively impossible for us to get the Advantage. But because Hard mode hates you, he’ll almost always get it. Not like he needs it, since he has 99 Agility in every version of P3. In fact, it’s his only stat that is a consistent 99.

I’m sure we can take him, though. I mean he’s only using a Heavy Elec spell. How bad could it be?

Oh, just basically quadruple our hypothetical HP cap no big deal. Sure, Yukari won’t ever actually get 999HP but even if she did it wouldn’t help.

Yeah, so, uh, The Reaper is (in theory) a very end-game Optional Boss who appears on almost every floor (ones like the 5th floor are excluded). Usually, that’s because you lingered for too long, so he’s like a soft-time limit to minimise grinding, for some reason, but things like Cursed Cards and special other things can make him spawn sooner.

In vanilla, he has 4444HP (because 4 is Death) and 9999SP. To cap it off, he has 66 in all stats except Agility which is 99. FES and Portable change that a bit to give him 5000HP flat (because 4444 is boring) and 12000SP. Oh and he has 99 in Magic now too.

The Path Was Closed

Needless to say, yes, we will be fighting him for real later on.

But until then, just gonna be avoiding the fuck outta this guy. Occasionally he’ll still pop up and then I’ll get to kite him around like an annoying MMO trash mob or whatever.

The Voice Someone Calls

Back in the real world (where the only difference is that Death didn’t just casually waltz in and shoot magic bullets), everyone is shattered and leaves immediately. This is also a thing that was removed in Portable, I guess to make up for having to pay for healing now.

Now, we COULD leave as well with our progress to 6F secure and ready for next time. But this presents a problem for Makoto. See, he needs to be level 6 before Tuesday or so. Plus we need at least 9600 Yen to finance the week ahead. So far, we have neither of these things…

Solo and Tired. Well, at least he’ll gain EXP quicker but what could POSSIBLY go wrong with this?

Two Deaths appear this time. There doesn’t even need to be two, they just feel like being cruel.

1 Like

OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY.

Man, am I glad I play Portable. Sure you don’t get auto heals but you also don’t get this!

Fusion

Alright, so, during the solo half of the Tartarus excursion, not much of interest happens. Even Tired, we’re in no real danger after all; that’s what happens when you stick to the lower floors because they’re convenient enough for our purposes.

Hit level 5 really quickly, which lets us make Nekomata so that Makoto can be still lagging behind where Kotone… was… before the Eagles. At least she has Rakunda inherited from the Pixie. That’s useful.

Bonus EXP pushes her up to level 6 and almost, but not quite, level 7. As a general rule, you get enough EXP to give levels equal to half the Social Link rank.

End

During the real grind for getting from 5 to 6, we get a lot of money, trash weapons to sell later, regain Pixie and Apsaras from Shuffle Time and… get this gal. She’ll be useful later on and let Makoto grind easier since he has Garu access now. Wind helps tear through Grave Beetles after all. Plus, they always come alone…

But, the real reason we care about Angel is that she lets us fuse an Ara Mitama without giving up Nekomata.

This is important because we’re going to need both Nekomata AND Ara Mitama this week. Ara is really good for this stage in general because of his resistance to Strike, that he has Bash and good Strength, both Rakukaja AND Rakunda…

And then he gets Sukukaja at level 8 as well, just because he wasn’t useful enough already. So long as we don’t get (too) Tired on the way up, he can hopefully carry us through the rest of this part of Tartarus. Uh, next time we come here I mean.

Oh and this is what I was banking on happening. It seems like a terrible thing, and it usually is, but we want it. It’ll help speed something up ever-so-slightly.

Iwatodai Dorm

So, Sunday is the only day of a normal week that is free. See, back until like 2003(ish) Japan had 6 day school weeks. Then it changed to the 5 day system that is somewhat more common. Persona 3, 4 and 5 all use the 6-day system because that’s probably what the dev team is more accustomed to.

It’s kind of annoying to have to deal with in gameplay terms, but we can still manage.

Yeah, I’m outta here.
Yeah, go out and have some fun.

You can study or go out. It’s up to you.
Cool.
Just be careful not to get injured.

Not gonna lie, I would absolutely wear Mitsuru’s winter-ish casual clothes. They’re pretty cool.

…wait shit we spent too much time messing around and we ended up missing Phoenix Ranger Featherman R!

And now, the news. Our first story is about the many youngsters with only part-time employment…

Phoenix Ranger Featherman is one of the few consistent ties between the PS1 Persona games and now, since this was originally in Persona 2 Innocent Sin. Phoenix Ranger Featherman R is a pastiche of a real Sentai show, Chojin Sentai Jetman, which ran every week for a full year from 1991 to 1992. Someone at Atlus clearly really liked that show but I personally cannot speak for its actual quality or anything.

The reason I know it’s that particular series and not anything else is… well, I don’t know for sure but it’s the closest by far. The whole bird theme and what the in-universe Phoenix Rangers are called makes it a reasonable presumption. Some of them are even lifted wholesale from Chojin Sentai Jetman, no less!

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

I’m just wandering around.
You don’t know this place? You should explore the city some more.

Honestly, the city really isn’t that big. There ARE a few places that we haven’t seen yet, but we’ll get there in time I’m sure.

Nothing. What’s up?
I just ate, man. All that exercise in Tartarus makes me hungry.

We could absolutely head into Wild Duck Burger right now ourselves, but that uses up our day so that’s not happening yet. Maybe later.

What’s annoying is that our S.Links are really limited right now, so we’re just meandering around without much to do on Sunday. This’ll change later but this week we’re just gonna head over to the movies again.

Really, this is all we CAN do today of substance so the stat gain is mostly irrelevant. Like, it’s NOT but it wouldn’t matter which stat it was.

Iwatodai Dorm

In a nice change, when we return home in the evening we don’t get talked at immediately. It’s not going to change anything from our perspective, mind.

All you need to do is perform a surprise attack on it.
However, if the enemy’s ability level is equal to yours, there is a lesser chance it will become distressed.

but its special effect may be more important. Even if two pieces of equipment are the same, if their special effects are different, then their uses will be different as well.
So if the properties on a piece of equipment aren’t very good, it might still be useful, depending on what its special effect is.

Okay, then when you get hurt, I’ll heal you with either an item or a skill.
But, there may be times when I won’t be able to heal you. So don’t get mad at me if that happens.

Y’know, we might actually be using Heal/Support on Junpei before Yukari.

I’m en fuego, baby!
But, it’s weak against wind…
sigh I guess my flame gets blown out by the breeze, huh…

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

The TV hasn’t updated with anything worthwhile since earlier in the day, so we’ll just head on out. Despite being Sick, we can do things like normal which is semi-unexpected I guess. We absolutely should not go to Tartarus like this, though.

So, we won’t. Instead, we’ll just go croakily sing for a couple hours and grind out more Courage. I’m focussing on this one over the other two for a reason, yes.

This is a good thing. I was kind of worried that this might get cured overnight, but thankfully it didn’t.

Want To Be Close

Listening: Didn’t you say the same thing last week? Is that special morning assembly today? How come we’re having one? We just had one last week…
Gossiping: Remember how great Kirijo-senpai’s speech was last week?
Listening: Oh yeah, that speech was awesome! Although, I didn’t understand most of it…
Gossiping: What I heard was, the principal got jealous, so he scheduled his own speech to compete with her.
Listening: Seriously!? What’s up with that? Why do we have to suffer because of his ego!?

The first bell has rung.

First, our principal has some words he’d like to share with you. Please give him a warm welcome.
…Thank you.

…You think it’s about the recent incidents?
Who cares? The Principal doesn’t know anything about the Shadows, anyway.
I just hope this doesn’t take too long…
I know. His speeches always drag.

As you are aware, strange incidents have been reported on the news lately. It is my firm belief that none of you are involved.
However, if we want to better our school, then we all need to accept responsibility for change.

As they say, “There’s no use crying over spilt milk.”
This is the key to reaping all the rewards that school has to offer…

The Principal continues with his speech…

Yeah, you’re right…
What’s up with that!?

Man, it’s one already bad thing to be jealous of your students. It’s kind of another to just plagiarise them so blatantly, and so quickly no less!

I’m sorry, but I need to talk to you after school. I have a special request for you.
Why me?
I apologize for being in a rush, but I don’t feel comfortable asking anyone else.
I’ll tell you more about it after school, okay? Au revoir.

Hmm? It isn’t? Oh, I see, this becomes 11, so… I’m sorry, you’re right. X=2. Wait… is that right?
Okay, uh, your assignment is to figure this one out. Anyway… Wasn’t that incredible?

What I’m getting at is, math is fun! Don’t you think so? Civilization owes its very existence to math!
All right. Today is the 27th, so that works out to… your turn, Makoto. Do you know when numbers were invented?

Oh shit, uh, I… I’m mashing select but the Network is failing me. It won’t tell me the answe–

Wait, hang on, no. I actually do genuinely know this one.

6000 years ago.

Later, Arabic numerals were invented in India, which brought us the number 0 and countless equations!
Ahh… the beauty and wonder of it all! Math is MAGNIFICENT!

You gave the correct answer!

While I still don’t believe the logic for this at all, it still makes more sense than what 4 and 5 do. Get the question wrong, nothing happens. Get the question right, you gain points towards Knowledge because you learned the right answer. It’s so dumb and I don’t get it at all.

Joy

To make a long story short, I want you to join Student Council.
Why all of a sudden…?
Well, it’s not like you have to participate in every activity.

Why me?
…Because of your leadership ability. Being President is very time consuming. I’d like to have additional help available in the event of an emergency.
You understand my situation… I’m asking you since you know what it’s like to be a leader.
Fine…
I knew I could count on you.

But, you’ll have to go to the Faculty Office on your own.

We’ll probably do this eventually, I guess.

I’m sorry I made the arrangements without your permission, but I hope you understand the position I’m in.
Please go to the Faculty Office, Yuki. I’ll be waiting for you in the Student Council Room.

Want To Be Close

We’re not going to bother with that for a while. We’ll do it sooner or later, though. Could duck in now since we’re passing by the Faculty Office but eh, we’ve got enough going on as-is for the moment.

Just opposite the Library, we can find the Nurse’s Office. We ARE Sick right now, so this seems like a good time to visit the nurse…

This Mysterious Feeling

Well now, what do we have here? You seem unwell. Is it a wound? A virus? A curse? Or is it love?
This is the perfect opportunity to try my new concoction… Ehehehehehehe.

Mr. Edogawa has a huge grin on his face.

Here, try this…

I’m really not sure about this any more…

Even Hakusan’s finest alchemist would be astonished by the ingredients.
I shall treat your illness right here and now. Now, drink this… Come on… Drink up!

Well, bottoms up I guess…

After drinking the concoction, your condition doesn’t seem to be any better…

…Phew, well done.

The FUCK, Edogawa?!

Cheers to your bravery. …Sorry to have deceived you.

…But, well, at least it’s a free Courage boost. It takes up no actual time, so definitely gonna be taking advantage of this whenever realistically possible, though this might be the only time until near the end of May. Might.

Want To Be Close

Huh. Didn’t expect these to be here yet. Thought they were added later on. They’re pretty cool looking, for their simplicity and have a nice little reminder that whatever you can do alone can be done easier and better with even one person helping.

Anyway, Kaz is not the most studious of guys so he just slept through class. Figures, really.

But we have Ara Mitama, so we can gain 1.5x the normal amount of points in any given S.Link scene for Kaz so long as he’s in our stock.

We have no reason not to go to Kendo practice, really, so let’s do just that.

Joy

The Kendo Team is giving it everything they’ve got.

The workout is tough, but fun.

Toughen up.
Toughen up, eh? Hmph,… Alright!

…How ‘bout you? pant You okay? You’ve been workin’ pretty hard…
You don’t even look tired… pant Wh-What kind of training have you been doing?
The usual.
Tch… pant You act lie… it’s no big deal… pant Well, I’m beat… Makoto… pant You’re crazy.

I knew the Bay Area competition would be tough, but I never expected to be going up against someone like you…
…I’ve made up my mind!

Sure, whatever you say Kaz.

Your relationship is stronger now!

Let’s get go–ugh!?
…What’s wrong?

…Oh, sorry. Let’s go.

You decided to go back to the dorm.

What, just like that? I guess we did just establish that Edogawa is terrible at his job but maaaaaybe getting that looked at by someone would be a good idea?

Or, I guess not. Whatever.

Now, see, this part is stupid and requires making Makoto act super out-of-character. It’s obvious what you’re expected to do but it’s still dumb.

Now, we don’t know Yuko. We have no reason to suspect she likes us at all in any way.

So, of course, you have to ask her to walk home together. That just makes perfect sense.

Nah, I’m in a hurry today. Bye-bye.

You decided to go back to the dorm by yourself.

Iwatodai Dorm

Senpai, are you sure you wanna let this slacker in?
I simply asked for his assistance. I don’t intend to burden him with too many responsibilities.
Why, are you interested in helping too, Iori?
Oh, uhhh… I’ll pass. But, thanks for the offer.

In fact, I don’t even have time to rest.
I would be grateful if you could help out sometime.
Just stop by the Student Council Room when you have the chance.

Well, as exciting as THAT sounds… I think I’ll pass.

Sorry if it felt like you were forced to join. But any help you could give her would be appreciated…

Every minute is either spent studying, attending club, or fighting Shadows.
Speaking of which, you know about Mitsuru-senpai’s–
Oh, never mind. Forget I said anything.

The shifting economy has strengthened the dollar against the yen. The current exchange rate is 1 USD to 115 yen. The change marks the yen’s 1.4 percent weakening from yesterday.

Gotta admit, of all the things I expected to get out of this, economic analysis was not one of them. I’unno, it just doesn’t seem to fit really.

But constantly visiting the same Empty Orchestra bar to… presumably sing the same song offscreen to get braver? Nah, that’s legit.

Shame that this happens, though. Can’t get more easy points off Edogawa, but it’s fair enough I guess.

Want To Be Close

Sure have.
I see. Your ability to adapt to new situations and environments is very impressive. By the way, there’s something I forgot to tell you…
Most times you can find me in the lounge. However, I won’t be there if there is something I must attend to.

Uh, okay? I legitimately don’t remember this coming up at all, ever, but I could be wrong and forgetting something.

Much more important is that we’re going to hang out with Kaz again today. We need Ara Mitama for this one; we need 15 points from this scene. Problem is, without him we get 10 at most. With him, we get can 14. Still not enough, but it’ll be fixed in time…

Joy

The Kendo Team is giving it everything they’ve got.

The workout is tough, but fun.

I’ll show you what I’m made of!
…Hm?
…!?
Dammit, y-you serious…!?

JV: C’mon… We’re counting on you to be captain next year…
Varsity: The big meet is next year, but don’t push yourself too hard. Makoto, can you take him home?
…Sorry, Senpai.

Exeunt nameless dudes.

Um… My astma’s just acting up…
Are you sure you’re OK?
Of-Of course. It’s just my astma…

…Argh! I can’t do it! I can’t lie to you!
Makoto… I…

Even if I put medicine on it, or massage it, the pain won’t go away.
Will it heal?
Of course. But I can’t afford to stop training, so I’ll work through the pain!

…Next year, there’s a national competition.
There will be participants from all over Japan. The regional meet pales in comparison.
I have to win that meet! I can’t afford to put my training on hold!

I’ve watched a lot of sports anime. It’s cool. I know all about the importance of Going To Nationals.

There are a lot of nosy guys on the team. If they find out, they’ll keep bugging me about it…
Makoto, please keep it a secret, alright!?

Your relationship is stronger now!

Don’t worry about me. Go back to training.

Well, I guess that’s that then. At least Kaz finally got to the nurse’s office, even if it was too late.

Anyway, since we asked at the last scene and failed…

Wanna walk home together?
…Okay, sure. Why don’t we stop somewhere along the way?
Sure.
Okay, then let’s go.

The rich arome of coffee fills the air.

Huh, we haven’t been here yet. Guess we should do that sometime.

The guys on the team all act like little kids.
“Where’s my towel?” “Can you wash this for me?” …I’m not their mother.

…How about you, Makoto-kun? Are you enjoying the kendo team?
Yeah, it’s a lot of fun.

Clowning on the best guy in the team without breaking a sweat and then watching him sit around injured is a hoot!

That’s good.

I thought it might be boring for you, since you’re so much better than everyone else…
You’ve got your own style… You don’t waste much energy.

You guys are in the same class, so I’m sure he’d be willing to help you.
You can ask me, too, if you want, since I’m the team manager.

Yuko seems to be concerned about you.

Your relationship is stronger now!

The Power of The Heart

A mysterious voice rings in your head…

So, there are a couple ways that S.Links can be locked off. Stat locks are semi-frequent, since there are 3 for each stat (one at 2, one at 4 and one at max). Others, like Bunkichi and Mitsuko, are gated off solely by time. The last ones are blocked off by other S.Links. They usually don’t quite work out like this one did, but this is nice streamlining that I appreciate.

Joy

However, you’re still just casual acquaintances.

Oh god and we’re already hinting at the worst mechanic. Fortunately it won’t rear it’s messy, ugly head for real for a while…

See you at school.

After saying goodbye to Yuko, you decided to go back to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

The internet line which was ripped apart by the Shadow will be fixed tomorrow. If you have a computer in your room, you should be able to connect.
…Well, that takes care of everything that was damaged…
…except, of course, Akihiko’s rib cage.

You play any online games, dude?
Online games?
You know, those games you play with a buncha people ya never met before. I was totally addicted to this one game, but then I got burned out…
Here, you can have it…

Only in English. It’s actual original name is “Devil Busters Online” in order to reference real old-school MegaTen stuff.

And by real old, I mean Megami Tensei 2. For the Famicom. Which you haven’t played. (You should, it’s really cool and good.)

Really good.
Excellent. Then, continue the good work.

You should probably use it when you’re waiting for an analysis or when you want to defeat an enemy.
It’s a pretty boring tactic, though, if you ask me…

Since tomorrow is a holiday… You should play it, dude.

First, if all your enemies have been knocked down, you can perform an All-Out Attack on them.
Second, an enemy that has been knocked down will be unable to dodge an attack.
Third, you can alter the attack order of an enemy that is down.

Fourth, you make it waste its turn getting up.
Fifth, downed enemies take extra damage.
Sixth, knocking down an enemy is what gives you a One More letting you chain attacks.

Mitsuru is really bad at tutorials.

Remember: in addition to attacking an enemy’s weakness, you should also know your next course of action.

For example, Dia is only half as effective on you. So try not to get sick, 'kay?

Due to the Golden Week holiday, the highways are expected to be jammed bumper-to-bumper. Traffic conditions are expected to worsen from tomorrow until May 3. Officials expect the roads to be cleared by May 4th. From all of us at Action News, have a happy Golden Week!

Golden Week is a week of four national holidays that starts on April 29th. April 29th is called Showa Day in celebration of the birthday of the previous Emperor of Japan, Emperor Hirohito who was Emperor from 1926 until 1989.

Courage is already rank 3, which is good but still not good enough. It doesn’t even give us anything new later on down the line at this rank!

Academics is, at least, fairly close to a rank up now. Probably not going to happen soon enough to matter but we’ll see…

There’s also nothing worthwhile on the TV in our room either. Boring.

Whether you want to attack an enemy or dodge an enemy’s attack, you’ll need to be quick.

Are you well equipped?
I’m good to go.
That’s good to hear. Just don’t get careless.

Coming up next, more traffic reports. There seems to be no problem at this section, but the highway in the other direction seems to be packed. Officials are hoping the congestion will be relieved by May 4th.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

Make sure you don’t catch a cold. If you feel sick, or if you’re tired, take a break.

They’ve got that new weapon smell.

So, uh, normally you can’t leave the dorm and head back in afterwards without losing game time. I already planned around that, though.

Which is why we can still do this. We could go to the bookstore but…

Let’s be honest, who doesn’t wanna play an SMT MMO? RIP Imagine

Joy

You have 1 message.

Phil, of course, is short for “Philemon” a major NPC from Persona 1 and both halves of 2. He’s technically around in every game - even 3 onwards - just… less explicitly than in those three.

Reality is just a series of events and players acting out what they believe is real. When we accept that fact, our world becomes “reality.”
Reality is but a reflection of our thoughts and expectations. But, what if we were merely reflections in another’s mirror? Are you prepared to look through that mirror to discover the truth?

There are 1 player(s) in the area.

Man, that was FAST.

oh wow, u haven’t even finished generating your char yet… o_O
welcome to teh game! good thing i’m usng my low level alt
i think its jus u an me, this is kind of a dead MMO these days xD
It’s not popular anymore?

we r supposed to be our “alternate selves” right? uhhhh… yeah =/
sooo… what r u gonna call ur char? we can meet up later
hm… hey, i got a good name for u =3

Of course, this only applies to the English releases of the game. In the Japanese releases, the given character names are “N-jima” and “Y-ko”.

“N-jima” is short for Nakajima, referring to Akemi Nakajima, the main protagonist of… the entire series, really. He was the lead role for the novels that proceeeded the games, the male player character for Megami Tensei 1 on the Famicom and kind of the entire reason the series happened and turns up here and there in later games in weird ways that don’t really make sense if you think about it. He was made the original main character so that they could be a boring everyman… but whoops, that’s super wrong! He’s actually the reincarnation of Izanagi, for one thing.

“Y-ko,” likewise, is short for Yumiko Shirasagi. She’s where the series name comes from. Yes. Megami Tensei, as you may or may not know, means “Reincarnation of the Goddess.” Yumiko is the reincarcation of Izanami, so she’s the titular Megami. She’s also the main heroine for the original (terrible) novels and Megami Tensei 1. She doesn’t turn up anywhere near as often as Nakajima in later games, because of course she doesn’t.

…Wow, that’s a lot of words to explain a localisation change. It was a sensible one, though, because Digital Devil Monogatari 1/2/3 and Megami Tensei 1 and 2 weren’t released in English (and officially never have been). As a result, the references would go over everyone’s head. So they changed it from things that weren’t released in English to Innocent Sin which… also wasn’t released in English. At least the charatcer names are fine because Eternal Punishment was.

Oh, uh, and because she was described as wearing grey before deciding to go with Maya, she was probably meant to make you think of Yukino first. (I’m sure you remember her from the first episode of Who’s Who.)

have a little deja vu? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
I don’t get it…

oops. hope u can’t figure out how old i am–rofl!!
ne way, i’m usually idling here on my days off… >_>
so if ur bored, maybe we can level together. it sux to be lonely =P

You met a person online who uses a character named Maya.

The Power of The Heart

A mysterious voice rings in your head…

Joy

remember, let’s positive thinking! traesto! xD

Maya’s player signed off.

You decided to log out as well.

…Yeah, that used up our entire day. No evening excursions allowed, for whatever reason.

Want To Be Close

I dunno, do you think any of this is relevant? I mean, I can make better tomb decorations than the ancients.
I can’t wait until we get to the Sengoku era… It’s so exciting!
Speaking of the Sengoku era, there was a general who was called “the war hawk of the battlefield.”

The teacher keeps talking about the Sengoku era…

Huh? You want to hear more about the ancient tombs…?
Well, if you insist… Study the Kitora Tomb in Nara, because it’ll go on the exam.

You stayed up and listened to the lecture…

So, what to do today…

Kaz won’t rank up yet, and even though lacking a Strength or Hierophant Persona right now doesn’t matter it will quickly enough…

But we have Nekomata, and she’s necessary for Kenji from this point onwards so…

Joy

What, life?
Life? Dude, you watch too much reality TV.
…But, yeah, I guess you could say I’m sick of life.

I mean, I wake up, go to scool, listen to lame-ass lectures, come home, eat, watch TV, go to sleep…

Kenji is deep in thought.

Hey, so, Kenji there are these things called “laws”…

You can’t do it.
What’re you saying, dude? I’m a smooth operator; I got skills!

Well, I guess I’m gonna go ahead with my secret plan, dude.
I told you, right? I’m going after a teacher. I’m gonna ask her out and make her fall in love with me.

She’s not the most beautiful woman, but she’s really cute. She has pretty eyes, a nice little body, and…

Kenji is going on and on about Ms. Kanou’s finer points.

kenji. kenji please. shut up.

Hey, man, don’t tell anyone about this, okay? You’re the only one who knows.

Your relationship is stronger now!

You walked home with Kenji and talked about his plan.

The Poem For Everyone’s Soul

Please come to the Velvet Room. There is a matter we need to discuss.
You may use the alternate entrance located in Paulownia Mall. All you must do is find the door. I’ll see you soon.

We’ll see what she has to say soon enough, so that’s fine.

Iwatodai Dorm

But, you can only do that when you’re able to move. If you’ve been knocked down, or have an ailment, you won’t be able to do an All-Out Attack.
And remember, we can’t do anything if our leader isn’t around.

When you use it, you will need to assign a team member to attack a particular enemy.
By efficiently allocating the strength of each member, you can fully utilize the collective power of the team.
If a targeted enemy has been defeated, the team member will revert to his or her normal fighting style.

And remember, if an enemy’s been analyzed before, then we already have its information.
So, make sure you analyze our enemies so we can kick their asses!

But, her skills seem to get more powerful… So just keep that in mind.

We here at Action News recommend getting some fresh air and exercise during Golden Week.

So, before we do anything else tonight we’ll go see what Elizabeth wants.

The Poem For Everyone’s Soul

I have a big favor to ask. I have been looking for someone with exceptional strength. If you don’t mind, will you accept my requests?

Of course, once each request is completed, I will have a reward for you. I anxiously await your cooperation.

You are now able to accept Elizabeth’s requests!

Oh god, there are so many of these things. That number is the numerical ID of the quest, yes, so that top one being 92 is a worrying sign. Most of them are easy, at least, so we’ll clear out as many of them as I can be bothered to do.

I can’t guarantee it’ll be all of them, because there’s too many of the things, but I’ll do the ones that at least seem worthwhile.

Like this one. One Muscle Drink for 3 Revival Beads? Don’t mind if I do! We even have a Muscle Drink already.

Oh, my… I’ve never tried a Muscle Drink before… Is it safe? Well, you have my thanks. I look forward to tasting it.
Please accept your reward.

This one’s important for many reasons, and so we’ll be doing it at the earliest opportunity. It explicitly has to be during the day, though, so either After School or on a free day.

That’s about it for today though. We can’t clear out any more requests without going back to Tartarus (or waiting until a specific date) so we have a reason to do that again soon.

That and it’s a good idea to get to the barrier Mitsuru mentioned before the plot decides to happen again. If we can’t do that, we might have trouble down the line…