Click here for Update 4
: Welcome to Update 4, in which I realize that Persona 2 is not exactly the best Persona game.
: Right outside the Principal’s Office, I run into Ratatoskr, who is a legendary squirrel from Norse mythology who runs up and down Yggdrasil delivering messages. In this game, Ratatotskr is a furry.
: There’s also Pixie, which we need to encounter a few times if we want some decent spells later.
: The problem with the negotiation system is this. Persona 2 is an extremely slow game - and I don’t mean the pacing. There’s long load screens before and after every battle, and the menus move very slowly compared to Persona 1’s. Negotiations in particular suck because every time you want to negotiate, you have to go through this menu, select a person, then hit “confirm” at the bottom.
: You can use two or three characters at once to negotiate, as seen here.
: This is another problem. The negotiation techniques all have lengthy animations (and sometimes multiple text boxes) associated with them. The animations are also very slow.
: Just like in Persona 1, there’s a free heal spot in the first dungeon which can be abused to grind. Unfortunately, the enemies here give fuck all for EXP.
: Shortly thereafter, we have our first Persona Mutation.
: There are four kinds of mutations, and all of them are things you want. They are:
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Stats Increased - Does exactly what it says, increases all of the Persona’s stats. There’s a cap on how high they can go.
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Two Ranks Up - Increases the Persona’s Rank by 2. Just like in Persona 1, Personas have six “Ranks”, with each one giving higher stats and access to more spells. At Rank 6, you can “return” a Persona to the Velvet Room to get an item.
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Mutation Skill - Every Persona has a hidden “Mutation Skill” that is learned this way. Some are better than others.
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Evolution - Some Personas can evolve into higher forms or into different Personas in the same Arcana tree. I’m not entirely sure how this works.
: There’s seven classrooms we need to enter to smash the clocks inside: three on the first floor, two on the second floor, and two on the third floor.
: Right outside Room 1-A, the party learns their second Fusion spell: Blazing Burst. Fusion spells are pretty much exclusive to Persona 2 (P3 uses them but not nearly to the same degree).
: Fusion spells give you a cut-in image when used (this is something they did in the PSP remake). They’re cast by having two or more party members using certain spells on their turn. Blazing Burst requires two characters to use Agi (the lowest-tier fire spell) back to back. Right now, only Tatsuya and Yukino can do this. Fusion spells will only appear on your list if you’ve cast them once: you basically have to use a guide (or guess) to figure out how to use them.
: By the way, you might ask why in the last update I said we want to level Dexterity in the same way we levelled Agility in Persona 1. Let me explain.
: Most Fusion spells do damage based on how high the Dexterity of the characters performing them is. That’s why.
: I got a bunch of tarot cards off Pixies, and we want to use those, so let’s head to the Velvet Room.
: Christ! What’s wrong with your face!? I mean, I know Igor is supposed to be a bit freaky looking…
: Anyway, the Velvet Room has changed significantly since Persona 1. In Persona 1, Igor fused demons into Personas by calling them on the phone. Here, things are a bit… different.
: Nameless and Belladonna were both in Persona 1’s Velvet Room, but you couldn’t talk to them.
: The Demon Painter is supposed to be Kazuma Kaneko, the artist who did all of the original artwork for the early SMT games. He has a use if you find blank tarot cards, of which we have none.
: Belladonna is a deaf singer, and Nameless is a blind pianist.
: Anyway, this is the problem with Persona 2. Unlike every other Persona game, you have to grind negotiations to get tarot cards to make Personas. There’s a few familiar faces on the list.
: Pascal the Dog costs 178 Fortune cards. I have no idea where the hell we’re going to find that many.
: Just like in Persona 1, we have the option of giving certain items to a fused Persona. Skill cards give skills, Incense cards boost stats, and I have no idea what Material cards do.
: Is this what a Stevie Wonder concert is like?
Returning Persona: Pixie
Origin: England
First Appearance: Megami Tensei II (NES)
: You’ll notice that none of the Personas in Persona 2 use the old art from the SNES games or Devil Summoner. I have no idea why Atlus did this and then re-used the shit out of Nocturne’s models in Persona 3 and 4.
: We can only hold a total of 10 personas, and that counts the five we have equipped. The guide for this game says you want to equip Pixie to Tatsuya. That’s wrong. You want to equip it to Maya, because her Persona SUCKS.
: Most of the rooms are exactly the same: you go into the room, smash the clock, and either a party member or an NPC will confirm you’ve smashed the clock. 1-D is a bit different though: I think because the developers assumed you would do the rooms starting from the principal’s office on the third floor and working your way down.
: This line is super awkward.
: “No… just some fatty called Kozy…”
: “Wow… so Hanakouji-san goes to Sevens… haha… wow…”
: “Aiyah! Stooooop!”
: “H-Hey, Undie Boss! I know Miyabi really well… what was your relationship with her?”
: “Gah! Hold it in… keep it together…”
: “Sooo… uh… how do you know her?”
: “O-our relationship? Well…”
: "She’s my ex-girlfriend! We were dating in grade school! We broke up eventually, but I still can’t forget her face when she cried and said, ‘Eikichi-kun, I can’t bear to be apart!’ "
: Anyway, I spend most of the next 30 minutes or so running around the school smashing all the clocks. The game is nice enough to put NPCs outside the rooms that do not have clocks in them.
: One thing I also figured out is that you can change the turn order for the party. This is why we don’t pump Agility like we did in Persona 1, because most of the time Tatsuya would just be waiting for the slower party members to be in the right position to do a fusion spell.
: This is why we got that Pixie, by the way. Around the second floor, the Pixie ranked up and learned Garu, allowing us to use Mega Blaze, which consists of two people using Agi and one using Garu. Mega Blaze hits all enemies, and given that a good amount of the enemies we’re fighting are immune to physical damage, this is a pretty good way to take them out.
: Once you go through all the classrooms, you’ll get a prompt to go to the Teacher’s Lounge, which is on the second floor.
: If you haven’t read the Persona 1 LP, Ms. Saeko was Yukino’s teacher at St. Hermelin and also the person who took her out of the delinquent lifestyle. Yukino saved her from getting taken over by Nyx in the Snow Queen route.
: “Y-Yukino…? It really is you, Yukino! I transferred here last year. But never mind me – what are YOU doing here? Don’t tell me you’re redoing high school…?”
: “Oh, no. I’m on assignment! I have a part-time job as an assistant photographer, so I came to cover a story.”
: “Aiyah! Ms. Saeko and Yukino-san know each other?”
: “She was a student of mine at my last school.”
: "Your timing in coming here wasn’t very good, I’m afraid. As you can see, we’re in a bit of a crisis…
: “Yeah, about that, there’s something I need to tell you…”
: There’s three clocks in the teacher’s lounge, each with a convenient cardboard box underneath them Tatsuya can stand on to reach it.
: “Damn Hamya… but if everyone’s like this, there’s not much we can do.”
: Hanya’s nickname in the Japanese version of Persona 1 was “Hannya”, after the Japanese demon of the same name. If you’ve played Yakuza, you’ve probably seen one on Majima’s back. In the PSP re-release, it was changed to “Hamya” for reasons unknown.
: “Anyway, don’t we have a big clock to go break?”
: Chinyan is a Cantonese word meaning “Lover” or “Darling”.
: I’m honestly surprised that Ms. Saeko didn’t develop a Persona at some point. This would be the second time she’s been mind controlled in two games.
: So yeah, here’s the thing about Lisa: despite having American parents, Lisa does not speak English.
: We can also talk to our party members quick, but only Lisa and Yukino have dialog I want to go over because it has a new Cantonese expression.
: “Kaumena!” means “Help!”
: On the way out, we pick up another Fusion Spell, Kamaitaichi. This is done by using a water spell, an earth spell, and a wind spell in that order.
: We then level up and rank up Rhadamanthus, which allows us to get another fusion spell.
: Wind Slash EX is performed using I think a wind spell and I think any sword-type move in that order. Theoretically, we can now do a ton of single-target damage by using Blazing Burst and Wind Slash EX on the same turn.
: I should mention that there’s also Earth Slice EX and Flame Cut EX, which work exactly the same way as Wind Slash only with a fire or earth spell in place of a wind one. Basically, every single-target elemental spell probably has a fusion spell with a sword.
: This seems weird until you realize that “Hai!” is supposed to be Cantonese… even though it has the same meaning in Japanese, which is “Okay!” or “Yes!”
: We then need to talk to all of our party members. I really feel like Atlus didn’t quite understand pacing when they did this, because at this point we’re well over an hour into the game and most of that has been cutscenes and dialog.
: Oh, right. Now would be a good time to mention that there’s a sidequest I missed. There’s around 14 of them in Innocent Sin, and most of them are not worth doing. In this case, we could’ve gone back to the detective agency and had them spread a rumor about a toilet ghost, which we’d then fight as a mini-boss. There’s not much of a reward for it and the window to do it ends pretty much right here.
: Once we reach the stairs to the clock tower, Lisa lets us know we’re about to run into a boss fight. Thanks, Lisa.
: “Looks like Mr. Hanya’s not here, either. Let’s hurry and break the big clock so we can get outta here.”
: “U-U-Undie Boss! B-Behind! Behind you!”
: “…Huh?”
: “Ugh… Hamya!? Look, up there!”
: “Principal Hanya! So you were mixed up with Joker! The emblem curse and everyone acting weird is all because you teamed up with Joker, isn’t it!? Fess up!”
: “Foolish girl! How dare you? The emblem curse is a divine punishment brought on by the students’ poor conduct!”
: “You fools forget that you’re students and waste your lives worrying about dating and fashion!”
: If this sounds familiar at all, it’s because this is more or less the same spiel Morooka (the initial homeroom teacher) gives in Persona 4. Atlus recycled a lot of shit in Persona 4 from this game and just kind of hoped no one would notice.
: “You brought this curse on yourselves! Though I didn’t think the rumor Cuss High started would come true…”
: “So what did he give you!?”
: Hanya made a deal with the devil… to get his hair back. And also to live out his stupid fantasy from Snow Queen.
: “Joker! Weren’t you out for revenge on us!? What’s the point in granting a stupid geezer’s wish!?”
: “Revenge isn’t my only motive. This is between myself, the Giver, and you, the Thief… a battle with Tatsuya Suou for my dream!”
: “I’ll never let you destroy my dream again… I won’t make the same mistake twice!”
: The way I did this boss fight was not optimal because I am an idiot and listened to this dipshit guide author. He claims you can beat Hanya in three hits using Mega Blaze. He was probably playing on Easy.
: Hanya is weak to fire, but you want to use Blazing Burst instead, so that Maya, Eikichi and Lisa can use Kamaitaichi. It’ll do more damage that way. Persona 2 follows the idea that multi-target spells do less damage than single-target spells.
: This is Hanya’s Persona… which is a Hannya. This would make sense if the localizers hadn’t fucked it up in Persona 1!
: Hanya is mostly about single-target attacks: he has a weak physical attack with his wrench and his Persona has a couple of single-target attacks, one of which has a chance to freeze.
: Dark Young Legend is honestly his worst attack, and also his only multi-target attack. This fight would’ve gone way faster had I used the Blazing Burst/Kamaitaichi setup and not followed the guide.
: “Wh-What the!?”
: “Careful, everyone! It’s collapsing!”
: “Oww… is everyone okay?”
: “Hey! Wait, you bastard!”
: An… Innocent… Sin?
: If you’ll recall, this poem plays during the opening sequence.
: “That’s from a poem called ‘Der Doppelganger.’ Have you heard of it, Tatsuya-kun?”
: “Oh, no! I just thought there were some similarities. Ah, ignore me, Tatsuya-kun.”
: “Think positive, guys! You have to, at times like this. We’re not out of leads just yet. Let’s chase the rumors! They’ll surely lead us straight to Joker.”
: “Hey, that’s a great idea! Hamya did say that the emblem curse was started by some students from Cuss High.”
: “Whoa there! There’s no one at Kasugayama High whom the great Michel knows of that would start such a rumor. We’d be wasting our time checking it out. If we’re gonna search, let’s start somewhere else.”
: So, uh… this decision has a pretty big impact on a scene much later in the game. I selected “He’s Dead” here and then realized I forgot to save before I fought Hanya. I can always go back and replay the school dungeon, since I missed the sidequest as well.
: Therefore, I’ll let you vote. But before I do, I need to tell you what this question is really asking. The real question is “Do you want to see the Persona 1 party members one last time?”. If Hanya is dead, we get to see the P1 cast again. If he’s not, we get an alternate joke version of a scene where the P1 cast would be.