Summary
: We now have access to Aoba.
: The available areas are all the same ones that were in Innocent Sin.
: We’ve been to most of the stores here in Innocent Sin. The one change here from IS is that Clair de Lune (Maya’s favorite French restaurant that also sells legendary guns) is no longer here.
: Kuzunoha has moved here from Hirasaka, and Parabellum took over for Clair de Lune.
: And there’s that fucking cat. Unfortunately, I didn’t put in enough money in Innocent Sin - mostly because I didn’t feel like spending forever doing it.
: People who played this on the PS1 must’ve been super fucking confused by this. By the way, note that Tadashi is nowhere to be seen - like I said, Satomi Tadashi was kept on a short leash.
: “Well, no. I want to ask something…”
: I looked, and this is more or less a worse localization of his introduction in Innocent Sin. In case you don’t recall, Todoroki is actually the protagonist of Devil Summoner possessing the real Todoroki.
: Speaking of Devil Summoner, Soul Hackers 2 is coming out soon and it looks like the same kind of garbage as Persona 5. As far as I can tell, it has zero connection to the original or to Devil Summoner.
: I might buy it when it goes on deep discount and dunk on it privately, but I have no plans to LP it. The original Soul Hackers, on the other hand…
: “What kind of person was he?”
: There’s pauses in between a lot of this dialog where the party gesticulates wildly, so if it sounds weird, there was probably a pause. The PSP has serious blur issues in video output mode.
: “That’s the Deja Vu Boy. Ma-ya says so, too.”
: “Tell me a little more. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
: “I see… very interesting. The bizarre serial murders, the rumors of the Joker, the sighting of demons… it all makes sense if the rumors are true.”
: “I’ll accept the request to spread that anti-Joker rumor. It’s a good chance to see if a rumor can become reality.”
: “You seem to have accepted that quickly. You’re not gonna report it to the hospital?”
: “Well, then… a real man goes by his own rules. First, ask me to spread the rumor.”
: Todoroki works just like he did in Innocent Sin, with some rumors having multiple outcomes.
: “The request is now approved. Check the results yourself. If you have any other rumors to spread, get information from the rumormongers. They’re everywhere.”
: “That ‘Deja Vu Boy’ seems to be looking for the source of the rumors… I know of a good underground page.”
: We briefly met Baofu in Innocent Sin - primarily through his website.
: I forgot that I had one of these done back when I still used Mr. Saturn as my dialog pic.
: “So you’re saying I wouldn’t believe it…? Oh, well… I’ll know when I see you. We’ll meet at Double Slash in Aoba, Rabbit. Tell the worker my handle, and do what they tell you…”
: “Sounds suspicious… should we go?”
: There’s some optional dialogue while we’re here.
: “Hm? I thought I knew more, but I guess not…?”
: Can you spot Baofu in this picture?
: Meet Baofu. Baofu is a massive dork. He’s also voiced by the same voiceactor who would later go on to play Sojiro in Persona 5.
: I refuse to believe that he’s not Futaba’s real dad.
: I’m not sure if the term “tap buster” is used in the original script or not, but it refers to him being a phone wiretapper. In the West, he’d probably be called a “phreaker” or “phone phreak”.
: Baofu casually lights a cigarette to look cool, because he is a massive dork.
: This is Parabellum. We’ll learn why it’s called that in just a moment.
: “We said about all we know. Now it’s your turn.”
: “From what I’ve researched, the Joker rumors were taken from some TV show, which then started to spread like wildfire. But before that, not even the ‘J’ in Joker was known to the public.”
: “There’s just one exception…”
: We saw Tatsuzou Sudou’s name a couple of times in Innocent Sin - his name is on a sign at one of the parks. As you can guess by the name, he is Tatsuya Sudou’s father.
: As I mentioned near the end of the Persona 5 Royal LP, Hashino ripped off Tatsuzou Sudou fucking HARD when writing Shido. What Satomi Tadashi creates, Hashino steals.
: “How would you know? A wire tap…? That’s illegal.”
: “Don’t be so stiff… it’s been going around that he’s doing some pretty dirty stuff underground. That 10-year unsolved serial arson-murder case… it’s an infamous rumor between police and investigators that it was his son.”
: This is one of the plot points that kinda doesn’t make sense. The entire reason Sudou was an arsonist in Innocent Sin was because of Nyarlathotep.
: In Eternal Punishment’s world, Nyarlathotep was never able to fuck with things, so what they’re directly implying is that Sudou would’ve done all those things regardless of Nyarlathotep’s influence.
: This brings up the entire question of why Nyarlathotep needed him in the first place and didn’t just… you know… start talking to Jun’s father directly.
: “Is that… true!?”
: “What… you don’t know? Either way, about this incident, you don’t think it was a coincidence, do you?”
: " ‘We’ are going to find out about that now. Take me with you. I know where Sudou’s son lives. You guys get clues on the Joker. As long as I’m by the next target, I will get closer to the truth… not a bad deal."
: “…What do you plan to do with the truth? Your objective is blackmail, huh?”
: “Hehe… my intentions are honorable, I can assure you. I can’t let evil prevail…”
: “…What should we do? You’re being targeted, you decide.”
: “You understand what I’m talking about. Well then, let me test something first…”
: Baofu just gets away with turning Parabellum into a weapons shop without having to undergo food torture, which honestly feels kinda unfair to the Innocent Sin cast.
: “Hey… what are you trying to do?”
: “I don’t believe that rumors can come true… so I’m testing it out.”
: “T-Then, does that mean the rumor about the emblem is now true!? Then you’re alright, Ma-ya!!”
: “So whatcha gonna do with the emblem? If you keep it, the Joker will just stay away. You don’t think you’ll run into the Deja Vu Brat anymore…? Think of why he gave you that…”
: Naturally, our first real dungeon is the return of one of the worst dungeons from Innocent Sin, where absolutely nothing bad happened to Yukino whatsoever.
: One thing I learned after the IS LP is that “katatsumuri” is Japanese for “snail”, which made sense given that El Caracol (which is Spanish for “snail”) was on top of it.
: “I see… Amano-kun, let’s check it out.”
: “Hold on! There’s a place called the Velvet Room around here. It has something to do with demons… considering the situation you’re in right now, you’ll need all the help you can get.”
: “Let’s go in and take a look…”
: When I was recording this, I went “What’s the point? I didn’t even negotiate in Seven Sisters…” and then I remembered we have all our spare cards from Innocent Sin.
:“What is that? What does that have to do with anything?”
: I like to think that Katsuya’s Persona is actually his gun. His Prime Persona is a second gun, and his ultimate is another two guns with triggers in his shoes so he can fire with his feet.
: If you equip Lucifer to him, he gets a secret fifth gun that sits on his shoulder that he triggers using eye movements.
: “I don’t even feel like explaining… just follow me…”
: The Velvet Room is now open, for all the good it’ll do us.
: There’s a bit of a tutorial to introduce Igor, Nameless, Belladonna, and the Demon Painter. It’s nearly identical to Innocent Sin.
: There is, however, some optional dialog here I’d like to show.
: I see a stupid-looking boss fight in Baofu’s future. I know that’s at least the second time I’ve linked that video but they just keep giving me the opportunity.
: “Followers of Philemon…? Then, that was not a dream at all… I dreamt about this as a kid… a golden butterfly… masked man… blue room… the night I played Persona with Tatsuya…”
: Satomi Tadashi kind of ran into the same exact problem Araki did with Jojo, in that he kind of ran out of ways to explain how it is that all these people with no connection to St. Hermelin have Personas.
: As it turns out, we don’t actually keep our entire card stash from Innocent Sin - all we get to keep is the free cards we had. While we have enough to do whatever, there’s nothing really worth making.
: There’s no new armor in the armor store, but Parabellum has new weapons. Baofu throws coins because he is a massive dork and probably actually read the Zenigata books.
: Mount Katatsumuri is open now, and it’s every bit as bad as it was in Innocent Sin. Actually, it’s probably worse.
: Unlike Innocent Sin, there’s no chair lift up to the top - only that one road. Let’s take it.
: “Accident? Have you contacted the police?”
: “There’s nothing we can do… I understand, thank you.”
: “What do you think?”
: “This is suspicious. There’s another road down at the bottom of the hill. It’s longer, but it leads to the back.”
: “Alright, let’s take that.”
: In Innocent Sin, we fought a shit-ton of nazis to get up to the top of the mountain. There was a really high encounter rate and an enemy called “SS” that was extremely fast and had an instakill.
: Meet Zombie Solder. Zombie Soldier is essentially the SS… with a twist. It’s still rather fast and has a shit-ton of HP for being level 7.
: Yep. It’s got an instakill move called “Kamikaze”, where it blows up and kills whatever it hits.
: The enemies are also worth basically nothing in terms of experience. As you can tell from Baofu being level 8, we’re a little underlevelled. This is still the time period where Atlus balanced games around how much they expected you to get lost.
: We haven’t seen Baofu’s Persona yet, so let me log it while we’re here.
NEW PERSONA: Odysseus
Origin: Ancient Greece
Eternal Punishment Original
Legendary Greek hero who fought in the Trojan War and masterminded the Trojan Horse plot. Spent ten years coming back home, which is chronicled in the Odyssey. Descended from Hermes.
: Odysseus kinda sucks.
: Puck shows up here, though we’re not going to negotiate with it. Speaking of which, you can’t negotiate with zombies because fuck you, that’s why.
: I’ll take a second and show off all the negotiation skills, however.
: Unlike Innocent Sin, each character only has one negotiation skill. You can still combine them, but it makes negotiating a pain in the ass.
: In this fight, I ran into a Harpy, so I tried using the negotiation guide on GameFAQs… which only lists the name of the negotiation skill, not who has it or what combination of people make it.
: Let me also post the map of Mt. Katatsumuri - there’s a person on Gamefaqs who just made new ones for the PSP version.
: Speaking of maps, there’s something I should mention that the game won’t tell us about for a while. Eternal Punishment has a side quest involving them.
: The side quest is to fully map out every dungeon - you get a reward for each dungeon you fully map out. Some of the rewards are garbage, others are VERY IMPORTANT to get.
: Eventually, we reach a river with a chest on the other side that we can’t reach.
: The enemies on the other side of the bridge are slightly harder, including Ogre and Empusa. And now, one of the two most dickish rooms in this dungeon.
: On the left of the bridge is a hidden area with an item we should probably pick up. The only problem…
: Every encounter in this room, so far as I can tell, is four Zombie Soldiers. If you get bad enough RNG, it is entirely possible that they can wipe you.
: We get a Strength incense, which gives 10 points of Strength when used in a Persona fusion. I could use this to make Katsuya even more overpowered, but I’ll wait.
: There’s also a hidden area we can use to reach that chest, which has a fusion item in it. I’m not sure what this makes, but we might as well grab it. There’s one final dickish secret here.
: Right before the final area, there’s a hidden trail that doesn’t show up on the minimap or the regular map. This leads to a hidden area that, unless they changed it for the PSP, you can only access now.
: Both of those names sound… suspicious.
: Remember the fucking cat in Kuzunoha’s office? The one you had to stand in front of and mash X for like five minutes to donate 10,000 yen in 100 yen increments? Yeah, that’s what this is.
: Donating 10,000 yen unlocks something later in the game, and as I mentioned before, this is the ONLY TIME you can do this. By the time you know why you’d want to, it’s too late.
: I found out after recording how you’re supposed to figure this out. If you make a pact with a Harpy, one of the demon rumors it can give you is about the shrine.
: And done. I timed it, and this took around 6 minutes. On an emulator, I could’ve done it in about thirty seconds. It’s too bad turbo controllers don’t work with the PSP Go.
: And now we’re at the sanitarium. You might notice that Baofu is green - this is because of these assholes.
: Phantoms will attempt to possess a party member before dying. This acts like a confuse effect, but it only procs very rarely. We don’t have a cure for it - the only cure is death.
: Fortunately, just like in Innocent Sin, death fixes itself after battle so you can simply heal up and move on.
: I’m not sure what’s with that expression, and I’m not entirely certain the artist knew either. It’s kind of YIIKesman-esque.
: “Don’t make such a loud fuss…”
: Well, at least we know it’s not Sudou, because he would have set them on fire.
: “They tried, but got killed by demons. Guess that about sums it up. They’re not Japanese.”
: You might ask how he can tell that from just a cursory examination. It’s because of the gun. As far as I can tell, “Kuroboshi” is a mis-spelling of “Kurohoshi”, a word meaning “black star”.
: The Black Star is a kind of handgun manufactured in China, also known as the Type 54. It’s a knockoff of the Soviet Tokarev pistol - which is what Joker used in Persona 5.
: “It’s the Tien Tao Lien… the Taiwanese Mafia. I recognize one of the faces…”
: I also looked this up. There is a real Taiwanese Triad group known as Tien Tao Meng, or “Heavenly Way Alliance”. They’re partially the result of some godawful policies put into place by the Kuomintang.
: “Your buddies…?”
: “Say that again, I’ll put a hole in your face.”
: Whoa there Baofu, casually threatening to shoot people is Kusabi’s thing. Not that I’m saying a Suda51-written Persona game wouldn’t be good…
: This choice doesn’t matter, you get the same dialog either way - at least, going from a copy of the PS1 script.
: “Ch… these guys are dogs of Tatsuzou. He’s been on good terms with them for 5 years when he was the Minister of Justice.”
: “…Wait a second. Why would Tatsuzou and the Mafia attack the very sanitarium his own son was in?”
: Probably the same reason Shido violated the rules of how the Metaverse works to make a sentient clone of his son that can use a Persona for no good reason.
: “How the hell should I know? We came to find that out.”
: And now, optional dialogue time.
: God… dammit… I filled the last LP with Deus Ex clips and I can’t… I even used that one already… god dammit.
: Why is it that both of these games do this to me?
: There’s a Velvet Room here, as well as Trish’s stupidly overpriced healing fountain. At this point, Maya is nearing 200 SP, and a Media from her Persona only costs 3.
: I ran around grinding for a bit, and got an Aques card off a demon. This allows us to get our first real negotiations in, because I want to show you how that works in case you don’t have 700+ cards lying around.
: This is Erinys, one of the first demons we’re capable of forming a pact with. It’s here I learn something really, really dumb about Eternal Punishment’s negotiations.
: Each of the combination negotiation techniques in Eternal Punishment is unique. Costing a Fortune is a combination between Ulala and Baofu… in that exact order.
: Doing it the other way around (selecting Baofu first) actually won’t do anything because we don’t have that technique unlocked yet, but it’s not the same as Costing a Fortune.
: Some of these are a pain in the ass to remember, including “Persuade” and “Advise”, which are Maya/Katsuya and Katsuya/Maya, respectively.
: There is, however, one major change from both the PS1 version and Innocent Sin. In the PSP version, you only need one person in the party who meets the level requirement to make a pact. That person does NOT need to be the one doing the negotiation.
: Tell that to the Persona 5 LP, where we spent… god only knows how much money on fortune telling to avoid permafucks.
: Here’s the annoying part. We have to sit through that dialog four times, with no way to skip it or speed it up, before we get to making a pact.
: We can then use Baofu’s Wire Tapping to get cards.
: What sucks is that there’s one negotiation called 100 Stories, which is only available on Elly’s route because Elly is and will always be the best girl in this entire series.
: 100 Stories has a HUGE amount of optional dialog, and I imagine a lot of it was changed in the patch because you could tell they butchered some in the PS1 translation.
: The Sanitarium is three floors, all shaped like a U. Each arm has a staircase, with one being the “progress” staircase and one being a dead end that usually has an item in it.
: The second floor has exactly one room we can enter out of the like… fifteen pairs of doors that exist on it. All that’s in here is some dialog.
: Well yeah, I mean… that sounds like Tatsuya Sudou, though I’m surprised he didn’t also light a bunch of people on fire.
: Just before we get to the third floor, we run into the worst encounter in this place. Cockatrice is a pain to negotiate with and has a full-party attack that hits twice.
: It’s probably best to just run away from this one, as even with Maya healing every turn I couldn’t keep up with the damage.
: The third floor features a chest you can see from the “progress” side but can’t actually reach without going all the way around. It’s like that one scene with Pyramid Head in Silent Hill 2.
: On the way to that chest, I run into Robin Goodfellow. This is the second demon we can make a pact with, so I do. I then accidentally run into progress.
: You know, why is it that you never once see the party do this in Persona 5? They all have guns, but never think to just clear rooms with them.
: “What… is… this…?”
: In case the blonde hair, single eye, general body shape, knowledge of Innocent Sin’s plot and connection to the Masked Circle weren’t enough clues, Sudou is the Joker.
: In Eternal Punishment’s timeline, Nyarlathotep never had Jun’s father write In Lak’ech with Sudou.
: “The seven Pleiades set the frozen time free. Wild dance, shadowed festival, foreign song ensue. As flames of expiation light the heavens, the lion’s roar echoes far and wide…”
: “Five skulls glow in the depths of the earth… the holy cross shines high up in the sky… once the star comes to a complete halt… the Maia Maiden’s heart stops with it…”
: “What then remains is paradise on earth… marking the end and a new beginning… what does all that crap mean?”
: I can only imagine how confusing this would have been for people playing this in 2000, without having Innocent Sin for context or knowing why the Oracle of Maia is important.
: “Heaven’s cross… is it the ‘Grand Cross’ that occurred this summer? Is… this… some sort of prophecy?”
: “You mean where all the planets in the solar system align in a cross formation…? But nothing happened…?”
: “Does your chest hurt again, Ma-ya?”
: “Again…?”
: You know, I also get this weird thing when I go near my PSP where I remember that horrible dream I had where I LPed that broken version of this game.
: Admittedly, this game looks a lot better on an emulator.
: “This place ain’t normal… this room’s vibes can’t be trusted. Let’s move on.”
: There’s some optional dialogue here, especially if we examine the Oracle of Maia again.
: “I see why Sudou was hiding him… I guess you can’t blame him with such a crazy son. Like father, like son…”
: From what I’ve heard, Satomi Tadashi has some… interesting takes on mental illness - and by interesting, I mean bad.
: This feels like they put it in purely for people who hadn’t played Innocent Sin. It was kind of obvious from the get-go that Nyarlathotep is back at work.
: “He seemed to know about you… but what about you does he know…”
: Just up the hallway, Katsuya’s boss fight senses start tingling again. It’s at this point that I go back.
: This is going to be helpful for making Katsuya less slow. There’s also a chest if we go up the “wrong” way to the fourth floor.
: Another fusion item.
: Going up the “progress” path gets us almost immediately to the director’s office, where we have our next boss fight waiting.
: You might be wondering why Sudou has both eyes, and honestly, I’m wondering the same thing. I wasn’t even sure if the shrine fire incident happened in Eternal Punishment’s timeline, and clearly it didn’t.
: “I see… I feel sorry for that brat.”
: “You’re… Tatsuya Sudou, aren’t you? This serial killing… the killings 10 years ago… you did these, didn’t you…?”
: “You mean back then? Ah… how nostalgic. The voices won’t let me off with just arson. They said they needed a sacrifice. With the chest all carved out alive… with the tendons cut so they can’t escape.”
: “You piece of garbage… how the hell did you get that kind of power being locked up for 10 years?”
: " ‘Kotodama’, y’know, Kotodama. Y’know? You say something, and it’ll happen? The voices tell me anything… that poor excuse for a dad did this to me."
: “Kotodama…? The rumors…? You said that your dad did this to you. Then, why is he after your life?”
: A cell phone starts ringing in the background.
: “Shhhhhhh… it’s from the guys outside.”
: Yep, Baofu just ditched us.
: “I’m free, you got that? ‘I’m coming for you soon!’ Give that message to my fuckin’ dad!”
: “What do you hope to accomplish!? To keep on killing!? To get revenge on your father!?”
: “Hyahaha! I used to kill for pleasure, but now I only kill because people give me a call… right?”
: “…”
: “My real purpose is… to right the wrong. ‘This Side’ is wrong, and the ‘Other Side’ is right. My fuckin’ dad doesn’t understand that… you understand, don’t you?”
: Clearly Sudou doesn’t, because he’s dead on the other side along with everyone else.
: “Ch… how long are you gonna keep up this act!? I’ll make you remember… if this guy doesn’t eat you, come to the Aerospace Museum!”
: One thing I should’ve mentioned is that Eternal Punishment has a LOT of post-consumer recycled Innocent Sin in it.
: Sudou teleports out, and Katsuya shoots at him as he does so. I bet if Katsuya was in Persona 5, he’d have arrested Maruki while Maruki was doing one of his dumbass monologues.
: This fight can be INCREDIBLY annoying, depending on how the boss chooses to act. Hellhound here is immune to fire and repels gun attacks.
: Ulala now knows Magnara, so we can use that to do around 40 damage.
: Meanwhile, a single Aqua from Maya does over 100 damage, because Hellhound is also incredibly weak to water. You might notice how fucked up Katsuya is.
: The Hellhound has two attacks - Venom Bite and Fire Breath. Katsuya nulls Fire, but Fire Breath takes off about half of Maya’s HP due to her being kind of a glass cannon right now.
: What you want to do is have Ulala and Katsuya heal Maya while Maya shits on the boss with water spells. If we had used that Aques card, this would be a stomp.
: I also found out that there’s apparently a link between what Persona you have and what you get at level-up for bonus stats, so we can find a Persona that gives Agility and slap it on Katsuya.
: “You seem to have a reason… did you know him?”
: “Knock it off. They’ll find out without a report from us. Besides, how are you gonna explain this?”
: “I am an officer of the law. I can’t just let it go…”
: Not without a bribe, that is.
: “Heh… you can’t look the other way, huh…? You’re too soft…”
: Next time, we’ll go back to the Aerospace Museum. How much do you want to bet it’s going to catch on fire again?
: “Well then, Gozen, please proceed.”
: “…?”
: “Wait, you’re going to a party, huh? To hell with the weekends… sometimes you just gotta have a good time.”
: “It’s bad enough that she split us up… now, you can’t take some time off! Don’t give into her, Maya-san!”
: “WHAT!? What do you mean you have to work!? Don’t give me that… you weren’t planning on going anyway, huh?”
: “I think it’s fine, but… please be careful… some of the students are still a little shaken after the murders.”
: “It’s because of you the police are here! We know you did it! You wanted revenge for being hit, huh!?”
: “Who… are you…? From a magazine…? I see… You guys probably think I killed him… Do whatever you want…”
: “…!!”
: “I took a request. So I’m here to kill you. That’s what the rumors say.”
: “My name… is Philemon… I… exist between consciousness and death. The one… who has granted you… the Personas…”
: “Go to a detective’s office called ‘Kuzunoha’. It’s in Aoba…”
: “And lastly, do not involve yourself in this. Forget… everything…”
: “Sideburns… fine… whatever. There’s the matter of the boy who saved us. Let’s hear what that detective has to say.”
: “Eh…? Ah… that time! You bumped into a tall guy from Seven Sisters High School, right? I knew I saw you somewhere… so that’s where… then, did you give me this letter…?”
: “You my dear, have a peculiar aura about you. You must let me read your fortune… you… you are feeling that you are not yourself? You are worrying about a younger man…”
: “Sir! Then, what about that blimp!? Something that wasn’t supposed to fly was flying!”
: “It’s Tatsuzou… that bastard torched the sanitarium to destroy the evidence. Even on the blimp, he must have had someone watching over his son… that bastard has got his hands everywhere.”
: “Do you know a guy named ‘Hisataka Shinjo’?”
