Summary
: Before we switch back to Normal difficulty, I need to grind for cards. Making all those sources kind of ate away at the leftover card stash from Innocent Sin.
: First up on the new Persona list is Tensen Nyannyan, who I think I logged in Innocent Sin. Tensen Nyannyan is one of the first Personas to learn Mediarama.
: While grinding, I get the rumor from Robin Goodfellow about the shortcut to Area 2 of the bomb shelter.
: Just like the rumor from Club Zodiac, we have to first get it, and then form a pact with Minotaur to get him to break the rock.
: You can definitely see the influence of the people behind Nocturne here. The shortcut to Area 2 has an unavoidable damage floor directly in front of it that has a pretty decent chance to poison.
: Next, I fuse Gullinbursti for Maya.
New Persona: Gullinbursti
Origin: Norse Myth
First Appearance: Maijn Tensei II (SNES)
Boar belonging to Freyr, made to run through air and water. Also glows, because do you really think a Norse god is gonna drift a boar without headlights?
: Gullinbursti is important because he is extremely resistant to physical attacks and conveys an extra Vitality every level. This will fix Maya’s low HP and low physical defense.
: Sakya fucking rules. He’s about as close as Eternal Punishment gets to Persona 1’s version of Lilim. Even better, he has Best compatibility with Nanjo, so we might be able to mutate him.
New Persona: Culebre
Origin: Spain
First Appearance: Devil Summoner
Mythical Spanish dragon born in underground rivers that rarely moves and spends most of its time guarding treasures.
: Culebre is another one of those Personas I only really pick because I want what it mutates into, which is actually the same thing Sakya mutates into. I’d rather lose Culebre than Sakya.
: With this, we should be ready for the sewer, even if we’re a little heavy on Earth and Water Personas. I fused a third Marduk for Baofu offscreen, meaning we’ve spent over 200 cards on Marduks.
: Before we leave, we want to grab the mission to map out the science lab from Salam. You have to do this before you leave. The sewer (thankfully) does not count.
: “A distinctive feature is the maze setting. On top of that, at each block, a flood of water comes through at timed intervals.”
: “There are two routes connecting the blocks… if we don’t take the shorter way, we have a higher chance of getting washed away.”
: “We must control the locks for the two paths by the 1st and 2nd Control Rooms respectively. Thus, two people must stay…”
: “You really did your homework…”
: I like to think that Tatsuzou went to Nanjo’s dad and straight up went “Hi, I need a sewage plant to use as my evil base for taking over the world because I’m crazy” and Nanjo’s dad handed him a check.
: “Sometimes adults don’t make sense… are you cool with that?”
: “A world of facades and concessions is a cold one indeed… I just walk the path I believe in.”
: I also like to think that at some point during this dungeon, Baofu goes up to Nanjo and goes “Hi, I need ten million dollars to build a larger hacker bunker” and Nanjo immediately writes the check.
: “Perfect… so, who’s staying?”
: Oh fuck, it’s Reiji! They should have put him in while Sudou was still alive, because it’d be funny as hell to see Sudou complaining about “MY FUCKIN’ DAD” and Reiji just kinda nodding in agreement.
: This line is most likely inaccurate, since I think the “six-pack” thing was purely an addition by the Revelations: Persona “translators”.
: Elly sent Maki here because Maki was less likely to hurt someone when she randomly whips out a gun and starts blasting. Yes, that was a thing in Persona 1… in case you forgot.
: Here’s my question - why is Nanjo in the party, and not Reiji? Reiji’s entire life goal is murdering Kandori, and if Kandori is still alive his job is not done.
: There should’ve been a line where Reiji goes “Nah, fuck that, kill his bitch ass. I’ll help.”
: “All right… I’ll try.”
: “I leave the releasing of the locks to them… we can contact them with that walkie-talkie. When you decide between routes A and B, give them a call.”
: Now it’s time to talk about how the sewers work. There are three segments, and each segment has a 10-minute time limit. At the end of the time limit, the water comes and pushes you back.
: There is no limit as to how many times you can go through each section, if you’re doing something like hunting for the Tsuchinoko.
: Here’s the map. The suggested route is to take either door for the first section, and then do Route B for the rest of the dungeon as it has more items.
: This is why the sewers don’t count for the mapping sidequest - you can’t actually see the entire sewer because it’s one-way and you’ll always miss out on half of it. There’s also some optional dialogue.
: Eat shit, Katsuya.
: Reiji is already married by this point, and I’m pretty sure Lisa would have first dibs given the whole weird staring match she had with him in Innocent Sin.
: I pick the A route to start, because it’s shorter and more straightforward than the B route and has the same items.
: It’s nothing good, and honestly I could’ve just ignored it all. I could also skip Reiji’s dialog for opening the door, but it’s actually pretty good.
: Why do I have a feeling that if this was Innocent Sin, Lisa would’ve done exactly the same thing?
: Route B2 can be completed in about twenty seconds if you simply walk in a straight line. However, there’s a couple of platforms south of the exit with items.
: There’s another Damascus Steel, which we can take to Padparacha to get made into a weapon.
: There’s also a weapon for Baofu and a Luck Incense, which I immediately give to Maya.
: And on the way back, 20 Free Cards. You might ask what the fights are like here, and, well…
: For the most part, they’re exactly the same as Aoba Park. The only difference is that Kanaloa and Kraken are here and the enemies tend to come in larger groups.
: Kanaloa is particularly annoying because it has a physical skill with a chance of instantly killing. For reference, Kanaloa is the blue one.
: I did, by the way, make an effort to find the Tsuchinoko and did not find it. I don’t even know what the item you get from it does, and I don’t feel like grinding to find out… especially not after what’s coming up.
: By the way, I recommend leaving the game on Easy mode here and running away from battles, because you’ll occasionally get forced negotations which eat up a lot of time.
: We reach the second checkpoint. There’s some optional dialog with Nanjo here that fills in a couple of holes after Persona 1.
: “The system Kandori made… the DEVA system… as well as his other research, could be of incredible benefit, you know…”
: Yeah, benefits like being re-used by the Persona 5 Royal writers. Great job there, Nanjo.
: “So, that’s how we teamed with Tatsuzou. Before we knew of the New World Order, we unwittingly helped them… it’s a foolish story… when I think of all the feelings of those who were involved, there’s no way I could ever make it up…”
: Who is this guy, and what has he done with Reiji? This almost sounds like he’s Nanjo’s boyfriend or something. I mean, admittedly we don’t know that Nanjo isn’t gay.
: The next area is a long hallway where half the chests are traps or have forced battles, and the other half have some pretty okay items. The Pipe Fox boosts Magic Attack by 10. It goes right on Maya.
: This sword is a slight upgrade for Nanjo and has a chance to shock on hit.
: “If we don’t render that inoperable, I can’t ensure you of our freedom to move.”
: “Hey, they’ve got guns… does your company supply the guards with firearms!?”
: Somewhere in the Nanjo Group’s headquarters, Tatsuzou Sudou approaches Nanjo’s dad. “Hey, uh, I need several dozen crates of illegal guns. You know, to take over the world. Because I’m crazy.”
: Nanjo’s dad hands him a check immediately.
: “That is absurd… even my group’s scientists aren’t allowed entry in here. Those aren’t our security officers, either.”
: You just know that Maya is thinking “I wonder if I could get Nanjo to write me a check for a warehouse full of crab meat, or my own crab fishing company, or maybe a cleaner.”
: “Then we don’t need to hold back…”
: “We shouldn’t make any sounds…”
: “Whaddya mean by that!?”
: This is probably what happens in every dungeon in Persona 5 after Makoto joins, behind the scenes. Joker: “Here we go, Ann and Ryuji. You can be plot-relevant again next time.”
: “Mmmm…”
: Ulala’s like “That guy is absolutely fucking dead, and… oh, that’s what he meant.”
: Oh hell yeah, it’s Eikichi! Unfortunately, Satomi Tadashi screwed him out of plot relevance to the point where as far as I know he doesn’t have his Persona in this game.
: “Dammit! Release Sugimoto, NOW…!!! If ya don’t, I’m gonna beat your ass!!!”
: Sugimoto was the guy that Sudou set on fire on Kasugayama High’s rooftop.
: “But that’s pretty hasty… weren’t YOU the target of the Joker curse in the first place?”
: “I neutralized security… we should be able to bypass the security devices for a while.”
: “Eikichi-kun, leave your friend to us and go home… this is not a place for kids.”
: “Don’t kid me! I’m not gonna just pull back! Take me too! If ya don’t, I’ll make a ruckus…!? SOMEBODY ---- !!”
: “Very well… let’s take him with us. I can understand his position. But in return… refrain from getting in our way. When we say come back, come back.”
: I’m going to start this dungeon out by saying that if you ever play this yourself, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, DO THE MAPPING SIDEQUEST. Also, have some optional dialogue.
: Katsuya is such a cop it hurts.
: One thing I feel like the original translator did very poorly was making Eikichi feel like Eikichi. This feels like a different character from the Eikichi we knew in Innocent Sin.
: Let’s talk about the map sidequest, because there really isn’t much to this dungeon if you’re not doing it. You see those dark squares on the minimap? We need the whole map to look like that.
: The annoying thing is that the game only counts tiles within a one-tile radius of Maya as “mapped”, and a lot of hallways are three tiles wide.
: Right down the first hallway is a Velvet Room and Trish’s Fountain, so I go in there for optional dialogue.
: “Huh? Why am I able to use Personas…? That’s what I’d like to know… though I might’ve played that game when I was a kid.”
: He was also hit with a Persona-producing arrow by an old lady from the Middle East. It was like a nerf dart and bounced off, so he didn’t notice.
: “I have used this place quite often. Personas are useful not only in fighting, but in normal social settings as well.”
: “My friend, who became a salesman, uses his power to succeed in his career. Now if only Kido were that clever…”
: Nanjo clearly didn’t read the part of Jung where the Persona is a key piece of the psyche and everyone has one because you need it to exist. Or to protect you from jangly key men. One of those.
: “Come to think of it, back in high school I learned Persona from you and played it… I wonder if it has anything to do with this?”
: The lab is filled with new enemies, including Taranis, who is probably the least annoying one next to the humans. Taranis is weak to Water, and we’ve got plenty of that.
: All routes leading out of the starting area are blocked by these shutters. I should post the map while I’m at it so you can see.
: This is where this dungeon starts to suck. Cwn Annwn has an instant death attack that it uses at random, which as far as I know always works and can’t be avoided.
: The first thing I did was form a pact with them specifically to stop this bullshit from happening. We still don’t have Mediarama on Tensen Nyannyan yet, so I have to switch Maya to Iris every time I want to heal.
: There’s a set of stairs near the Velvet Room that comes out pretty much right here. This is a cutscene room, and we need to see it before we can move on.
: I like to think this is Joker’s origin story in Persona 5. He came out of a lab trying to do boyfriend experiments. It’s about as canon as this room is, which is to say it’s not.
: “Uh…!? What… what happened to this person?!”
: This is Satomi Tadashi trying to do worldbuilding. It will never come up again, and is non-canon.
: “There’s another one over here… on their necks… looks like an electrode…”
: “Human experiments… how horrific and deplorable…!”
: “Calm down, young man. We will locate your friend. You escort these people here to the trailer in the parking facility.”
: “What do you plan to do, Nanjo-kun?”
: “Treat them at our hospital… I figured out… what they do here. I can’t turn the other way.”
: I’m surprised the answer isn’t “bring them upstairs to Igor”, but whatever.
: “Can you bring them back?”
: “We won’t know if we don’t try… it’s still a hundred times better than doing nothing…”
: On the other side of the basement is this guy, who is how we make progress.
: “An employee… hey, we came to find out what’s going on in this laboratory. Can you give us the details?”
: “Understood. Leave the rest to us.”
: I spend a few minutes running around to fill in map squares. There’s a lot of pointless space in the basement.
: Anyway, here’s where I fucked up. To finish the map, you need a demon rumor. The demon that drops the rumor only spawns in the basement and on the first floor. Only one guide mentions this.
: After how much shit I went through trying to get the one in Club Zodiac, it’s safe to say I am not doing that again without an emulator.
: Past that door is a switch that allows you to open either “A” doors or “B” doors. There’s an “A” door blocking an item near the start of the dungeon, so you have to backtrack for map completion.
: Note that because of the tiny mapping radius, I have to run all the way around this pointless room after getting the item.
: This part, right after the first A/B switch, is where I was about ready to shut off the PSP. I’d like you to notice something. See how we’re right in front of a damage floor, but it’s not on the map, even though it’s very clearly within the one-tile mapping range?
: This one I ran all the way around, and there’s unfilled map squares where the damage floor is. Yes, this means we have to run over each and every fucking damage floor to complete the map. It gets worse.
: The damage floor room has an A/B switch, and a staircase in the south that will lead you in a route to this guy on the other side of this Level 2 shutter. However…
: This is the room directly above the room with the red damage floors. These are blue damage floors - which, if you’ll recall, drain SP. They don’t drain it from Maya, and that’s to prevent a softlock.
: Yep, we’ve got to run over all of those fucking damage floors. Everyone now has 1 SP except for Maya, and I had next to no SP restoration items.
: Now, you might say, “Why not go to Easy mode and run around to restore SP, since Easy increases the amount of SP restored per step?” Here’s why.
: This floor has Principality on it. Principality has Mahama, which targets everyone and can potentially wipe your party if you are unlucky.
: Principality is level 29, and even after all the grinding I did, we are only around level 27. This means no pact, which means we have to negotiate him away each time for no benefit.
: I’m gonna say it outright, the mapping sidequest sucks. The encounter rate here is very high, and given the amount of bullshit you have to go through, it’s simply not worth doing.
: And here’s the final kick in the dick. I actually went past the spot I was supposed to go to make progress and went to outside the boss room.
: The last mappable squares require you to use the elevator. There’s a fuse box next to it. It’s locked, and the keycards don’t work on it.
: What you have to do is go down to the first floor and fight one of these things, which I forgot to take a shot of:
: They’re called Kabandha, and are annoying because they can hit Katsuya’s water weakness. You have to get the rumor from them that Rasputin has the key to the fuse box.
: The rest of this dungeon consists of going to the floor with the red damage floors, flipping the A/B switch to B, and then using the side staircase to get to the second scientist.
: We now have everything we need to get to the boss room, and can take a shortcut there.
: We’ll do the boss next time, mostly because I might load the game back into the emulator and see if I can’t get that demon rumor.