At least we get the cats out of it. Everyone acts like they’re too good to include the cats like “This is a serious story we can’t have the cat army show up and save the day.”
Summary
: The fight against Azazel fucking sucks. It took me over an hour of savestate abuse to get past, mostly because there simply is no good answer to him.
: Azazel has three major “fuck you, I win” buttons - the first is the spell you see above. That’s Pandaemonium, which is an Almighty spell that will likely instakill anyone who does not reflect or null it. That’s a thing in this game, by the way - you can null Almighty spells. It’s considered an element just like everything else.
: On one run, I have Tatsuya crit for over 700 damage on a regular attack. It is not enough, and the party wipes.
: Anyway, Azazel has a second skill (which I forgot to get a shot of due to being on the emulator) which is called Guillotine Fake. Guillotine Fake does enough physical damage to oneshot everyone who is not Tatsuya, and has a chance of instakilling on top of that.
: As far as I can tell, winning this fight effectively depends on Azazel using Eternal Black on his first turn. I also didn’t get any shots of my winning run, but I’ll describe what I did.
: Throughout the game, we got a couple of items (six of them, to be precise) called Physical Guards. Physical Guards cast Tetrakarn, which reflects the next physical damage you take.
: The trick is this. Save a state before the fight because this is some RNG-ridden bullshit. Get him to use Eternal Black turn one, and then respond by using Physical Guards on everyone.
: What this does is reflects back roughly 1400 damage (assuming you can get it on everyone and you don’t have anyone get charmed and use a physical attack to break Tetrakarn) onto Azazel.
: Hastur is actually good here even though he has no physical skills, simply because he nulls all of Azazel’s other bullshit.
: Again, I’ll summarize the dialog.
: “Shouldn’t we just leave this behind?”
: “No, because that’s how you get Persona 5.”
: The first option gets you 50 Hanged Man cards. The second gets you 200 Temperance cards. We do not give a single fuck about either one.
: I’m going to skip from here to the part we give a shit about… once I load my saves back onto the PSP. By the way, Mega decided to be a dick and delete all my files, so I’ll have to re-upload the saves for Persona 1 and Innocent Sin.
: Two towers later, we meet Angra Mainyu. Angra Mainyu is the entire reason I spent over an hour savestating my way past Azazel. He asks a dumbass high school philosophy textbook question about the nature of good and evil.
: The first answer is the one we want. This is how we are going to get our last Fool card.
: Now, here’s the thing. We could use those Fool cards on Personas that are a lot better than what we’re going to use them for - including one that probably could’ve soloed Azazel - but I spent like five minutes in the start of the game mashing buttons in front of that shrine and I want my reward, dammit.
: We then immediately quit out of Tatsuya’s Scenario. By the way, it turns out you can’t use this to get infinite Fool cards - if you do this a second time, Angra Mainyu gives you 200 Justice cards instead.
: We now need to do some very specific actions before we set foot in Sumaru Castle. It is imperative that if you are going for the shrine reward that you DO NOT SET FOOT IN SUMARU CASTLE. DOING SO CAN LEAD TO A PERMAFUCK.
: Instead, we want to go to Mizuno’s office. If we hadn’t answered that question earlier (the one around the time we got Nanjo) correctly, this wouldn’t be available.
: Even though it would be a better idea for Tatsuya to impale this dipshit on his katana, we have to listen to his story. I am not going to bother making a new icon for him.
: “You’re aware of the legend of Kiyotada and Torifune, right? Long ago the gods arriving on the Torifune gave man civilization… Kiyotada Sumaru, who found out about it, built the castle here in Sumaru City where the Torifune sleeps…”
: “This legend was created back in the civil war time by Kiyotada. He attempted to create the Torifune through Kotodama! Kiyotada built Sumaru City based upon the principles of Yin and Yang.”
: This feels a lot like the “Ancient aliens resurrected Hitler!” conversation from Innocent Sin, and I’m pretty sure the translation is… not great.
: “According to history, it speaks of mere tyranny. But in legends, it states the use of Wang Long fortunes and rumors! Kiyotada used Wang Long to conquer… he was slain by a samurai, Suou, and was mummified for his punishment!”
: Did he just say… a samurai named… Suou? That sounds like some kind of historical boyfriend. That, or a Nyarlathotep plot.
: “See, doesn’t that fit in this situation!? If we only knew this 10 years ago… the legend was telling the truth!”
: We need to ask that first question.
: Vassal my ass. I think you mean “boyfriend”, or possibly “husband”.
: Hmm… the next thing we have to do is a man-search.
: Setsu Nishitani is the old lady hanging out in front of the Alaya Shrine.
: You have to do the man-search and turn it in before you can get the second part of the rumor we need.
: Again, we need to hear this story.
: If you’ve read the Innocent Sin LP, a lot of this probably sounds familiar. That’s because the entirety of Sumaru Castle is basically Innocent Sin’s story told as a samurai story.
: And that’s the other rumor we need.
: Hmm… it’s weird that we don’t seem to know what the servant’s name was, especially given how important he seemed to be to the overall plot. Or do we? Remember the shrine?
: And this is why we needed to fill the box at the start of the game. We need to reunite some historical boyfriends. Now that we’ve spread the rumors, it is safe to go to Sumaru Castle.
: Sumaru Castle is actually ENTIRELY skippable. The gimmick of the dungeon is that it has eight warp points - seven go to the dungeon itself, the eighth to a door that needs a password. Each warp has a single letter of the password.
: However, we do NOT want to do that. Why? There is a rare demon in the castle, and I will probably need its material card to beat Azazel the second time we go through that.
: Before we start warping, let me post the map so you can understand why coming here is a permafuck if you want the shrine reward but have not spread the rumors.
: You’ll notice that there are two versions of floors 3 and 7. If you have not spread the rumors about Tatsunoshin and Maihime and go to either of those floors, you are PERMAFUCKED out of the shrine reward. We’ve spread the rumors though, and that’s why we’re going to both of those places first.
: One other thing I should mention: spreading the rumors about Tatsunoshin and Maihime is POINTLESS unless you have at least four Fool cards and did the shrine at the start of the game.
: If you only spread the rumor and did not do the shrine, only Tatsunoshin will be here. But if you did…
: Ghost boyfriend! Ghost boyfriend! I should mention that the ghost of Junnosuke looks NOTHING like what he looks like when we get him as a Persona.
NEW PERSONA: JUNNOSUKE KURODA
Origin: Persona 2 Innocent Sin
Eternal Punishment Original
Legendary ninja catboy boyfriend (and later husband) of Tatsunoshin Suou. Ancestor of Jun Kurosu.
: Junnosuke is a Fool Persona for exactly one reason: because all of the other Fool Personas are ninjas. You might notice that he only has two skills and his stats suck. Let me explain.
: All of the Ancestor Personas have only a single skill to start, and learn a second one at Rank 8. You might think “Wow, they’re unusable bullshit and a waste of cards!” and you’re kinda right.
: There are two reasons to summon Junnosuke. The first is something we’ll see when it comes time to fight the boss of Sumaru Castle. The second is that returning him is the only way to get the Karma Ring - which is the only way to get the final reward in the Bomb Shelter for reading all of Sachiko’s notes… assuming you don’t already have one from Innocent Sin.
: Speaking of which, his design sucks, so I asked Salty Vanilla to make a new one that’s more historically accurate.
: Before you ask, yes, I did originally have plans for Salty Vanilla to also do an Ancestor Persona for Lisa and Eikichi, but Salty has been really busy lately. Lisa’s was going to be her in one of those Chinese dresses but then also wearing cowboy boots, boxing gloves, and a cowboy hat.
: Eikichi’s was going to be a cyborg, because if you’re going to fuck with history, why not go all the way?
NEW PERSONA: TATSUNOSHIN SUOU
Origin: Persona 2 Innocent Sin
Eternal Punishment Original
Samurai who defeated Kiyotada Sumaru by burning his fucking castle to the ground. Ancestor of Tatsuya and Katsuya. Boyfriend (and later husband) of Junnosuke Kuroda. Heavily based on the story of Akechi Mitsuhide.
: There’s optional dialogue in Tatsunoshin’s room.
: “His name being Suou means that he’s Tatsuya and Katsuya’s ancestor…? Couldn’t be…”
: “A legend returns as a rumor… it doesn’t make me feel good being forced to call upon the dead…”
: The other destination is this room on the third floor.
NEW PERSONA: MAIHIME AMANO
Origin: Persona 2 Innocent Sin
Eternal Punishment Original
Princess who opened Japan to Western restaurants. Known for her support of Japan’s crab industry. Ancestor of Maya.
: Maihime is the only Ancestor Persona who is even remotely worth it. We already know why Heartfelt Prayer is good, and Protection Dance is a full-party defensive buff.
: It probably isn’t, given that Sumaru Castle is a filler dungeon that has little to no impact on the overall story. I feel like it was a setpiece they made before they knew what the game was going to be.
: While we’re here, I spend a while looking for the rare demon and farming cards. We’re running out of free cards and need like 400 to summon Maihime. We also need Tatsuya to gain a level, and need money for a Megidolaon card.
: The problem with Sumaru Castle is that most of the enemies are packing instakills, like Adramelech here. By the way, this is another thing that transfers from Innocent Sin I forgot to show off.
: Near the end of Innocent Sin, there’s a negotiation you can get with Eikichi if you tell him Tatsuya plays the guitar. If you do this in Innocent Sin, it transfers to Eternal Punishment. There is a way to get this without transferring the save.
: This gives you an updated version of Flamenco de la Pasion where Tatsuya has an electric guitar. It’s kind of an interesting touch that the theme for the Metal Jun/Lisa/Eikichi fight doesn’t have the guitar solo that Innocent Sin’s boss theme does - presumably because they lost Tatsuya as their guitar player.
: I grab a couple of the clues to the password. This is from Floor 7. The letters are arranged by floor, so the word ends in S.
: Floor 1’s letter is P, so it starts with P and ends with S.
: “I’d like to solve the puzzle!”
: No, Mara, it’s 7 letters. Not 5.
: After over an hour of dicking around on Floor 7, I run into the rare demon. This is Rangda, in what I think is the only Persona game where she isn’t a trashsona.
: She’s a total pushover if you’re using magic - she has Megidola, but it doesn’t do much. We’ll fix that by giving her Megidolaon. Let me go ahead and post her stats.
: Rangda is what they expect you to have going into that fight against Azazel in Tatsuya’s Scenario, and is a hard counter to his bullshit - she reflects Physical, nulls Dark, and also nulls charm.
: The problem is that outside of that, she’s… kinda meh. Sure, 25% resistance to all magic outside of Light is nice, but her moveset kinda sucks.
: Now that we’ve got Rangda’s card, it’s time to go grind ranks on the ancestors. I’m real glad rank as a concept died after this game. Did you know we’re over 34 hours into this game? We are.
: The only saving grace here is that we have those Gear accessories and all the ancestors have Best compatibility with at least one person. We have Baofu stand in as Jun, using the Synchronize Gear because Junnosuke Kuroda absolutely burns through SP.
: On an interesting side note, Tatsunoshin has Best compatibility with Tatsuya, but only Great compatibility with Katsuya.
: By the time they reach Rank 8, I realize that Maihime and Junnosuke are actually surprisingly useful. Maihime reaches 99 Dexterity if you give her a Dex card, and Junnosuke reaches 99 Luck if you give him a Luck card. Junnosuke is probably the best Persona for casino grinding.
: I turn on the Golden Honey and start looking for the lithographs. This is pretty braindead, and honestly I’m gonna skip some of it because we already have everything we need here.
: This gives us an E as the second letter, meaning the word is P E _ _ _ _ S
: “Oh! Oh! I know this one! It’s PEENIIS, kinda drawn out like you’re screaming it.”
: Third letter is an R, giving us P E R _ _ _ S.
: Floor 5 has some optional dialogue.
: The next couple of letters are a little tricky, as you’re likely to encounter them out of order due to the fourth and fifth warps having stairs between them. The game gives you the hint of ordering them by warp, but it’s entirely possible to encounter this one in… I think the fifth warp even though it’s actually the sixth letter.
: We have… pretty much everything we need to solve this, to the point where I’m not going to bother getting the last letter. The password is “Perseus”. I don’t know how that makes sense, given that the whole dungeon is themed after the constellation Ursa Major, which has exactly fuck all to do with Perseus.
: “I did some research prior to coming here. Perseus is a constellation named after the man who slew Medusa in Greek mythology. Many people of ancient times believed in the stars, and it’s no surprise that Perseus was picked. He was a heroic figure.”
: “It IS a bit odd for them to use a Western name, but people today have strange ideas of magic. Another effect of rumors, I guess.”
: You’re standing in a medieval Japanese castle made from rumors floating on top of an ancient Japanese spaceship also made from rumors and THAT’S what you’re questioning?
: “Wow, you’re such a hardworking guy. So what’s a ‘henbai’?”
: “Henbai is a type of ‘magical stepping’ that originated in China. With this, you crush evil stars and invite good luck.”
: I looked it up, and this is generally accurate. Henbai was a ritual done by Onmyo practitioners who would do it for nobles going on trips.
: That article made me laugh a bit because they point out that the whole Onmyo thing was just a government job - it wasn’t a religious practice. I think that’s something we need today: government wizards.
: Now, you might say “Wait, isn’t that basically a lawyer” and the answer is yes, but I’m saying we need a wizard in addition to all the lawyers. You want to pass a law, you gotta get the approval of the guy in the ridiculous robe and pointy hat. It’s just how it’s done.
: “Hokutoku is a magic where you draw Ursa Major on the earth to sanctify and protect that area… most likely, it means to walk in a certain pattern, or something like that…”
: I can’t verify this one because there’s a region in Japan by the same name, though I suppose it could also be a magic spell in the way that Cleveland is also a spell that prevents people from going to the Super Bowl.
: Remember that room in the Undersea Ruins where it was a hole maze? That’s exactly what this room is, but it’s much, much easier.
: You see these big circles on the floor? All you have to do is walk in a straight line to the nearest one. Missing sends you down a hole to the area right before the password door and puts you on an SP damage floor.
: There’s one last warp out, but we’re good. We don’t need new Personas. I didn’t even bother leveling up Tatsuya to use Rangda.
: Looks like Tatsuzou has killed all of his buddies to get their sin juice, which kinda makes no sense when you remember that the New World Order had a sin vacuum that didn’t kill people.
: The party files in one by one because this boss fight is going to be over very quickly.
: “Fronts, fatigue, and contradictions… people think only of themselves!! And so, punishment will be yours again!! This world is decayed… the law, the system, and all humans who live off of it!!”
: Funny how he makes even less sense than his supposedly completely insane son.
: “Damn you, Tatsuzou! What right do you have to judge us!?”
: “That’s bullshit… deceiving people with stupid curses… your deception ends here, old man!”
: “Fools… you don’t understand human nature. Curses and fortunes were things you wanted! Look down there! People are still curious about fortunes, jinxes, and wish for good luck… You cannot stop a heart that involuntarily pumps its blood for curses…! Or the pulsing power of life it brings!”
: You might ask what the fuck is going on in this cutscene, and the answer is… honestly, I don’t know.
: I think the idea is supposed to be that Tatsuzou summoned a monster made of sin juice to fight the Wang Long dragons or some shit, but honestly, none of this matters.
: Eternal Punishment has exactly the same problem Innocent Sin did - it starts with a plot that’s somewhat coherent (the Sudou/Masked Circle and Sudou/New World Order plot) and then just kinda devolves into nonsense until you fight a dadmass.
: I have a question: How is it that no one in the later games recalls the Earth cracking and starting to explode? I mean, I can get why no one remembers SMT IF - because SMT IF is largely confined to a single high school in Japan and is super easy to cover up - but this makes no sense.
: Now, I mean, you can argue that it’s not meant to make sense. This is, after all, a Cthulhu mythos plot. However, this whole thing just seems completely incoherent from a writing perspective.
: This scene might have had more impact if we had like, any interaction with Tatsuzou whatsoever before this, as opposed to… what, three scenes with him in the entire game?
: The Detested Hunter is piss easy. Dark Baptism is a spell that makes it so you cannot cast healing magic for the entire fight… but we can still buff using Heartfelt Prayer.
: We clown on him using Blazing Burst and God Hand. The thing is, the boss can and will cast Dark Baptism multiple times even though subsequent casts do NOTHING. He does have an unblockable insta-kill, so I suppose it might be because Dark Baptism wears off if someone dies.
: The dead bodies start combusting.
: Meet Gozen.
: Gozen is a possibly nasty fight depending on what he chooses to do. He has two full-party physical nukes and Megidolaon, in addition to a skill called Perpetual Darkness that could fuck up our uh, strategy. Perpetual Darkness blocks fusion spells for one turn.
: He uses his first turn to cast Megidolaon. This is what we want him to do. It is the only spell he will be getting off. Why, you ask?
: To answer that question, we first need to switch in the ancestors.
: As far as I’m aware, there is nothing in the game that tells you that you can do this, but the ancestors have a hidden fusion spell that is only accessible by using their Rank 8 skills in this order: Pressure Needle (from Junnosuke), Protection Dance (from Maihime), and then Mighty Swing (from Tatsunoshin).
: I don’t know how you’d think to do this on your own, unless you just happen to equip the ancestors and use all their rank 8 skills until it triggers by chance - but you still wouldn’t know to use it because it doesn’t do anything except against Gozen.
: The description really should be “Instantly kills Kiyotada Sumaru”. There’s no real animation for it, but I think we all know it’d be Junnosuke and Tatsunoshin charging a spirit bomb made of pure boyfriend power and then Maihime tossing a can of crabmeat at Gozen for an instakill before they can actually launch it.
: Tenchu-Satsu kills Gozen in a single hit by doing exactly his max HP (8,000) in damage. This is your reward for all that bullshit grinding: you get to skip a boss. I don’t know why this wasn’t implemented into Sumaru Castle by default.
: I’m going to keep going for just a bit, because this is the final dungeon and there’s some plot coming up.
: We’ve entered THE CUBE DIMENSION.
: Another thing I would have had Salty Vanilla do if he had the time is a shot of an alternate ending if you Tenchu-Satsu Gozen to death where they wind up in the Boyfriend Zone and everyone but Tatsuya has to leave.
: Yep, they’re not dicking around with who this is anymore.
: Now, if you remember Innocent Sin, you’ll remember the Shadows of the party. Guess what these portraits are.
: This is a Buddhist thing… sort of. The canonical three poisons are greed (lust), hatred (anger), and delusion (ignorance). Vengeance would probably fall under hatred.
: Shadow Baofu is absolutely loving this shit.
: At least he didn’t say “You’re not me”, though technically… I mean, given that it’s Nyarlathotep in disguise…
: Though, you know… if this is true, does that mean that every time in Persona 4 where someone looked at their Shadow and went “No, you’re not me!” they were actually correct because it’s Nyarlathotep?
: Nyarlathotep has just signed his death warrant.
: What would stop them at that point from just making a third world?
: And now we get to through what is basically all of the Zodiac temples from Innocent Sin crammed into a single dungeon.
: Tatsuya should totally be like “Oh no, not my boyfriend remembering who I am! That’d be the worst possible thing that could happen!”
: Next time, we’ll do the final dungeon and save Jun.
Summary
: This week’s update is gonna be a bit short because I was kinda busy this weekend and by the time I felt like recording, I realized that I didn’t actually feel like recording.
: Before we go into Monad Mandala, there’s a bit of optional dialogue. Monad Mandala is effectively a plot dump wherein Satomi Tadashi tries to cram in character development for Katsuya and Ulala.
: That’s one of my big problems with this game - half the party is basically an non-entity. Up until this point, I think the most I could say about Ulala is that she’s just kinda there. Same with Katsuya.
: “Tatsuya… you fought with that monster all this time… no… that ridiculing… that arrogance… that is undoubtedly… human itself.”
: “Damn… I’m… turning pale…? Calm down… you’re Kaoru Saga… there’s nothing you can’t do… calm down…”
: “Ma-ya… did you feel that…? That giant energy… it was so deep… mixed with a bunch of dark emotions… can we… defeat that?”
: And now we’re in the first of uh… six parts of this shit. You probably don’t want to use the Golden Honey here if only because the encounters here aren’t nearly as annoying as Sumaru Castle. Unlike Sumaru Castle, none of the enemies here (at least, in this early part) has an instakill. In fact, there’s one spot where you can sorta, kinda perform the Greatest Weapon in the Phantom Thieves Arsenal a full three games before Persona 5.
: The most annoying enemy here by far is Saji, the robed guy in the back. He’s annoying because he reflects magic and always comes in a group. Even with 75% resistance, a reflected God Hand can and will oneshot Maya.
: Cherub (in the back) is how you can kinda perform the Greatest Weapon - they have Recarmdra, which kills them to revive everyone else on their side of the field. Given that our current setup nulls or reflects all but one of their attacks, we can abuse the hell out of this for EXP.
: There’s supposed to be a thing with Valkyrie here where if you have a Rank 8 Odin, you can get a Persona Chat where Valkyrie gives you a Legenbright. Unlike the one with Byakhee, it isn’t guaranteed. Worse, it only appears if the person with Odin is at very low HP.
: This dungeon’s gimmick is that there are doors that work like teleporters. This one is a one-way teleport from near the end of World of Reason back to the start, because fuck you, that’s why.
: Speaking of which, if you are planning to do a New Game + for the EX Dungeon, you will want to map out Monad Mandala. There is a mapping quest for it that we can’t get quite yet, but it gets you three Fool cards that you can use as a much easier route for getting Junnosuke.
: The problem is that on a New Game +, especially one where you’re shooting for the EX Dungeon, you’re probably going to be so overleveled that you can just shit on Gozen without the instakill.
: At the end of World of Reason, there’s a cutscene room.
: Can you imagine how much better this game would’ve been if Katsuya was a pastry chef? I mean, just fucking imagine that he goes to Sevens for career day or something and that’s why he runs into Maya, and then he pulls out his gun against Sudou. Ulala asks why he has one and he’s like “The world of dessert is a very dark one, indeed.”
: I’m pretty sure they mean “the police academy”, because Japan has those just like the US does, and not “law school”. At least, not unless he wanted to be a prosecutor.
: What’s funny about this line in conjunction with the last one is that the police - at least in the US - have actively discriminated against people who they deem “too intelligent”.
: “Nonsense! I don’t regret anything!”
: “That’s… not… true…”
: “What’s wrong, Suou!? Stay sharp…!”
: I think I mentioned this earlier, but one of the people who worked on this game - I think it was Kazuma Kaneko - confirmed in one of the World Guides for this game that Maya has no romantic interest whatsoever in either of the Suou brothers.
: Fulfill your desires. Become a gun-toting pastry chef with an actual personality. It’s not like Tatsuya even needs protection given that he’s a full ten levels above the rest of the party and can light shit on fire with his mind.
: I’m sure that’s gonna go real well, since Tatsuya has like 900 HP right now and your gun is going to do maybe 200 or 300 damage before Tatsuya incinerates you.
: “W… wait… Suou!? Get ahold of yourself!! Ma-ya, stop him!!”
: Picking the first option makes the fight against Shadow Katsuya harder.
: I didn’t get a good shot of it, but Katsuya turns around and shoots his Shadow. Guns have presumably not evolved enough in the year 2000 to instantly kill Shadows like they can in 2016.
: Shadow Katsuya teleports out. My best guess is they did this because they expected you fought Gozen the hard way, and didn’t want to possibly have an unwinnable situation if you somehow ran out of items while fighting him.
: “Katsuya… I’m…”
: “I caused everyone trouble… it’s okay now.”
: More optional dialogue.
: “That brocon couldn’t kill his own little brother… dammit… just watching him embarrasses me.”
: “Katsuya… can protect Big Sis Maya… now… I can rest easily…”
: Just outside the cutscene room is a pillar that opens a door to the rest area, which functions as both a shortcut within Monad Mandala and the only way back to Sumaru City.
: We’re going to do this because there’s a cutscene the first time you do it, but also to get the map quest. Area 7 of the Bomb Shelter has also opened up, and it has a new rare demon in it.
: The map of Sumaru City is uh… a bit different. There are rumors you can spread to get the Narumi-exclusive businesses (Clair de Lune and Padparacha) to move, but… meh.
: Area 7 is a large maze full of hidden passageways and damage floors. It sucks.
: I spent about 40 minutes in here waiting for the demon to show up. Why, I don’t know - given that we’d need to get Tatsuya three more levels from somewhere to fuse it.
: Virochana is effectively an upgraded Apollo - like Apollo, he’s a primarily Fire-based Persona with a Nuclear coverage skill, but he also has Myriad Arrows and Light damage.
New Persona: Virochana
Origin: Hinduism
First Appearance: Shin Megami Tensei I (PC Engine Only)
King of the Asuras in Hindu myth.
: Virochana is also the source of an Akashic Ring, but he’s honestly a good enough Persona by himself that there’s no reason to return him. It just sucks that he’s level 73. Anyway, here’s something that pissed me off.
: For some reason, the game does not properly give you credit for mapping out the World of Reason if you do it before picking up the sidequest from Salam.
: I move on to the World of Instinct, which is just more of the same shit. There’s a Soma in there, and while I was there I figured I’d try and get that Persona Chat.
: To do that, I use a shit fusion spell called Death’s Roulette, which instantly kills whoever has the lowest Luck stat. Turns out that’s actually Tatsuya, but eventually it kills Baofu. We want to leave him at 1 HP, which makes the chances of a Persona Chat happening go way up.
: And now, let’s move on to the next cutscene room.
: “Hey, Ma-ya, you listening!?”
: “That Deja Vu Boy again? You’re so lucky… compared to me… why do I have such bad luck with men!?”
: “It’s always been like that! You were always getting attention! Why do I have to be the ugly skank!? I’m 10 times prettier than you… I’m also athletic, fashionable, and a great homemaker. I’m even a good dancer to boot!”
: This is basically every Olivia Jaimes-era Nancy comic after about the first year.
: It’s funny, because I couldn’t even remember what Ulala’s job was or even if the game ever told us. That’s how much of a non-presence Ulala is.
: We actually did learn that back in Innocent Sin - she works for a company that makes lingerie. It’s only ever brought up once in her introduction, and then again in her introduction in this game.
: “Uh… hello!? I’ve been ripping into you for the past five minutes and all you can do is sleep…?”
: “Sometimes, I wonder why I even bother… well, you do work late every day… let’s go home, Ma-ya. Here, grab your purse.”
: Here’s what I’d like to ask you. What did we learn in this cutscene that we didn’t already know? We already knew Ulala envies Maya (for some weird reason) when we fought her at Gold.
: Hold on a second… I think I’ve heard this before, but I can’t quite remember where. Let me think… we’ve got a tomboy-ish character who is secretly envious of her more feminine friend…
: Oh, right. Admittedly, this is one of the few things the Persona 4 writers (not including Hashino, who did not have a writer credit) did better than Satomi Tadashi - Chie has the characterization that Ulala never really gets.
: That’s not to say there isn’t a myriad of reasons why Persona 4’s writing is bad. It absolutely is.
: “Ugh… you don’t have to rub it in…”
: We want this first option here, as the second one raises Shadow Ulala’s stats when we fight her. The difference isn’t huge: both her and Shadow Katsuya gain 10 levels, between 5 and 8 points in every stat, and around a thousand HP if you answer incorrectly.
: We’ve got some optional dialogue in this room, and then I’m gonna call it for now, the reason being that I kinda fucked up a bit and gave the Count the Megidolaon card I had.
: It costs just under a million yen without the discount, and around 800,000 with it. I want this for Rangda, because we have a couple of bosses coming up who are primarily physical. I was pretty close by the time I finished recording.
: Oh, that’s easy. It’s because unlike Innocent Sin, we’ll be fighting the Shadows two at a time.
: Next time, we’ll fight the Shadows and also probably finish the game.
…honestly a lot of these older SMT games’ stories aren’t exactly high quality, despite what the character profiles and story summaries imply on various websites. If remakes for the older Persona games do happen, besides the hopes of transferring over to 3D models and fixing the various problems on the gameplay side of things, I hope that the stories themselves undergo extensive rewrites, or at least some corrections here and there for better flow and enjoyment.
Summary
: Man, this has been one hell of a week. I’ve been out of it for like four days due to a bad cold. The last time that happened, I was doing Thanatos Tower in Persona 1.
: I take a break and make the Legendary Coin for Baofu. This might seem like an illogical decision given that Ulala and Katsuya both have strength scores approaching the mid-80s, but if I ever decide to grind out the demon rumors for it, the +20 to magic attack makes more sense on Baofu, as he is nearing 80 dexterity.
: This was, however, an illogical decision because it cost me 100,000 yen I could’ve been using to get that Megidolaon card back.
: I fuse Rangda and toss Megidolaon on her after some grinding.
: Even with an All Card instead of a Dex card, Rangda will hit nearly max dexterity just from ranking up. She has “best” compatibility with Maya, so I shuffle the Personas around a bit.
: Baofu gets Nodens, who at this point has undergone several stat-up mutations. Odin goes to Katsuya, which allows me to use God Hand with Baofu in the second slot.
: The World of Judgment is largely uneventful - there’s no new random encounters and it’s more or less a straight path to the boss.
: This fight is piss easy. Shadow Ulala has a full-party charm spell, but instead opts to go for her damage spells… which do exactly fuck all.
: Our first round is spent buffing, after which I have Baofu and Maya cast God Hand. This wipes a full third of both shadows’ HP in one go.
: Shadow Katsuya is mostly Gun attacks, and that kinda sucks given that Katsuya is currently weak to Gun and his Shadow seems to prefer attacking him, but it doesn’t really matter.
: One thing I forgot is that Eternal Punishment is from an era where Megidolaon meant something - as opposed to Persona 5 where it’s just another high-level spell. Maya hits both Shadows for 800 damage by herself.
: Within three turns, both Shadows are down.
: Conveniently, this also gets Tatsuya the last level he needed to be able to fuse Virochana, which will be helpful against the next set of Shadows.
: “He’s not awake. For the time being, we’re safe…”
: “But, are you sure about this, Tatsuya? Leaving him without any memories of you… he’s your friend, right?”
: “It’s… okay…”
: I hope that someday, they remake the Persona 2 duology and let you carry the Innocent Sin party to the end. And now, some optional dialogue.
: “Amano… our little group here’s a bunch of barbarians… you better be prepared.”
: “I’ve… never been so angry for someone in all my life… what did Tatsuya do to deserve this…?”
: I cracked up at the thought of Katsuya doing the whole Naruto “Forgive me… I have to go all out… just this once” thing.
: “I don’t care how much I’m despised… but I cannot sit here and watch everyone suffer…”
: “I WILL protect… ‘This Side’ and… everyone’s memories…”
: The crystal that unlocks the Rest Area for World of Judgment is just after the boss fight. We should use that, because there’s something I forgot to do.
New Persona: Fereydun
Origin: Persia
First Appearance: Devil Summoner
Mythical king of Persia, probably based on Cyrus the Great. Mostly known for killing a dragon named Azi Dahak, or Zahhak.
: Fereydun is used to unlock some bullshit that as it turns out is entirely optional, but I didn’t realize that at time of recording.
: We enter the World of Knowledge. It is very big and very empty. There is a cutscene room at the end.
: “Miki…!?”
: It’s hard to capture, but the demon is slamming Miki against the tree while choking her.
: This is a scene that is not explained very well, and I don’t think ever gets explained anywhere, outside of maybe in one of the world guides or something.
: You remember how when we met Yung Pao the first time, he said Baofu had killed something like a dozen guys in Taiwan? That happened when Baofu’s Persona awakened.
: Supposedly, the story is that right after he sees Miki die, Baofu’s Persona awakens and he kills everyone in the area except for Yung Pao, who escapes.
: The reason his Persona is here is because he blames his Persona for not awakening in time to save Miki.
: We want to pick the first option here, because the second one powers up Shadow Baofu - not that he’s going to be much of an issue either way.
: It helps that Yung Pao and Tatsuzou are both dead.
: “I’m sorry, Miki… that time I was just a hot-shot… I wasn’t able to do anything… I shouldn’t have gotten you involved… it was my fault that you died that day.”
: “It wasn’t the Persona, it wasn’t the law… it was me. It was my fault. I was so damn selfish…”
: “How pathetic… everything’s out in the open… now you see… I was planning to use you guys from the beginning! Somewhere inside, I knew… that I couldn’t do anything by myself…”
: “Heh… I wanted revenge so bad… but I couldn’t do it by myself… I didn’t even give you my real name…”
: “I was thinking… and now it’s clear… Kaoru Saga died on duty 5 years ago. The man in front of me is a completely different person than the one we saw.”
: So what you’re saying is that he… Killed The Past? That he Killed The Life? Man, I really need to get back to The Silver Case. I miss good writing.
: “…Didn’t you forget ‘twisted person’?”
: “Ch… don’t put me in the same shot glass as those sentimental wussies… and you know what, Suou? You’re not cut out to be a police officer. Investigations are supposed to be…”
: From here, we go to the World of Emotion, which is also big and empty with a cutscene room at the end.
: There’s two questions here, and we want to answer both with the second option.
: Let me explain what happens if you pick the first options. If you pick it the first time, Maya’s Shadow gets stronger. If you pick the second one, Tatsuya starts the fight dead.
: We’ve got one last thing of optional dialogue before the bullshit part.
: “That’s definitely a human… the way he looks down on others, that’s something only humans can do… heh… all right… I’ll tango with ya. As another human…”
: “Going through all this, and you’re not supposed to get upset!? I ain’t no nun or priest! I can’t stand it!!”
: “Amano, stay strong… He is trying to coax the shadows of our hearts to gain power… I finally understand.”
: Katsuya sounding dangerously close to Kingdom Hearts there. Anyway, now it’s time for bullshit.
: This is the World of Conviction, which has… the only real gimmick of this entire dungeon in that there are invisible walls we have to turn off using crystals.
: Right after the first wall you can turn off is this door. This door is where the bullshit happens. We need Fereydun equipped before walking in here, preferably on someone who isn’t Tatsuya or Maya. Why, you ask?
: If you come into this fight without Fereydun equipped, Ahzi Dahaka is invincible. You can run away from the fight if you come in without him - unless you’re on Hard mode, in which case the game becomes unwinnable due to Hard mode locking you out of being able to run away.
: Instead, Katsuya is Berserk for the duration of the fight. You can’t cure it, but fortunately the fight doesn’t last more than a God Hand without Dahaka dying.
: Now, you might ask, “How the fuck are you supposed to know about this?” and the answer is you’re meant to farm demon rumors until one tells you about Fereydun.
: This gets you what’s meant to be the last Legenbright in the game. Too bad we have no more Akashic Rings and the only way of getting them is a 1% drop off a rare enemy.
: I thought this fight was going to be difficult, but it’s actually just boring.
: Virochana turns out to be a complete waste for this fight. Baofu’s physical attack does more damage than Myriad Arrows does.
: This fight boils down to having everyone pile on Shadow Maya until she’s dead, and then going back to buffs and God Hand.
: “Did you know, Tatsuya…? There are two types of men in this world… a ‘normal’ man and… a ‘real’ man. A ‘real’ man knows how to ease sadness… you’re undoubtedly the latter…”
: “… Philemon, please…”
: There’s some optional dialogue, but this is the last room in the game. We’re going to be skipping a lot of the final part of the game - the reason is that they show you the entire post-Maya’s death ending sequence from Innocent Sin with only one change.
: “You should be proud… the person that’s protecting you is the world’s finest… undoubtedly, the real thing…”
: The game itself even kind of admits that Jun is the only valid romance choice for Tatsuya - this happens even if you did not carry your save over from Innocent Sin. In fact, I can’t think of a single thing that changed plot-wise based on the choices in the IS save.
: At this point, there is an extended flashback to Innocent Sin’s ending, which I’m 99% sure runs entirely in-engine because they left in the “Punch Philemon / Don’t Punch Philemon” choice.
: Gotta keep it consistent.
: It plays all the way up to the final ending movie, except with one change at the end…
: You know it’s a quality plot when you don’t know what the point of the “Innocent Sin” title was until the end of another game.
: “(chuckle) How’s that, Tatsuya Suou!? Do you like your punishment? You couldn’t ask them to fight with you. That’s because the sole reason the world is at the brink of destruction… is YOU!”
: …How is this a reveal again? We’ve known this for like, ten hours at this point.
: “…”
: “You broke your promise with your friends! The condition to stay in this world was to give up your memories of the old world!! But you rejected it… at that moment, the boundary separating the two worlds vacillated… that was you!!”
: “Push all the pain upon your friends, and still retain your memory… that’s an unforgivable sin. A sin must have punishment. That’s why I gave you the chance to meet her again. I coaxed fate for you all to meet again.”
: This feels like that moment in Death Note where shit happens through an extremely contrived coincidence and then Light Yagami looks at the viewer and goes “Yep, just as planned.”
: “Ch…”
: “What’s wrong…? Are you going to hide in your shell again? That face of yours when you met that woman and regained your memories… you should have seen it…”
: “…”
: “Am I detestable? But that is what you humans desired. You craved destruction from the depths of your hearts… that is me! The shadow does not forgive anyone who goes against fate.”
: " Ahhh, shut up! You can take this fate of yours and stick it up your ass!"
: I feel like Satomi Tadashi did not learn a goddamn thing from Innocent Sin. Innocent Sin’s plot had the exact same problem - it was a bunch of setpieces glued together in a way that didn’t really make sense.
: This first fight is against the “Dark Hunter”, which is piss easy because we picked the correct dialog options for the Shadow fights. It gets progressively harder if you get questions wrong.
: In its weakest form, it is weak to Water and Wind and nulls only Dark. If you answer one of the shadow questions wrong, it becomes weak only to Water, nulls Wind, and gains more HP.
: If you answer both wrong, it nulls Water and Almighty, and gains even more HP. The only real way to hurt it at that point is to use Hieroglyphein.
: We got the easy version, so you can just fill in the fight with me spamming God Hand and Megidolaon.
: Once the “Dark Hunter” goes down, Nyarlathotep transforms into a dumbass octopus thing. This part of the fight sucks because there really is no good answer to it - except for Rangda.
: Shadow Kill is a physical attack that hits for a shitload of damage, and is enough to kill Baofu and Katsuya outright. If we had access to Rakukaja, we could probably survive that - except we don’t because Eternal Punishment really, really sucks at balancing out the Persona movesets.
: He also has Chaos Element and Crawling Chaos, both attacks we’ve seen before. Crawling Chaos causes Mute, which is just fucking great given that all the Personas that have a counter to it are useless.
: The trick is that outside of one spell, that being Wheel of Time (which, as a reminder, gets stronger every time he casts it and does Almighty damage), Nyarlathotep is incapable of damaging Maya due to Rangda’s very specific combination of resistances.
: The fight got to the point where Wheel of Time could oneshot Maya, and uh, yeah. Nyarlathotep has 18,000 HP - for reference, that’s something like 4.5 Kandoris or just over 2 Gozens.
: I only just barely manage to kill him, but I get the job done. By the end, I was getting real fucking tired of his shit.
: Nyarla-Tatsuya looks like a vampire, and… actually, Tatsuya being a vampire would explain a lot about why Lisa wants him so badly despite him being gay.
: I didn’t think about it, but this scene is Tatsuya talking to Tatsuya about Tatsuya. I mean, given that Philemon and Nyarlathotep are Tatsuya at this point.
: “They represent the potential of mankind. You, the dark side of the collective unconsciousness, are linked to all humans. THAT is why… they… moved the hearts of the people…”
: I feel like this was supposed to be the ending to an entirely different game. None of this makes any goddamn sense.
: “All potential is born from chaos… I see… that’s right…”
: Remember, there is a boyfriend inside all of us. As long as you exist, so shall he.
: “You’re too damn stubborn… there’s no such thing as a human without shadows… we’ll make you remember that your place is here… just go to Hell and be done with it.”
: Maya shoots Tatsuyahotep and Tatsuya finishes him off. Now, here’s my question: why the fuck couldn’t they have done this in Innocent Sin?
: “No… there’s still one more thing… The fact remains that I’m the Paradox… if I stay here… then ‘This Side’ will be engulfed by the ‘Other Side’…”
: With Jun, right? That makes sense. I mean, he’s your boyfriend, and who else is gonna take him home from, uh… space, I guess?
: “We are connected by this ocean… we can… meet again…”
: “Bro… Ulala… Baofu… take care of Maya… and everyone…”
: I think this is one of the very few dialog lines that does change if you loaded an Innocent Sin save and chose Jun.
: “There are good things even when you become an adult… just a few…”
: FUCK THIS! I went through fucking fifty hours of this bullshit to get what’s basically a pointless downer ending! I knew this was coming, and I was expecting… I dunno, for it to least be emotional? But this shit? This is JV-level writing at best.
: Oh wait, fuck, I DID fucking pay for this game! Fuck! You know what, let’s just go to the ending I had Salty Vanilla make for this game. I’m done with this bullshit. There’s an epilogue that I’ll do in another update where the Persona 1 cast gets more of an ending than the Innocent Sin cast did.
: This is actually the second half of the final comic Salty did for the Persona 5 Royal LP. There was supposed to be one more page, but Salty was busy and I didn’t think of it until too late.
Massively disappointed that Shadow Katsuya and Shadow Baofu don’t dramatically switch their sunglasses out in-game.
Summary
: I’d like to use this update to talk a little bit about my final thoughts about Eternal Punishment, and really it boils down to this: even for the awkward console generation changeover period that was 2000, Eternal Punishment is not a good game. It’s a game that feels like no one on the development team, Satomi Tadashi included, gave a single fuck about during development.
: Innocent Sin had parts that dragged really hard. Eternal Punishment is an ENTIRE GAME that does nothing but drag. Even with games like YIIK and Persona 5, I never really got to the point where recording felt like torture - but with this game, I reached that point probably a few hours in. My PSP is an arm’s length from where I sit, and even the act of turning it on felt like a goddamn endeavor.
: I got to a point where I was like “I could turn the PSP on, but the Switch is so much closer and I’ve got shit I actually want to play on that.” In fact, I’m strongly considering LPing the Xenoblade remaster - once I’ve finished The Silver Case and The 25th Ward… and Flower Sun and Rain if it gets translated.
: I think Atlus’s biggest mistake with this game was making it a sequel at all. It’s very clearly a remake meant for Western audiences in a pathetic attempt to recoup the money they blew on Innocent Sin and did not get a return on. Before the PSP version got translated, I had always assumed that Atlus didn’t bother re-releasing it for budget reasons. Now I know the real answer, both as to why this game didn’t sell originally and why the remake didn’t sell either.
: Imagine you’re a Japanese Persona fan in 2000. You’ve played Persona 1, you’ve played Innocent Sin, and up until this point you are the only audience Atlus gives a single fuck about. You buy this game, and then realize very quickly that this is Atlus looking you in the eyes and telling you to fuck yourself. Word spreads quickly that Eternal Punishment is the laziest bullshit ever, and it doesn’t sell.
: Atlus then releases Innocent Sin in the West to an audience who has probably never played Eternal Punishment, thus unintentionally creating the exact same environment that existed in Japan thirteen years earlier. They also know it’s going to be overwhelmingly obvious to those same people that Eternal Punishment is a game made to pander to the West, and that people fucking HATE that shit. So yeah, no, you’re not going to spend money on a translation - you’re going to bury that shit as hard as possible and hope no one notices.
: Let me just add that it is a fucking MIRACLE that Atlus still exists, or that they managed to make another game after this one. They did not deserve to, though I think whatever suit greenlit Eternal Punishment probably deserves to be fired, assuming he wasn’t already.
: Wait, what? Jun was barely even in this game!
: Wait, what? Elly gets to be a model? Why does Elly get a better ending than fucking Tatsuya does!? I mean, she deserves it given that she’s the best girl, but still.
: There’s a sound of a door opening.
: Let me tell you what I hate about this. The Persona 1 cast gets more of a goddamn ending than either the Innocent Sin or Eternal Punishment casts, in a game that isn’t even about them! I mean, I get it. Persona 1 was a really good game in spite of the whole first-person thing and generally not aging well, and Satomi Tadashi has a crush on the idols he made into Maki, Elly, and Yukino, but fuck! It’s not hard to see why his ass was out after this game.
: That’s another thing I think sucks about this game. Eternal Punishment is giving you the finger whether you’re a returning fan or not. If you’ve played Innocent Sin, the entire plot is completely transparent from the get-go and there’s really nothing here at all for you. If you’ve never played it, scenes like this are completely opaque to the point where if you’re in the year 2000, you probably have zero idea what the fuck the last dungeon was about outside of someone (who likely doesn’t speak Japanese and only played Innocent Sin on a stone-age PS1 emulator) telling you about it in a Gamefaqs forum post.
: You know, like this actual Gamefaqs forum post I found. Granted, this one’s from 2008. Gotta love that fucking burn at the end coming from absolutely nowhere.
: Oh, or this poor soul who doesn’t even know what Innocent Sin was.
: The fake Tatsuya lights Katsuya’s cigarette, which… apparently, Katsuya was a smoker this entire time and the game just never showed it.
: “…That’s rare. I think it’s gonna start raining.”
: “…My hand moved on its own.”
: “…”
: “…”
: Of course the fake Tatsuya wants to be a fucking cop. Fuck you, Satomi Tadashi! Just ignore this, canonically as soon as Tatsuya hears the words “become a detective”, the real Tatsuya immediately ejects that dipshit from his corporeal shell, sending the fake Tatsuya to the hell dimension in his place while he goes to marry Jun.
: “…”
: “…Won’t Pops… get upset?”
: “Alright, I’ll teach you the ways of a detective…”
: “You started up smoking again…”
: Maya very clearly remembers Innocent Sin, because it’s apparently fine if she does, so long as Tatsuya doesn’t? Fuck that shit.
: And with that, we’ve finished this shitfest of a game. It sucked. I’m not even sure a remake could save this game. I’m not going to bother finishing Tatsuya’s Scenario anytime soon, but I’m going to mark the LP as complete anyway. Let me tell you exactly why that is, by the way.
: The rest of Tatsuya’s Scenario Part 3 is more generic dungeon crawl through Monad Mandala, and then you fight the Persona 1 black rubbery version of Nyarlathotep. It is a carbon copy of the final boss of the main game… except you have to fight it without Tatsuya and it fucking sucks. You could not pay me enough to make me grind that shit out
: I’m going to finish The Silver Case, and then I’m doing The 25th Ward. No more JRPGs for a while.