Summary
: “The fuck’re you talking about?! You whiny bitch! How about you try working your delicate little ass off day after day, huh?!”
: “Those are your duties, aren’t they?”
: The first line on Kusabi’s resume is “Worked ass off day after day”.
: “The data you pick up isn’t worth dick! This forensic investigation bullshit is old news!”
: “Go ahead and investigate however you want if you want to just waste time! Please just stop complaining.”
: “Complaining? Who the fuck is complaining? It’s criticism. You’re doing your goddamn job wrong!”
: “Up to now, we’ve collected 26 pieces of useful data. How about that? If you want accurate data, we’ll need 10,000 samples. Do you understand?”
: “Do you? Do you want to do this for us? Data on 10,000 abandoned buildings and empty rooms! Are you going to find it for us? If so, then I’ll handle the stakeout for you. Well?”
: “That’s enough, Hachisuka…”
: This single image could probably take the place of the entire Persona 5 Royal LP. Probably YIIK as well.
: “Yeah yeah, I got it. You want us to handle the stakeout, right? Fine, we’ll do it.”
: “Let’s go set up the stakeout.”
: “Tetsu, a moment…”
: “I got this from Munakata.”
: “Munakata? That’s rare…”
: “It’s Kamui’s hideout.”
: “For reals?”
: “My info is certain, yeah.”
: “And it’s a love letter… creepy.”
: “It was passed on.”
: Kusabi is so dense that I bet if the guy’s bullet had hit him in Lunatics, it would’ve just bounced off.
: “Sorry.”
: “Be careful. I’ll take up the rear. Let’s meet up later…”
: “Got it. Sumio!”
: “…”
: “Come on!”
: “Where did it come from? That info…”
: “Doesn’t fuckin’ matter. Come on, let’s move!”
: “It’s a stakeout. This is no time to mess around. Tetsu…”
: “Whatever. We sit here wasting time and he’s gonna get away!”
: “But…”
: “Just hurry up!”
: Yes, what about me?
: There’s two things we can do here before the plot progresses. The first is behind us.
: There’s a star marking a contact point on the bookshelf, but that’s not where it actually is.
: The actual contact point is the computer to the right, which you have to turn the camera to see.
: Hm. There’s only so many people who could’ve sent this… assuming this isn’t a ghost - that happens more often in Suda’s work (especially in the Kill the Past games) than you’d think.
: The total list would be Kusabi, Sumio, and possibly Natsume - unless this is the ghost of Sakamoto or Inomata, or any of those people Kusabi killed in Lunatics.
: I would not be surprised if Suda’s canon explanation turns out to be that Badman sent this at some point during Travis Strikes Again.
: There’s another contact point below the TV, but when we get close…
: Is this gonna be one of those things where we’re “infected” with Kamui’s crime ghost or whatever?
: Once we see the crime ghost, the phone starts ringing. You can let it ring like 20 times to get an achievement in the remake.
: If you’re achievement and/or trophy hunting, this game only has a handful of optional achievements and three of them are in Decoyman.
: One is for following the arrows during the scene where Kamui kills Sakamoto and Inomata without going the wrong way, and we’ll see the third in a little bit.
: “We’ve got an emergency, get your ass to Babylon right away. That’s Babylon, got it?”
: I’m picturing that chinchilla Salty Vanilla drew going online and trying to figure out whether he’s buying plane tickets to Iraq or Iran.
: “Kamui’s made a move. Just get there now. Babylon Shopping Center. Hurry!”
: One thing that’s kind of hard to show in stills - there are visual glitches on Kusabi’s portrait meant to show that he’s on the phone and breaking up a little.
: “Listen, we have no time… move in ahead of me. Just don’t do anything stupid. Got it? I’m counting on you, Big Dick!”
: There’s a lot of dialog here, and I think it’s possible to miss some of it if you know exactly where you’re going. I had to do this area twice because I accidentally auto-solved the puzzle.
: “Babylon is currently closed for business. If the security system is working, then the shutter for the escalator to the second floor should be closed, but most security systems have panels for unlocking. Look for that.”
: “Work it out by the time I get there. Got it?”
: The camera angles in Babylon are… not the best. Most of the time, you’re looking at a wall because the escalator blocks off the center of the room - you have to go around the edges.
: “I’ll give you the details later. Take care of the broad, Big Dick. I’m counting on you.”
: “Kei Nanami, 23 years old. She was an underclassman of Kamui’s back when he was in art school. No idea how the fuck he did it, but he apparently lured her out of work.”
: You might be wondering how she could be an underclassman at the age of 23 when the Silver Case happened 20 years before this.
: Basically, this “Kamui Uehara” is a different person than the one Kusabi arrested 20 years ago, but they refer to him as Kamui because he’s using the same MO… at least, I think.
: “Sumio is getting info on what she looks like. Talk later.”
: That big green board on the back wall is where we’re trying to reach.
: “Tetsu’s contacting her place of employment now. I’ll contact you again.”
: “Kei Nanami was supposed to go out to meet some guys with some female coworkers tonight. Apparently these guys work for a really elite company, so she got all dolled up.”
: “That’s about it… for now, keep an eye out for a flashy-looking broad and you should find her.”
: Once we get to the board, we can Contact it to access the security system. It’s kind of hard to see, but the sign has “Kill The Past” written on it.
: “Currently, that security is being hacked by Unit 1. But according to Hachisuka, it’s apparently gonna be impossible to hack it completely.”
: “The conditions I’m about to lay out are pretty much the limit. The numbers are a 4-digit combination. The security code changes every time. Input the correct code in 20 tries or less.”
: “A red lamp means a number is correct, but in the wrong location. When a location and number match, one green lamp will flash. When all four of the green lamps flash, it’ll unlock.”
: “Quit wasting time with your fucking yapping. This’ll take me a bit longer. To summarize, just get all four green lamps on. Now get to it.”
: This puzzle is usually called “Bulls and Cows” but is referred to by the game as “Hits and Blows”. There have been entire books written about it, as well as a wealth of academic papers.
: If you’ve read the Persona 1 LP, Code Breaker is a 9-digit version of this game. I’m told it was also used in this exact format in Virtue’s Last Reward.
: Anyway, the cheevo is for doing this in 5 or fewer guesses. How hard is that? Well, uh… let’s go through my winning attempt and I’ll talk about it as we go.
: In 1990, a mathematician and computer scientist by the name of Tetsuro Tanaka did a deep dive into Bulls and Cows, and wrote an algorithm that tried to solve every possible permutation of the game as efficiently as possible.
: What Tanaka found was that no combination took more than 7 guesses, and that the average length was around 5.2 guesses. This means you’ll need at least some luck to get it under 5.
: Fortunately, today’s computers are far more powerful than what Tetsuro Tanaka had in 1990, and a number of coders have made solvers for it. The solver I used is here.
: By the second guess, we have one hit and one blow.
: This solver gets it in three, which is actually pretty impressive. The other one I tried took seven attempts.
: “I found out how she’s dressed tonight. She’s wearing a red cocktail dress, black stockings, and a black coat. Finding and securing her are our number one priorities. Get on it.”
: We can go up the escalator now, to one of the more confusing bits of game design in this game.
: Even with the security bypassed, the shutter is still down. If you look, we have the ability to move in its direction.
: Doing so causes us to simply lift it up and walk underneath.
: “Another new hassle. Looks like there’s a civilian on the second floor. Secure them as soon as you find them. Don’t you accidentally fuckin’ shoot them.”
: I wandered around for a bit up here before I found what you’re supposed to do.
: One of the storefronts has a shutter that’s slightly open. You can duck under it using movement. I don’t know why they didn’t put contact points here and at the escalator to make it stick out.
: I have no idea if this is a reference to something or not.
: I think I captured this a moment too late, but he says “KAMUI” in all caps repeatedly. Anyway, meet Tokio Morishima. Tokio is the protagonist of the PLACEBO chapters.
: "Timrod, did you find the civilian? Come down to the first floor once they’re secured. Get on it.
: We now have to crawl back through the shutter and go back to the escalator.
: Unfortunately, if we try the shutter to the elevator, it’s locked again.
: “Timrod, find the emergency bell. If the building’s management system is working, the door should unlock. Now go find the emergency bell.”
: The fire alarm is on the other side from where we picked up Morishima. We can talk to him, but he doesn’t say anything.
: There’s a contact point on the wall, so let’s go check that out.
: What’s the deal with all these ghosts and Kamui anyway?
: And now Morishima’s doing it too. What the hell?
: Wait, what? We’re not Kamui, we’re an elite special forces chinchilla turned corrupt government hit-squad cop.
: “How’s it going? Search every nook and cranny. Don’t overlook even the slightest change!”
: Huh… what’s that shadow doing there? Is that supposed to be Morishima’s?
: Well, shi- wait a minute, this doesn’t match the description Sumio gave us. The person we were looking for was wearing a red cocktail dress.
: “So it’s all gone to hell…”
: “Sorry… it was my fault. I was stupid to have entrusted it to an amateur.”
: “Don’t worry about it, Timrod. It’s not your fault.”
: “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not blaming you.”
: “It’s okay, Tetsu. You’ll recover. Don’t worry about it…”
: “Boss…”
: “Sorry, old man. Go ahead and give it to me straight.”
: “Hm… well, you take a break. Go cool down a bit.”
: “Roger that!”
: I’m trying to imagine what Kusabi looks like on break, and I can’t imagine it.
: “Anything we can do about it, boss?”
: “Nothing. We have to consider Unit 1, too. You want Naka to freak out?”
: “Leave it, Sumio.”
: “…”
: “Sumio… you take care of this witness. Take them along on the investigation.”
: So wait, are we part of the investigation now, or what? Why the hell did Kusabi send a witness in alone against Kamui?
: “Tetsu… take Akemi outside once in a while. You don’t often get to rest. I’ve booked you into a nice inn. Go enjoy the hot springs.”
: I give him ten minutes before he starts threatening the hot springs with a gun.
: “Old man…”
: “This is all we can do… we don’t have enough samples.”
: “Point D2-08… what about this?”
: “A place with connections to Kamui. They’re concentrated in this area.”
: “What about here?”
: “Art Studio ‘Gladiolus’… Uehara used to work here. Apart from this place, there are several other places he used to work.”
: “On his own?”
: “No. He and a woman named Ayame Shimohara used to work together. She’s still working there. ‘Gladiolus’ is open from 10:00am to 5:00 pm…”
: “We can make it…”
: “You’re going?”
: “Yeah!”
: “You shouldn’t, you know.”
: “Why not?”
: “Why deepen her wounds further?”
: “What, you understand how she feels? That’s rare for you, Hachisuka. I didn’t think you had ‘feelings’.”
: Gee, Hachisuka, I assumed you were a cold, uncaring robot.
: “We’re close in age. It’d be risky to contact her carelessly, right?”
: “How’re we supposed to investigate, then? What, you don’t like how we do things in Unit 2?”
: “Each of our roles…”
: “We don’t have time for shit like that. Especially without Tetsu here. Right, Naka?”
: “Whatever you like…”
: “Apart from this ‘Gladiolus’, Kamui is apparently involved in several other groups as well. His name is attached to eleven different digital groups.”
: This is 1999, so ten of those are Geocities webrings and the eleventh is an ongoing AIM chat.
: “Hi, I’m xxDarKamui99xx and welcome to my webpage, likes: murder, blood, harpoon guns dislikes: secret government hit squads trying to capture me, chinchillas”
: “What are the probabilities?”
: “If we focus on the ‘Gladiolus’ art studio, chances of Kamui appearing are 001.289%.”
: I feel like this should’ve been one of those Jimmy Neutron “Actually, it’s salt” moments where Kusabi steps in and goes “You could just say 1.3% and this is why I hate you.”
: “Pretty dire.”
: “What do we do?”
: “Let’s go, Timrod.”
: “You sure…?”
: “I have a hunch.”
: “Excellent.”
: “I’d like to talk to you about Kamui Uehara…”
: “Detectives? So you just show up suddenly like that?”
: “Well, yeah. Detectives don’t make appointments for this stuff.”
: I like to think that the chinchilla is in the process of taking out a tiny calendar to make an appointment when he says this.
: “Huh…”
: “…”
: “…”
: “Um…”
: “Yes?”
: “Do you mind? Can we come in…?”
: “Oh, yeah…”
: We can’t do anything in here - the first-person parts are just there to give you the opportunity to save. Interestingly, I think the PS1 version used save points.
: “Of course.”
: This pretty much confirms that the Kamui we’re after isn’t the same guy who Kusabi arrested twenty years ago.
: “No…”
: “You two used to work together… aren’t you somewhat close?”
: “We were just partners… we did trust each other, but that’s it.”
: Sumio goes from zero to “Were you two fucking?” in sixty seconds.
: “Has there been contact?”
: “What sort of contact?”
: “From Kamui. Has there been contact?”
: “To me?”
: “Yes, you.”
: “Are you seriously asking?”
: “Why?”
: “Like, here, right?”
: “Yes.”
: This kind of reminds me of Sae in Persona 5, except Hashino didn’t understand that his writing made Sae look like a dipshit. Suda DEFINITELY understands that.
: “Contact from Kamui?”
: “Yes.”
: “Nope.”
: “I see. So how’s Kamui been?”
: “Huh? What do you mean?”
: “I meant exactly what I said.”
: “What are you trying to say?”
: “He came here, right? Kamui…”
: “No way.”
: “I know you’ve met with him. With Kamui…”
: “Why?”
: “A feeling.”
: “Well, I am a detective.”
: “And that’s all?”
: “I’ve got a good nose… I have a sharp sense of smell. It smells like a man’s been here.”
: Inside, Sumio’s thinking “Damn, why didn’t I bring a dog?”
: “Lots of people come and go. Of course it smells like that.”
: “Is that so? Well then…”
: I’m going to cut this here, because Decoyman is a lot longer than I thought it was. In the meantime…
: Salty Vanilla finished our look at the canon appearance of the protagonist. They also did another picture I’ll show in the next update.