Parallel Worlds: Let's Play Persona 2 and Persona 2!

Slap her. She's asking for it.

In anime, slapping fixes everything.

Going back to PANTS' fateful decision regarding Lisa, if he says that she can handle the situation on their own, the Muses will arrive on stage momentarily and perform "Joker." The song is lame and they do a dumb little dance while funny lights shine on the stage. I really thought I had a picture of this because I watched the damn scene like six times but I'm not seeing it right now. The song encourages everyone to call the Joker (despite the non-sequitur refrain "Dial J, Dial J"). And then there's Lisa's solo, which she just says in Japanese instead of English. You can read a translation here but most of it will be mostly explained soonish.

Afterwards, Maya notices that there are bombs hidden under all the benches in the amphitheater and motions to Lisa. She blurts out on her mic and everyone flees the auditorium in panic. Leo shows up and as we know from last time he's responsible for these shenanigans. Taurus is upset by the disruption but he says that his skull is almost full anyway because wannabe pop stars have so much energy. The rest of this conversation is as before, with Leo informing everyone that he's bombing various parts of the city and they'll have to find something in the auditorium before it blows up to find his next target.

The timer starts and we fight the Prince [again].

There are thirty minutes on the timer to defeat Taurus and make off with the Oracle. It's not very hard if you have some way to hurt him, and basically, this is the same battle as before but with twice as many people, because Eikichi is still completely worthless. Two healers and two attackers can wear him down fairly quickly. He does have more status effects this time, but Charm hardly ever lands and Blind is merely an annoyance.


After his defeat he finishes off the other two Muses and disappears. The oracle is in the same place, etc. so the next point of interest is outside, after PANTS slaps Maya and tells her to tough up a little. Maya reads the Oracle Leo left and refers to it as the "Oracle of Maiya." Just then, the other Maya shows up and goes nuts on everyone.


She wants to know how Maya knows about the Oracle, and refers to the "Last Battalion." The only people who should know about the Oracle, she says, are herself, and people named "Kashihara" and "Sudou." Then she singles out Lisa specifically as a spy for Hitler. Rather than trying to make sense of a madwoman's rantings, the party decides to figure out where to go next. Yuki tells everyone she knows who to ask about such occult matters as these, so she dials someone up on the phone and tells her to meet at W-Slash.


This is Eiriko Kirishima, but I'm probably going to refer to her as "Ellen" or "Elly" generally*. You can thank Persona 1's fine localization team for this mental association, which was carried through the EP translation (though they didn't blonde her again). I think carrying the reference was a better choice than fixing the translation, although on the other hand it might be better to not remind people of the generally obnoxious and racist-ist jerks from the first game.


After the introductions, Elly leads everyone over to a computer where she's prepared a complicated display of Sumaru's various astrologically influenced features laid over an overhead map.

Maya reads the Oracle from Aoba again: "The Ascension of the Twelve Beasts. / When the torrential winds of Revolution and Destruction blow, / all of humanity, with beaming smiles, start down the slope to Hades." Ellen explains that it's based on the western Zodiac, with the Pleiades-the "Seven Sisters"-in the center.


The second line, about winds, clearly refers to Aquarius (yes, good call PapillonReel, although once again this mostly shows how vapid Astrology is), which is in the west. So the target is in Hirasaka. Ellen isn't from around here (in fact, she's spent a lot of time abroad, which is supposed to be evidenced by her random English words) so she doesn't have anything more useful to add, but as everyone prepares to head that direction, she says she's going to do some more research.


There are two other buildings in Hirasaka that haven't come up yet. One of them is the Smile mall. The other is the Sakagami Building. One of these buildings is referenced in the poem and we're supposed to go there. The other is a red herring. Because of the line including "with beaming smiles" it's the Mall. In we go!

*Yeah, she's the one who has the white face and you know is true.

Before you can enter Smile you have to tell everyone that you're sure this is the right place. When you do the entire party instantly appears inside of a bathroom. Step one is to evacuate the building, and the most effective way to do that is to trigger the smoke alarms.


Maya asks to borrow PANTS' lighter and then pulls out a cigarette. Ginko is surprised by this but Maya explains the cigarettes belong to her roommate. Lisa hopes it's Maya's honey, but she disappoints by saying that she's practically married to her job, and her roommate is another woman.


After the alarm goes off, a cleaning lady enters the bathroom. How terribly inconvenient. At first she thinks Michelle is a girl, until she hears him talk. Then she freaks the hell out and starts railing on him. Fortunately she's so distracted yelling at him that we can all sneak out and look around the empty mall.

Well, it's not empty. We let demons in. Everybody splits up while PANTS stands outside the door absentmindedly, like a really dumb game of hide and seek. Now he has to round everyone up and return to save Eikichi, too.


First up is Yukino, who being the smartest person in the group found the best hiding space. She's in a secret storeroom in the basement that can only be reached by a staircase way in the back of the mall on 3F. It doesn't really matter what order people are retrieved obviously, but given the amount of these battles:

I have to say she's pretty handy. She can't heal, but the encounter rate in SMILE isn't very high anyway.


Lisa and Maya are near the main staircase, on 2F and 3F respectively. Nobody found anything. With the band reunited, it's time to save lead singer (also known as, do we have to?)


The cleaning lady's bucket has what we're looking for of course, both the Oracle and the detonator for the bombs in SMILE. Suddenly, there's a noise inside one of the stalls.


Belphegor has been waiting for this moment for a while I guess. Most of the other doors open up and there's a pretty decent group representing the Masquerade standing in front of us suddenly.


The little girl is Ixquic, the Reincarnated Mayan Warrior! (ok, so I forget how this was translated in EP, but it's like that) I will probably lose all my cred by indicating that she's my favorite NPC in Persona 2. Maya attempts to reason with her, but she's surprisingly nihilistic and offers to blow up Smile herself, killing everyone inside. (She also calls Maya an old lady, which is sure to please all your twenty-four-year-old female friends)


Maya slaps her and grabs her detonator. Now we've made her mad! Should we be afraid of fifth grade girls who fear nothing and wear ridiculous outfits?

Yes.

When the battle begins, both Maya and Ixquic will yell out that it is "whoop-ass time!" This further infuriates the little girl, who is sure she must have been the one to make that up, and the old lady is copying her.


I lost this battle a lot, I'm sorry guys. It's the main reason this took so long, actually. I hadn't upgraded anyone's armor the entire game, and everyone's magic sucks. Plus, they each can hit about as hard as Prince Taurus and we're only a couple levels higher. Ixquic summons the Persona (MOON) Reverse Pariker and likes to cast Maha Garula a lot. On the good side, this makes her weak to swords, so we can task PANTS to slicing her every time he gets a turn and she'll go down reasonably quickly.


Belphegor resists all physical attacks (but as previously mentioned, I didn't have any good magic to use on him, except Garu but Lisa was always busy), and he has a huge punch which pretty much kills anyone if they get hit again before being healed, as well as a strong Gravity attack that will hit everyone for high double digits. He also casts Poison Breath, which is a nuisance. Compared to his other moves, this happens to be a good thing, though. Even after Ixquic was down, he managed to finish off Maya and Eikichi, but Team Awesome (and then Lisa, healing) managed to pull it off.


Ixquic, as well as the Masquerade troops for no reason, are all passed out on the floor, but Maya insists it's not her fault and wants to let the little girl off the hook. Yuki gets a call from Ellen, and the next Oracle is talked out over the phone. The Water element referred to in this one must be tied to Scorpio, which is a little northeast of Rengedai. The next target is in Yumezaki. The final line refers to "the road to El Dorado." Hmmm.

There are two buildings in Yumezaki whose names refer to shiny metal ores: GOLD Gym and Pachinko Silver. Now which one of these would be closer related to El Dorado?

At GOLD we're stuck waiting in the lobby until Maya's roommate vouches for us. Then we can tell her to grab her ass and run!

Ulala Serizawa is Maya's roommate, who works at a lingerie company and has bad luck with men. I'd love to say more, but pretty much all of her characterization comes in EP where she has a leading role.

She doesn't believe Maya and PANTS that there are bombs here, until she splits one of the punching bags and another detonator falls out. Another mystery solved...but we kind of need that Oracle.

Gold as a dungeon is oddly insubstantial-the encounters are easy and it lacks both a boss and significant story developments. The whole thing feels like more of a lead-in to EP, and it's not the only thing that points toward the latter having been planned from the outset.

One of the rooms is booby-trapped to have a huge barbell fall on Maya when she enters. PANTS uses his spider-sense and pushes her out of the way just in time.


Eikichi is the poor sucker the next time, but he receives no such assistance and nonsensically catches the weight machine that's about to knock him out really hard. Then he comes crying to PANTS because he didn't save him.


The Oracle is in a third-floor staff room. After picking it up, a weird guy comes in, then suddenly runs off. Demanding to know more, since he could be a Masquerade member, the party gives chase, eventually cornering him again in the boxing gym.


The man tells everyone he has "orders from the Queen" and that they're all going to die. He gets ready to summon his Persona but then an enraged Ulala bursts into the room and starts chasing him with her Persona. He'd conned her out of her marriage savings, and she's obviously not happy. The party just kind of laughs it off, with Maya noting she didn't know Ulala had one.


After all this excitement, the party checks the Oracle. This time, there is no riddle, and no ambiguity. King Leo has summoned them to the Air Museum in Aoba, for a final confrontation.

Next time: I believe I can touch the sky! Also: the plot gets absolutely insane.

And oh yeah, don't expect to wait so long, as I'm an update ahead picture-wise, so I'll just have to make sure I clear Mt. Iwato tomorrow or Friday.

You should have gone to Pachinko Silver instead of GOLD.

Damn, really? I'm such a wuss when it comes to doing things wrong.

Maybe I have a save that wouldn't suck to fetch up though.

EIKICHI: Baby, please forgive me. Feast your eyes... consider this beauty... could it all be washed away with mere water?
CLEANING LADY: You're a boy, aren't you? Oh, disgusting! You're a pervert! A pervert!

Silly Michelle. At least he has some, um, great pick-up lines.

This could easily wait until the dungeon after this one, but the rumors have already been available for a while and I don't think a whole lot is going to change until after that one. Plus, we're still in Yumezaki. Now that there are five rumormongers, the default shop three becomes five, with the other two being "good selection, low buyback prices" and "bad selection, high buyback prices." Spreading the high buyback prices is probably worth it for one store, but you don't need as much money in IS anyway.

Lisa missed out on the shopping round before Aoba so she gets a new weapon. The other ones are only marginal upgrades so I'm being too cheap to buy them. I'm also buying accessories to increase everyone's attack (except Maya) more.

The armor at London is unisex, so I just buy five of everything. Equipping it roughly doubles everyone's armor, except Yukino since she's already a badass. With that taken care of, it's time to get going.

At the air museum there are a lot of kids in the lobby. Yuki rightfully freaks out, since they're here on an elementary school field trip. Suddenly, dramatic voices ring out from on high.


It's Zorro and Catgirl Zorro! Tadashi thinks he's on some kind of spying mission for Okamura to find out if the group is really working for Hitler, but Tamaki points out rightly that he's really kind of a dummy. Suddenly Leo calls out over the announcement system and a fire blocks the door out. Maya freaks out for a second but she gathers herself and starts making a plan: they're going to rescue all the kids and evacuate to the roof.

Another timer starts, and there are forty minutes to escape. The Air Museum is pretty straightforward, because even though there are a lot of dead ends, most of it is blocked off by walls of fire, which you don't have to get around. There are also no monsters until the fourth floor.

If you go into a room without any kids, the party will spend a good fifteen seconds looking anyway, even though it's pretty obvious considering how small and uncluttered the areas are.

One of the doors on the second floor doesn't lead into a standard display room, but an area overlooking the entrance. A familiar voice is screaming for help. Eikichi and Lisa, being total wusses, run off to find some rope, while PANTS is left with the dramatic decision of who should rescue Ixquic.


This decision and the next I'm usurping for my convenience, but there are still a few really good ones left. Besides, I know everyone would've chosen wisely here anyway, either because they're mean-spirited jerks or they just know what's best. Yes, PANTS' friends will be rewarded for facing their own problems, and he will be rewarded for his laziness and watching them do so.

Maya rides the rope down, picks up Ixquic, and PANTS pulls the rope up. Then he lets it back down and Maya grabs on. Then suddenly, an FMV comes up. This must mean something exciting will happen!


The rope breaks from the tension or the flames or something and Maya begins to fall into the blazing Hell below. She reaches for PANTS...but their arms can't quite reach, unless...

(If PANTS goes down himself, the exact same thing happens, but in reverse. Ixquic's dad doesn't even get pissed off at him.)

Then to make it more thrilling, the scene cuts all the way away.


In this scene, a shrine is burning, and a Girl In a Sailor Outfit is calling out for PANTS.


The young arsonist outside the shrine is laughing maniacally, when suddenly, he turns around and gets burned by the spirit that appears from the little boy on the ground's body.

It was Volcanus.

There are five rooms with kids to rescue, one on 2F and two each on 3F and 4F. In each one a different party member will tell the kids to escape, except in PANTS' room, he just says "......" but the little ones are all smart enough to know that means "get moving!"


Tadashi and Tamaki will block the staircase up on each floor until you've completed all of the objectives, telling you how many groups of kids you still have to save.


On 4F there's a kid trapped inside of an elevator. This isn't pretty. Yukino opens up the door and she and Pants pull him out. Then Leo announces that HERE BE DEMONS. The battles here are pretty easy since you don't have all day.


It only takes about ten minutes to rescue all the kids, and I don't even have this place memorized really. The amount of time is really, really generous.


On the roof, the pair are trying to fight off King Leo. Tadashi gets smacked down right away because he tried to get all close, but Tamaki is holding something that looks kind of like the GUMP.


The five heroes suddenly appear on the roof, and Ixquic runs over to Leo, crying and begging to know why he wanted to kill her. He grabs her and holds her hostage, as well as revealing his face.


This man is Tatsuya Sudou (which has an obvious resemblance to PANTS' real name, Tatsuya Suou). This is the last time we'll see him in Innocent Sin, and being one of the main antagonists, you can be sure as hell he has a lot to say. He blames Maya and PANTS for scarring him, ten years ago, but Maya doesn't remember. Then he blows up SMILE and GOLD in big FMVs, leaving two smoking craters on the map where the buildings used to be. (I don't think I've mentioned this before, but Persona 2 does NOT let you backtrack to old dungeons, even when they don't get bombed)


He's proud of his role in the "Destruction of Nahui-Olin" and the fulfillment of the Oracle of Maiya. The Oracle, he says, is the Joker's ultimate goal, to lead the people of Earth to "Idealian."


He then reveals that the Joker's face is "as beautiful as a goddess" and says that he's carrying a message: "Remember that summer, ten years ago."

The museum starts to shake and Yukino realizes that the kids have been spreading rumors that the blimp on the roof isn't a model, but it's real! Sudou says he's going to take his leave of them, but suddenly a huge crack opens in the ground and he falls inside.

Ixquic grabs the ledge though, which I have to say, makes NO sense, as it means she escaped his hold, and managed to turn around and move about three feet toward the ledge all in about a second. Oh well, we pull her up and everyone files onto the zeppelin.


Maya familiarizes herself with what may be the controls ("No brake?" she asks, although she may not be familiar with the concept in the first place) and starts trying to drive the blimp.

After shaking a lot, the blimp breaks free and another big FMV shows it flying through the skyline, and then suddenly bursting into flames. Somebody else has arrived on the deck, too.

Sudou's persona is Reverse Volcanus, and he likes to cast Maharagion. He also has an attack which deals a Shadow hit followed by a physical one to every party member. Vesta blocks both of these, so Yukino could actually solo this guy with a few Gala-Gala drinks (in case he decides to attack with is sword) if there were some need.


Just because it sucks to lose after a long section where you can't save, this battle plays out in the typical safe and boring manner of most of the boss battles in this LP so far. Ixquic and Belphegor is actually one of the hardest battles in the game since they get two turns, while this one is a total joke by comparison, even without the equipment upgrades.

Finally, the King is defeated and the blimp crashes into the ocean, with each adult jumping off the blimp with a kid under each arm. Everyone gets washed up on the beach. Michelle comments that it's kind of unbelievable that everything turned out alright.


The Reincarnated Mayan Warrior Formerly Known As Ixquic runs over to the party, introduces herself as Akari, and apologizes for all the trouble she caused. She wants to draw manga, and her first is going to be a story about the five people who are performing heroic deeds around Sumaru City.


Maya gets a phone call from Ulala, who wasn't inside of Gold when it was blown up, but still has bad news: PANTS, Yukino, Maya, Eikichi, and Lisa are now infamous as the "Masquerade Terrorists" who blew up huge parts of the city. Maya decides that the best way to cope with this situation is to have all the kids tell the truth about what happened, hoping for the best case scenario regarding these rumors. Okamura is at Kuzunoha, and is supposed to know a lot about what's going on, so everyone decides to head there, but Eikichi illogically recommends that they could get into trouble going together, so they should split up. Everyone goes their separate ways, but clingy Ginko wants to follow PANTS.

Katsuya Pantsu is out on the streets, since the Police Station was also bombed earlier, and apparently he's been hanging up Wanted posters, one of which has PANTS' face. That's not good...

By the time PANTS and Lisa arrive at Kuzunoha, Eikichi and Yukino are already there. The next scene, at Kuzunoha, features a whole lot of exposition, but there's hardly anything to see, so the rest of this is going to be mostly words.

First, Okamura is kind of surprised, but she admits that the party is not related to the Last Battalion in any way. When the pair enter, Yukino tells them that they spread the rumor that they were heroes at the Air Museum and now they can only wait. Tamaki tells everyone to check out the television.


The news reporter explains the situation, and tells the two sides of the story; one that the group are terrorists bent on destroying the city, the other that they rescued lots of children. One interpretation of the bombing is that the Last Battalion is trying to access secret ruins under Sumaru City, but a Military Analyst writes of those claims as ludicrous, because the Last Battalion could not possibly exist.


Maya finally enters, and greets everyone with her traditional "Ciao!" So now it's really time for business. Okamura goes on to explain the Oracle of Maiya and the In-Laqetti, the book containing it. I'm going to be writing this all out not in the order she says it, but everything I'm saying about the book can be found out from Okamura before you leave Kuzunoha. If you're wondering why I'm bothering to write so much about this, it's because most of what happens in this game is in the book.

The Oracle is a message that Okamura, Sudou, and Kashihara received from the Maiyan Aliens, who hail from the Pleiades. Sudou we know of course; he was a student at Sevens at the time, while Kashihara was a fellow teacher. He was really paranoid and swore someone was stalking him, until one day he was crushed in the gears in the Clock Tower. Okamura says the Last Battalion killed him. She also believes Sudou was the one who began leaking the Oracle, and that there were a lot of rumors that he was a serial arsonist (they were already true, though!)

Human evolution was guided by these aliens, and their further assistance is needed for humanity to progress further. Some of them were revered as Mayan Gods, while others were the evil Gods of Darkness. The good ones all died, while the Bolontiku, the evil ones, sleep in a spaceship which is hidden under Sumaru City, waiting for the return of the Crystal Skulls. Stop me if you've heard this one before! The skulls, however, need to be fed by Ideal Energy, which is of course what the Masquerade has been collecting this whole time.

When the process is complete, humanity will reach Idealian, which is a "higher state of being" basically.

And the world will be destroyed. Whoops. The trio were all fucking crazy, but at least they were smart enough to not say much about it, before now.

The In-Laqetti also says that Hitler was well practiced in sorcery learned from the Mayan people, and that he escaped Germany in 1945 with the help of the "Last Batallion," an elite group of soldiers stationed at the South Pole, or maybe South America. They've developed advanced technology, discovered the Spear of Longinus, and are planning to return to conquer the world, achieve godhood, etc.

So then, the Oracle itself, reads roughly as follows (in translation and all, you know how it is):
"In the twinkling stars of the Pleiades,
Stopped time begins to move;
Dance of pleasure, Feast of shadows,
Song of a foreign land, the flames of Atonement light the Heavens.
The lion's roar echoes far and wide...
The five skulls that shine in Hell...
The Holy Cross shines in the Heavens...
The moment the stars stop rising in the sky...
The beat of the Maiyan Maiden also ceases...
Paradise remains above earth...
And time winds backwards..."
The first two supposedly refer to the clock at Sevens at the beginning of the game. The "Dance of pleasure, Feast of shadows" would be the dance at Kasugayama High where everyone was turned into Shadow People. Then, the Muses' concert and Leo's bombing antics. So far this isn't going so well.

Okamura tells everyone they have to prevent the completion of the Oracle, and as PANTS prepares to leave, gives him a copy so he has some idea of what he's up against. Lisa says she has something to tell everyone. We're all going to the Araya Shrine so everyone knows who the Joker is. And the TV pipes up one more time. The Occult Reporter who claimed the bombings were by the Last Battalion has something else to say.

His publishing company has received a copy of the In-Laqetti. It explains most of what's been going on in Sumaru City lately, he says, and so they're going to publish it.

FUCK.

Next time: Sank Memories, More Deep

At the shrine, Lisa tells everyone about a very old rumor, that a girl died in a fire here at the Araya Shrine. Eikichi says he remembers the rumor, since it was really famous, but Lisa says it's because they knew that girl, as "Big Sis."


The golden butterfly appears again, and the five are all whisked off to Philemon's space again, where he tells them that they've begun to rediscover their past and that the truth will be revealed once again to them inside of Mt. Iwato, behind the shrine.

On the map, there are a couple of interesting people to talk to. One is an old man who has a rumor about a demon in Mt. Iwato. There's also a woman who's in love with Katsuya or something, who tells how excited he was when he saw the news report about the heroes at the Air Museum.

Inside the mountain, the rumored ghost appears, in the sailor outfit. After talking it over the party proceeds further inside.

There are several major cutscenes inside of Mt. Iwato, each in a different Spring of Mirrors as the party descends through the floors.

In the first flashback, it's ten years before, early in the summer, and there's a festival going on at the shrine.

PANTS is standing alone, after Katsuya has run off to check out the festival without his little brother around, when a boy in a black mask comes over. He's also alone, after his parents had a fight he came to the shrine alone. Soon, Eikichi, who is a chubby little boy in a yellow mask, and Lisa, who's afraid the other kids will make fun of her, but is assured they won't, join in.

After playing for a long time, they agree to meet up more times, and the boy wearing the Black Falcon mask makes up a name for their heroic group: the "Masquerade."


Also inside of Mt. Iwato are five secret rooms. Inside each is a box, and in the first one is the Pink mask. Also on B1 is the box containing the Red Falcon mask.

In the second scene, the kids are all deciding what to play today. Their selection method chooses Lisa as the day's leader, and she decides to make everyone play "house," in which she gets to express her clingy attraction to PANTS and obnoxious, controlling personality.

Afterwards, Eikichi complains that he always lost, and he just wanted everyone to draw pictures of what they liked.


This is the rumor demon, Kuchisake. Returning the item she drops to the guy outside the shrine nets a Megido card. It might come in handy. If you don't turn this in before finishing the dungeon, the old man disappears and you can't finish the subquest. Not a big deal.


And as long as I'm going outside, it's probably a good time to stock up on supplies. All the Satomi Tadashi stores have the same inventory, but the one in Aoba has the best music, so there I pick up five Chewing Souls (100 SP restore), 10 Revival Gems, and 20 Magazines.

The magazines are for the contest, which you can initiate by rumors. Tamaki's job at Kuzunoha, when she's not spreading rumors or summoning demons, I guess, is to fill out these forms for you and send them in to rig the Kismet publishing contests. After you've spent enough time in dungeons, the drawing will be held and the item will be sent out. The more entries you send per contest, the more likely you will win, but it's not really worth hinging on, even if you spread the rumor that you can win great stuff. Rigging the drawing is more for the amusement of the whole thing than actually benefiting.

Actually, I haven't even done this in Innocent Sin, so I'm going to have to figure out where to check for the results. In EP the box shows up at Maya's desk, and I'd probably guess it's at Kismet in this one as well, but I'll check when I get another chance.


There are a lot of obnoxious battles in Mt. Iwato like this one against 4x STRENGTH Kerepres. They have a frost breath and take a lot of effort to kill, but they respond well to PANTS' Motorcycle Imitation contact. Now if I were smart I would take all these cards once I have enough, go out and make a Kerepres Persona, but I decided to be lazy instead.


Almost as annoying are TEMPERANCE Camazotz demons, since they like to steal life and block gunfire completely, but they're not as common. The other demons are the Kabandas like we met in the box at Aoba Park, and some whose names I forgot to pay attention to. Squid-like demons who cast Media, a HANGED MAN Arcana dog who has a poison bite, and more of those weak-against-magic ogre things who charge people for triple digits. At this point some combinations are just not worth bothering with.


On B2, there's one of these pitfall puzzles that will be oh so familiar to anyone who beat Nocturne. There are a ton of damage tiles on the floor below, that will poison party members, drain SP, and do various elemental damage. After wandering through that minefield, there will be two more masks: the Blue Swan and Yellow Owl.

But wait, nobody was wearing a blue mask.

The third flashback features the Masquerade meeting somebody new, a girl a few years older than them, in a Sailor outfit. And her greeting is oddly familiar. She's heard of the group, and they want to let her join, so she offers to show them something that will reveal their future selves. It's called "Persona." (According to the first game, it's something like this: everyone says "Persona, persona, come to us!" Then they all pass out and meet Philemon. Yukino, recognizing this, has something of an "aha" moment here.) Also, following this scene, Maya is oddly and uncharacteristically silent.

The last box is empty. The black mask has already been taken.

Deep inside the mountain on B4 is the final spring. In it, the party sees the end of this arc. The girl in the Sailor Outfit sadly reveals that she is moving away the next day and won't be able to play with the Masquerade anymore. She's really sorry about breaking her promise, and Lisa and Eikichi are really upset. They decide to lock her in the shrine, but PANTS doesn't seem so keen on this.

(This is the only time I've actually seen "PANTS" come up in dialogue, so I figure it's worth noting)

So they lock him in too. The next day, the shrine was burned down, and they never saw the girl again, so they spread the rumor that she had died and her ghost haunted Mt. Iwato. But as they all begin to break down, Lisa says that Big Sis didn't die. Yukino thinks that's good, because it means they didn't really do anything wrong, but Lisa says that she's obviously the Joker! After all, even Leo said the Joker was "as beautiful as a goddess."

Right away, Maya goes nuts, talking about getting her revenge, and attacks the rest of the group. Suddenly, another Maya barges in. She explains that this Shadow Maya must have come from the rumors that the five are actually the Masquerade Terrorists, but she's seen the memories and remembers everything now too. The Joker appears, the evil Maya hands him Leo's Red Skull, and he orders her to kill the party. Real Maya tries to remind the Joker, who is actually Jun, the boy in the black mask, of what really happened, because his memories are clearly wrong, but he will hear none of it.


Shadow Maya hit everyone during the cutscene, so the party, Maya excluded, starts at half health. Shadow Maya occasionally attacks with the pink pistols, but usually summons Reverse Maia, predictably. Reverse Maia has Venom Claw (nearly harmless); Dark Dimension (? I didn't have time to read this generally), an instant death attack that has a low chance of killing one person; Aques, a fairly high-damage water attack, and Diamond Dust.


This is bad news, although you might've already guessed that if you've seen it in some other RPG series somewhere. Volcanus and Vesta are both very weak against Ice and Water, but I only had one possible swap between the two of them. PANTS has lower health and damage, so I put Eros back on Lisa and had PANTS equip Pixie and cast Media. Yukino's 300 health is enough to survive Diamond Dust, sometimes. If it hits high values she'll die anyway, so I left her dead for most of the battle until Shadow Maya started crouching, which indicated obviously that she was nearly defeated. (I could've avoided all of this by summoning Kerepres, as I mentioned before, but I would've had to walk over the pitfalls again, and I couldn't make the game bright enough to see the walls in this dungeon on my monitor. Not a fun combination) Pretty much the entire key to this strategy is not having your healer(s) get frozen by Diamond Dust, since you'll lose the turn where they recover. Then you will die, because nobody got healed.


After the battle, there's a happy reunion, and everyone gets transported to Philemon's room again. Maya recognizes him from ten years ago.

Philemon grants new personas to everyone except Yukino, based on finding their masks inside of Mt Iwato, and the decisions made in certain points in the game (Zodiac for Michelle, Aoba Park for Ginko, and the Air Museum for Maya). Well these "new" ones are pretty much like the old ones, looking basically the same with some minor changes, and having "custom" added to their names (e.g. Maia Custom).


They're about level 30, which is a huge increase from the level 1-3 Personas everyone was using a few minutes ago, and have all new and more powerful skillsets than their predecessors.


Back in the shrine, their memories continue to flood back, but then Yukino gets a call, telling her to look up in the sky. Everyone heads outside, to witness this.

The Nazis are heading for the ruins of Caracol on top of Mt. Katatsumuri, so that's the next dungeon, but before we go there, we have a really fun task!

I hope you devoured him this time.

With all the Persona upgrades, Pixie has finally outlasted her usefulness, but at one point in all of the hundreds of fusions I used her in, Pixie learned how to Mutate. What this means is that I can turn her into Igor so she becomes a new Persona.


This is the status screen to decide whether or not I want to turn my mildly uber Pixie into the mediocre Persona ROD Hotei. The only reason to make Hotei as far as I know is because he learns the Estoma spell, which may actually be a placebo in Persona 2.

But wait a minute, what the heck is "ROD" anyway? I think this is as appropriate a time as any to explain the way Arcana work in Persona 2, since this post is all about gameplay. Persona 2 features the 22 Major Arcana, from FOOL to WORLD, but where P3 uses the minor Arcana (Rod/Wand, Pentacles/Coins, Cups, and Swords) as post-battle bonuses for the shuffle, the Minor Arcana also contain Personas in P2. There are no cards for the Minor Arcana, not even from having Kaneko paint blank ones, so the only way to get these Personas (and a few of the others) is through Persona evolution.

Each character has affinity levels with each Arcana. They work "best" with Personas of their default:
Tatsuya - SUN
Maya - MOON
Michelle - DEATH
Yukino - EMPRESS
Ginko - LOVERS

They'll get the highest rate of fusion bonuses while using Personas of these arcana, the Personas will gain ranks faster (I think), and it will cost less SP to summon those Personas. Each character has several other Arcana which are "good" matches, and are close to the best ones in terms of SP use, etc. For every character, these include FOOL and the Minor Arcana, as well as a couple others. When I put the LOVERS Pixie on PANTS, he had to spend 6 SP summoning it instead of the 4 used by Lisa.

Going on down, there are also several Arcana which are mediocre matches-usable, but not especially desirable, and some which are bad, meaning you'll have to spend a LOT of SP to call them. Finally, there is one Arcana for each character which they can't use at all, like STRENGTH for Maya.

Anyway, we have five new Personas, but because they all have limited skills we would get stomped just storming Mt. Katatsumuri. This is why there is an abandoned factory in the Konan district. Here you can get into random battles freely, most of which are pretty easy.


Ideally you want to level the Personas by using skills that won't kill the demons, but this isn't always feasible at first, especially in this case where I didn't have any control over the creation process. Fortunately, these magician guys block pretty much all the magic I'm using on them, which makes it easy until somebody runs out and attacks him to death. There's a Trish's Fountain door inside the factory, but it's stupid to use it when you can walk for another 45 seconds and save 45,000 yen by healing at Hiragi instead.


Finally by the time this Buddha guy died, everybody had a spell related to Status or whatnot, so they didn't have to kill things anymore. One final round after that, and Maya learned Mediarama. This process is SO MUCH BETTER in EP because you can set battles to Simple mode, which doesn't draw all the Personas and demon attacks, making the battles go about eleven times faster. Considering this took about 45 minutes (most of which I was impatiently waiting for TT to come back up >_>) it's a welcome change.

Anyway, the new Personas cost a lot more than the old ones (~25 SP compared to 4) so the game calls for a little more conservation from here on out. In fact, if you're wondering why I use Physical Attacks on basically every boss, it's because Innocent Sin is not very well balanced. Persona summoning costs get out of hand quickly (the "Ultimate" Personas for each character approach 50), and weapons are simply easier to use and keep up with on bosses than spells, especially in Eikichi and Yukino's cases where their TEC stat is pretty bad. Not to mention the shorter animations feel like a godsend after a dungeon full of tentacle wiggling or enemies casting Ma-elemental spells.

Maia Custom has Mediarama now, which is enough for me to quit worrying about the next dungeon, basically.

Here is the map for the area by Mount Katatsumuri (Snail). It's the only time we'll see it!

The front way, by cable car, is blocked, so we'll have to take a backwoods trail to reach the Caracol. The Nazis are already here guarding this side too.

The choice here is between taking a direct and dangerous route, or the super convoluted maze, which is even worse. I'm picking the forward route because I didn't want this to take even longer, and if you really want to see me getting lost in the forest, just say so and I'll make sure to upload lots of pictures when I do the Mifune Trail.


Picking the first choice instantly throws everyone into a battle with a NAZIS Kommandant and four soldiers. Maha-whatever spells destroy the weaker ones, while the Kommandant seems to resist everything about equally so we just cut him to pieces.


The majority of the encounters here feature lots of Masquerade troops, ALWAYS in mixed elemental combinations. These guys are so annoying, since they get lots of turns when the party's escapes fail, and the Green and Blue ones are capable of inflicting Shock and Freeze which are bad enough even before taking weaknesses into account. I try to kill as many as I can by softening up the ones who aren't weak to Fire and then hitting them all with this fusion, but thanks to the status ailments and propensity for people to die, it only works half the time.

Occasionally you'll get some MOON Lilim demons or a couple other packs. These are easy, as are any quantity of Nazis. Nazis + bomb demons is a run away situation for me though, not dangerous but annoying.


The general rule of thumb for navigating this dungeon is to always try to go North. Failing this, West is usually forward as well. Have I mentioned that my monitor sucks really bad enough times yet? I couldn't see anything during this part either.


This river is a good sign that we're maybe getting somewhere! Shortly after the crossing, in fact, is a temple, host to a lot of monks. At the last moment, the party attacks the Nazis, the same battle as at the foot of the mountain, and rescues them.


The head monk tells Yukino that Fujii headed to Caracol and left her this camera, so she gets a bit more anxious about reaching the top as quickly as possible. In another FMV a meteor shower is seen raining-the Leonid (and out of season, too!). Maya realizes this must be another line from the Oracle.


Just a little further and PANTS and his friends stand at the base of the steps up to the ruins of Caracol. On the other side, the Nazis are massacring Masquerade troops. The Longinus Mecha sense the party and rush over, surrounding them. Surrounded, it's decided that these will be divided and conquered. So then, PANTS' next big decision:


-Fight alone
-Fight with Ginko
-Fight with Yukino
-Fight With Maya
-Fight With Michelle

Who's it going to be, Talking Time? (Needless to say, some of these are harder than others)

Yukino, because she is the best character. And she won't be around for much longer, so make the most of it while you can

I got two requests for this one. So I did them both. This is one of the more demanding battles in the game in terms of micromanagement, because you get hit really hard and may not have healing spells.

Anyway, there are three Longinus mecha here, and the one PANTS fights depends on his partner.

If PANTS is going solo, he has to go up against Longinus 13. Needless to say, this one is the hardest. (In fact, I wouldn't have been able to do it without backtracking and making a new persona)

Choosing Yukino or Lisa pits PANTS and his partner against Longinus 12. She'll taunt PANTS' companion, revealing her own gender.

With Maya or Eikichi, PANTS will face 11.

All of the different battles share three moves:
MG - 18: a heavy gunshot dealing 150-200 damage to one target
Longinus Spear: deals no damage, but uses the powers of their copied spears to prevent Persona use for a few turns
(I forgot what this move is called): Charges up a lightning strike which hits all targets for about 100 damage and has a high chance of inflicting Shock.

Additionally, each mecha has a different mid-level elemental spell, and are weak against the opposing element:
13 - Aques
12 - Magarula
11 - Maragion
They also have high physical resistance, which makes spells necessary.

Overall, if you just want the battle to be really easy or don't have many consumables, Maya is the best choice. Her Maha Aques (combined with High TEC) will hit 11 for substantial damage and she can heal with Mediarama. Lisa is similar, but her lack of AOE healing means she has to spend more turns on it overall. Michelle is a pretty decent partner as well, since he also gets Water to hit the boss' weakness and can be easily supported by PANTS and a decent stack of healing drinks-his low speed can be an issue though. Yukino would be passable if I had a decent persona upgrade for her. PANTS alone requires blocking the Shock move but still having a decent Fire spell to cast on the enemy, plus plenty of items to heal up with.


This is theoretically the battle plan with Eikichi + Pants (until I realized the Maha version of Aques hits harder even against the lone target), but between frequent needs for healing and occasional Persona lock-outs I pretty much needed to hit the strategy menu every time 11 got a turn.


Meanwhile this is the best I can do with Yukino, which casts the double flame fusion over and over. It does about 150 damage, which is less than Eikichi did just on his own, as well as requiring both characters to be free of any bad status. So this one takes quite a bit longer and requires a lot of healing.


After the battle, they're all gone, and everyone sees Fujii, who is gravely injured. He talks to Yukino, asking if she got the camera he left for her, and telling her to "capture the stars." Then he dies.

Maya tells Yukino they have to move on, but she's tremendously reticent and wants to stay by Fujii. As the main character, PANTS sees his opportunity to speak, but what should he say?

-Persuade her to come along
-Leave her be and continue with four

Next time: With Pat Sajak and Vanna White! and Hitler

Smack dat bitch and tell her to get her ass in gear.

Bring her along for the ride.

I'm trying to figure out whether I'm sorry this took five days or if it's okay because I've been sleeping tons this weekend after a mostly harmless wisdom teeth surgery. It doesn't matter I guess, so moving on.

Lisa disapproves of PANTS' forcefulness, but after a moment Yukino gets up and shambles forward. She reminds herself that she promised to save Anna, and she prepares herself for what's yet to come.

Philemon appears as a butterfly, and, pleased with this realization, and he grants Yukino her ultimate persona, EMPRESS Durga. She thanks Philemon, and then it's into the ruins at Caracol.


Caracol is a pretty basic dungeon, but there are a lot of dead-ends and backtracking. On B2 there's a small conveyor belt section, followed by some teleporters. Trial and error gets PANTS through this part pretty quickly. There's also a battle against some Nazis in a "Room of Stella" but it's the same as those others, and too easy to bother with.

B3 features more teleport pads. I found out that Lisa is really good for contacts in this dungeon, as most monsters are responsive to either her little song-and-dance routine or her Kung Fu. The most annoying guys are the TEMPERANCE demons who are pretty random about what they like and don't, changing sometimes between battles. After finishing this dungeon I have a decent amount of STRENGTH and LOVERS cards so maybe I'll even make a few Personas just for the fun of it.

On B4 Yukino will sense Anna's presence. Pretty much straight ahead is this room, where the team finds her surrounded by three more Longinus Mecha.

Well, there's only one thing to do...fight them. WOW this battle is hard, I don't remember it being so much on my first playthrough, but I was also somewhere between six and ten levels higher, which makes a pretty big difference considering how much you can get screwed.

The Longinus have the same moves as before, as well as a status spell.
8 uses Maha Aques (rarely) and Illusion (blind status)
9 uses Maha Garula and Poison
10 uses Maha Magnus and Suku Kaja

As such, Longinus 8 is weak to fire and is the easiest target to start with, since the big all-target flame fusion (Hotei/Maragi + Eros Custom/Magnus + Volcanus Custom/Maragion) is still the best one PANTS has access to. Spamming that, and Durga's Ziodyne, will finish him off sort of quickly (it takes 4-5 turns at this level). If it doesn't...well then I was screwed and I had to try again. After this process, 9 and 10 are still only about 40% down, but it's a start.

This is probably also a good time to note that there are three kinds of spell targeting in Persona 2. There's your standard single-target magic, and all-target magic, but Maha- spells target a "group" which means identical enemies. Since Loginus 8, 9, and 10 are all different from each other, Maha spells only hit one at a time, and the only all-target skills I have suck aside from the fusion. (Durga's all-attacking physical owns the hell out of various enemies, but this is compensated for by the fact that it doesn't do much at all against these guys)


At this point I had to start splitting damage. Resources were tight enough that I couldn't waste Lisa's Magnus spell, so I cast it on 9 who is weak to Earth, but 10 starts casting Suku Kaja more, which will eventually give her a turn advantage. This is really bad.


This is what shape my party was in after 10 died. Maya's next Maha Aques finished off 9, though, so it was all good.

Except Yukino was dead. =(


Yukino tells Anna that she reminds her a lot of herself, and that's why she's tried so hard to help her. Shadow Yukino then appears, and taunts the real one about her insecurities and shortcomings. This is going to happen a lot.

Yukino says she's accepted herself for who she is now, and sends PANTS and his crew forward to save Jun, while she and Anna will battle her shadow.

Needless to say, things don't quite turn out the same if you didn't bring Yukino...In this room you'll meet Shadow Yukino and Lady Scorpio instead, and on their defeat the Shadow will convince Anna to jump off the bridge with her.

On B5 there is another "Room of Stella" in which the party sees a phantom of a young Jun. Much like at Mt. Iwato, his memories will be shown to them. Only these are kind of...wrong.

The scene starts the same, with the children all upset by Maya's announcement that she's leaving, but then Jun protests while PANTS, Michelle and Ginko force her into the shrine and lock the door. They laugh, telling her she can never leave them now, and PANTS summons Volcanus to burn down the shrine. The scene and the ghost disappear, and Maya finds a raspberry flower, symbolizing regret from him. He must have realized the truth by now.


There's another one, too, in which Maya talks to Jun and PANTS. She says they almost look like twins, and she recites the "Doppelganger" poem again, relating it to their close friendship.

Finally, in the center of B6, is the end of Caracol. This dungeon took a really long time, even though I glossed over most of it.

The Joker and Hitler are standing near the front of the room, near the Wheel of Fortune, which apparently has the capability to raise the Xibalba-the great ship hidden under Sumaru.


After a brief argument about the future of the world and things like that, the Joker activates the wheel, and an FMV shows some buildings appearing out of nowhere, followed by a collection of energy, and ultimately, the rise of Sumaru City into the air.


Hitler laughs, saying that this is perfect for his new dominion, while the Joker marvels that his father's prophecies have come true. Queen Aquarius, the last Masquerade Executive, suddenly realizes what this means. Hitler calls on his followers to steal the remaining skulls, as one of the Longinus attempts to kill the Joker. Aquarius is actually the actress Junko Kurosu, Jun's mother, who PANTS met at Sumaru TV, and realizing the Joker is her son, she sacrifices herself to save him. The robots fly away, and the Joker commands his shadows to take the skulls up to Sumaru.


They comply, and promptly disappear. Then, despite the protestations of his friends, a voice continues to control him, and he attacks.

The Joker summons this Black Joker thing as his Persona and uses a bunch of weak attacks with status ailment chances. Poison is annoying but not dangerous, so the only way to die here is for Maya to get charmed at a really bad time. Pants and Eikichi unload with their Persona's best physical attacks, while Lisa just punches him. Everyone gains a level, which means that their HP and SP are fully restored. Predictably, this is somewhat useful.

Yukino arrives with Anna, just in time to see the Joker go even crazier.

A voice offers the Joker more power, and the Joker asks for it. This "thing" is revealed to be Nyarlathotep, and the Joker transforms into Angel Joker.


Angel Joker has some weird moves, like Alpha Blaster, which only damages Michelle and PANTS and has a second hit that deals more damage later in the turn cycle. I'm not really sure how it works, but it's not dangerous either. He also casts Mahamaon and normal attacks. His one evil move deals heavy Holy damage along with an instant death chance. It can kill Maya outright just with the damage, so other than hoping he doesn't use it too much this fight is pretty similar to the first form, albeit a bit faster since Yukino's attacks do decent damage (if she hadn't died fighting the Longinus she would have full SP and would be able to contribute a lot more. But I was saving the rest of my restorative items for Maya who happened not to need them).

After that there's a big happy crying reunion of everyone.

Jun also notices that PANTS still has his old lighter, and he points out that he's still got the watch PANTS gave him. After they're all finished being sorry and happy to each other, someone else appears.


Jun recognizes the face as his father's. (You might recognize the face from somewhere as well. Also, his musical theme bears a strong resemblance to Philemon's, but darker and richer. It's one of my favorite pieces of video game music ever. Maybe I can get it up in a sense of minimal legal questionability.) Jun's father mocks him for losing and failing to complete Idealian. He says he'll control the Masquerade while Jun and the others fade from their new world.


Everyone is taken to Philemon's space, where Yukino asks him to give her Persona powers to Jun. She says she'll be alright as long as she and Anna are together. Philemon asks Jun to state his name to prove his worth (incidentally, he does this to "you" at the beginning of the first game, as its name entry screen), which he does. So he is granted the power of FORTUNE Hermes

Everyone else gets new Personas as well: SUN Apollo for PANTS, LOVERS Venus for Ginko, DEATH Hades for Michelle, and MOON Artemis for Maya.

Philemon tells them that only they have the power to stop the Crawling Chaos, and though he's unable to explain much further, he teleports them all to the Araya Shrine so they can continue to fight the forces of evil. There are people and a scene there but I don't feel like writing that up right now so it'll go up next time.


Outside, the large-view city map has changed, along with the overworld music.

The next stage of the plan, though, is to recover the skulls from the Zodiac shrines that rose in the four sides of the city. Each shrine represents a different sign of the Zodiac (the same ones as the Masquerade executives) and focuses on a different party member.
Aquarius/Jun
Scorpio/Michelle
Taurus/Ginko
Leo/PANTS

These can be done in any order as I understand, so I ask: where should PANTS go first?

Next Time: I don't know, actually!

The bridge battle is the only hard fight in this entire game.

Lisa's really good in this dungeon PERIOD. Eros-Kai's Snipe is an instant kill attack that works more often than not. I'd honestly rather use Eros-Kai over Venus.

Let's get gay over at the Taurus Shrine.

I recommend heading over to the Sumaru Hospital first. I'm pretty sure pants & co overdosed on the acid.

That said, if he somehow weasels his way into testing positive, I vote for the Scorpio shrine. We can always use more Michelle!

Ahh, yeah, I forgot about that. I got bored of leveling Personas in the factory really fast because OH GOD NO SIMPLE BATTLE MODE WHY so I jetted as soon as Maia learned Medirama. I didn't even have Snipe until after the bridge battle and by that point I was so ticked off I just ran/contacted everything. (aside from a lone Catoblepas because Maya needed 73 more experience to hit 33)

So when you said Hitler was in the next update, you actually meant that Hitler was in the next update. Huh.

I wonder if there's some optimal ratio between number of extended vowels and exclamation points for MAXIMUM INTENSITY.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure everything I've whited-out in this thread is true (if it weren't, why would I bother?). Also, anything that sounds insane and absurd that I indicate is in the game probably is. It's that kind of story.

When Hitler shows up, conventional storytelling in a game kinda goes out the window. This game just keeps topping itself in ridiculousness, over and over. But in a totally awesome way!