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

The Joker's Guzman demon attacks each of them in turn, causing their Personas to summon themselves.

Katsuya's Persona Justice Helios is a funny cat-like thing. He casts Agi on Guzman (who resists fire, incidentally, though this isn't a "battle," it just has the animations). The arcana is uhh, a pretty obvious match for a police officer.

Ulala's Persona Star Callisto is...rather kinky looking. It's definitely the first one that made me think how strange and badass the Persona designs in P2 are, when compared to the ones in 3. Not that I don't like those either, especially Caesar and Juno, but the sheer oddity of these beats out the consistency of the others.

Maya's Persona is still Maia. Maia is a damn good one, too. She casts Hama, and it dies. So the Joker knocks them out with Megido.


The trio wake up in a place they don't recognize, but I really shouldn't have to explain this.

Philemon appears...sort of. He's a lot more phantasmal than when we last saw him and it seems he's having a lot more trouble speaking. Nonetheless, he explains that he brought them here. Their Personas are, again, just another face, another self, god or devil.

Then he becomes less coherent. Only Maya and her companions can save...something...and some other thing about "tears of blood." Rumors will become real, and he fades as he tries to say something about "...Lights...within hearts...of people."

When they wake up, Ulala asks Maya if she's okay, and then starts talking about the dream.

Katsuya is the skeptic, but he decides to go along with it, because he has no other explanation. He picks up the pistols and offers them to the ladies for "self defense" (there's no problem with that!), but Ulala (like Yukino) declines because she already knows how to fight. Maya takes them both; it's just like old times!

The first battle is against one Tower Slime demon, who asks if you've ever talked to a demon before, and if you want an explanation of the contract system. I don't need this, and I'm not interested in pasting every piece of text in the game, but I'll be doing contracting in this game unlike IS, so we can finally get into that.

We're looking for the Joker in the Clock Tower, but it's locked. I bet the Janitor has a key.

Actually, he lost his. The nurse, who is also in the room, has a suggestion though. Also: Ulala finds out something she didn't want to know-the Janitor likes to make out with his posters (which can be seen in IS too =X )

Battles at Sevens are still really easy. Eternal Punishment has a "Simple Battle Mode" setting which doesn't draw all the personas and demon attacks. The animations are generally pretty tolerable (faster than IS' by default, even), and it's disabled in boss battles, but I usually turn it on anyway.


Maya's stats will probably all be focused on AGI, TEC, and VIT. She's not really cut out for physical attacks, and they tend to be much worse in this game than they were in IS anyway. LUC is probably okay, but the fact that you can customize a primary spellcaster/healer character to avoid mediocre level-ups and have 900 SP and tons of AGI by the end of the game is way, way too sweet to pass up. VIT just needs to be enough to survive a couple of really sucky moves.

Ulala is basically Lisa again. Callisto starts with the same element as Eros did (Earth) and she punches enemies. (Physical is three separate types in Persona 2, and the punch-type is the one enemies tend to resist the least, even working on stuff like Longinus Mechs, but still worse than spells. They're also almost never weak to it specifically, though, unlike Sword and Shot) Ulala will gain mostly AGI, but gets a nice complement of STR, TEC, and VIT throughout the game. Thanks mostly to the AGI and the fact that she still dies less, I'd say she's the second most useful. Her LUC is terrible, though. And I don't just mean the stat.

Katsuya gains the most STR and will have the worst SP by the end of the game. His primary Arcana is also worse than other people's and Helios will be the first Persona I replace. He plays a lot like Eikichi, but since Eikichi was great due to IS' balance EP kind of hoses Katsuya.

Maya just wants 8 Lovers Tarot cards. Of course, since the Joker's probably in the clock tower it wouldn't hurt to be not level one either. Still, this grind kind of sucks because Pixie is practically the rarest encounter here. The other ones include Ratatosk (Squirrel-girl!), Guzman, Poltergeist, Nightmare, and Will o'Wisp.


In the teacher's lounge, Ulala and Katsuya have more to say about what they've just seen. Katsuya thinks it's weird that his other "self" is a cat. One of the teachers has the spare key we're looking for. Kashihara wonders for a second if the Last Battalion killed Hannya, then regains his sanity and decides it's ridiculous.


These are the Analysis screens, which show all the known spells the Personas will learn (but not their secrets, until they've been found). Patra cures some statuses, Agi and Maha Agi are fire spells of course, while Single Shot and Scratch are lousy physicals.

Callisto gets Magna (l1 Earth) and Magnus (l2 Earth), as well as Poisma and Marin Karin (both of which suck). Zan is NOT Nocturne and the other games' "Force" damage (which is Garu/wind) but a single-target Almighty-type spell. It's not very good either.

Hama is Light/instant death, Multi Dimension is instant death of seemingly no kind in particular, Aqua is Water, and Dia and Media heal, of course. Maia learns Diarama through fusions, which is ridiculous and would make her worth carrying around for a long time since no other Persona offers such great healing for so little SP (without using cards)...but there might be a catch.

The contacts have been pared down to one move per character. Maya interviews ("Do you have anything to say to your fans?"), Ulala tells fortunes (works well on "Foolish" demons), and Katsuya Interrogates (best on demons from Justice and Magician arcana). The latter are two of the most frequently useful in the entire game. Here's a third. Katsuya+Ulala (which is not the same as Ulala+Katsuya, annoyingly) have the "Investigation (Scam)" contact, in which Katsuya investigates the demon for bilking Ulala. It makes NO SENSE AT ALL but a truly staggering array of demons go for it.



There'll be lots of chances to show off the completely insane dialogue, so I'll probably put up a few per dungeon.

"Why is Pixie a demon?"
-Your parents were.


Finally, we're ready to check out the clock tower.

Oh, man. Helios and Callisto are the best Persona designs yet. (Angel Joker is still my favorite design in general, though.)


Yukki is her nickname in the Japanese version, too. The typo is "t's" instead of "it's."

(Although it should say "Don't give in to her" instead of "Don't give into her," too.)

Hey, look up there!


The Joker talks to his "Lady"...a title she doesn't recognize. She has no idea who he is, and she never even called the Joker. (which, like in IS, involves dialing your own number. The USA's backward cell phone technology means that when I do this, I still just get my phone messages though. Darn.)

He tells her to try and "remember."

When he's interrupted, he summons a few demons, hoping they'll finish off Maya and the others. Or maybe hoping they'll survive. It's hard to tell, because he is kind of crazy.


The demons are 1x Empusas and 2x Apep. Empusas is weak to Earth and can be one-shotted by this fusion to start the battle. In IS, you have to select the right moves and rearrange turns every time you want to make a fusion. In EP you can go to the fusion menu (which is *there* in the prior game, but doesn't include this feature) and choose "Set" to automatically set it up. The game is pretty smart about this, too, and will avoid disrupting the other members' turns too much.

Empusas will cast Dia to heal injured allies if you don't kill her right away, but after that the battle just involves being not completely stupid and finishing off the Apeps with spells.

Since they win, the Joker casts Dormina on them and they all fall asleep. While the screen blacks out, he's surprised by someone else who enters.

The clash of swords plays out for a few moments, but the Joker escapes. The Deja Vu boy wakes them up and tells them he got away.

He then gives Maya an SSHS emblem and tells her to go to Kuzunoha to spread a rumor that the emblem will protect people from the Joker. Furthermore, he tells Maya that she absolutely has to not get more involved in any of this. If she goes back to her normal life, carrying the emblem and staying safe, everything will be fine...

Why the SSHS emblem? Because in Innocent Sin, the emblem was cursed and disfigured people's faces. He's trying to make it the opposite...


Before they can leave the school, Katsuya runs into his superiors. He gives them the lowdown, but he's chewed out for letting suspect #501 (a distinction which I believe comes from the Captain and not from himself) escape. He's informed that he's off the case, and Shimazu tells him to just go home and stay out of it.


Then he says this. Oh yes. This begins the great mystery of the father of the Suou clan. What's the connection between this and Katsuya's dad? We shall see...

Katsuya swears to Maya and Ulala that he'll arrest the joker, and he's coming with them. Ulala calls him a "rock-head with sideburns," which irks him, but agrees to go along with him. On the way out, there are only a couple more people to see. Saeko's upset that she managed to go work at another school where something ridiculous and evil like this happened (this being a P1 reference, not IS). She's talking to Noriko.


Hey, at least we all agree.

Next time: Something served cold!

Hey, somebody reads these! I like coughing up little phrases from other sources that I can vaguely relate to what happens in the post, and VP's soundtrack is oddly great for this. There's a lot of other musical titles as well, but I just like writing in this stuff because it makes me laugh.
Fortune Telling will be a big thing, so there'll be plenty of chances to make "Tiny Weiner" jokes
Right on all counts.

Ah I see - I just wasn't paying enough attention. Good eyes guys.

Before I knew Yukino's full name I always just thought her nickname was somewhat redundant so that's probably why that jumped out at me.

Also I don't think I've said it yet, but you're doing a great job on both of these spineshark. I've always liked Eternal Punishment, but never got a chance to play Innocent Sin so it was good to see what all went down there. Your EP looks like it'll go strong too.

I also want to chime in and say that this thread has been very interesting. I haven't had any comments to make along the way, but I am here...watching.

I'm also chiming in to say that this is a great Let's Play, it's good to finally see what IS is all about. The EP one looks great, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to bow out of this one now, since I own EP and want to re-start it after I beat Persona 1.

This really makes me want to join in and try Persona 2, but I probably shouldn't... just, you know... started Digital Devil Saga, and splitting my attention between two RPGs like that is a bad move.

Still, things continue to be awesome. I'll throw out additional thanks for keeping it going. Also, I can read the text! It's amazing! Heh.

I wish the physical manifestation of my alternate personality was a rapist kittycat that dressed all fancy.

Sumaru looks mostly the same on this side, but there are definitely some changes.
Primarily, a lot of shops have moved (their signs have all be translated, although the cool katakana logo for サトミタダシ still appears on the walls inside). Also, the Fire Station in Aoba is not marked on the map and Maya can't even attempt to enter it, while Honmaru Park in Rengedai is currently closed as well.

Gatten Sushi is now in Rengedai, and rumormonger Toro has moved with it. Talking to Kankichi will reveal that he moved the restaurant after talking to a fortune-teller. Kaori is still there, as well as a Satomi Tadashi and Velvet Room, obviously. Time Castle is there, but currently "closed" for business. The Count will tell Maya instead to "go play with your rumors." I guess he's on to something.

Kuzunoha has also moved from Hirasaka. It's in Aoba now, next to the 2xSlash (W-Slash), Parabellum (a "new" bar), Rosa Candida, and Etheria.

At Kuzunoha, Tamaki and Todoroki agree to take the case, because although they've never spread rumors before on the job, someone asked if they knew anything about the propagation of the Joker rumor. Ulala realizes this must have been the Deja Vu Boy.

Tamaki then tells them to contact "Baofu," the owner and operator of a popular rumor webpage, as well as a friend of Todoroki, to find out if he knows anything about the Joker. Maya joins a chat, with the handle "Rabbit" (hahaha) and vaguely indicates the details of their encounter. She then apparently tells him that he wouldn't believe how they survived, but he asks to meet them and claims that he'll know when he meets them.

At // Maya gets on the red iMac and continues the conversation. A strange man in a gold suit gets over and greets them, identifying himself as Baofu (Mandarin: "Revenge"), though noting that they haven't really learned how to harness their powers yet.

Everyone heads down the street to Parabellum to have a drink and go over what everyone knows. Maya, Katsuya, and Ulala explain first, then Baofu starts.
He goes on to say that he believes the Joker is connected to Tatsuzou Sudou. The big rumor in the police force and the underground is that Sudou's son Tatsuya was responsible for a series of arson and murder cases, ten years ago...Katsuya seems surprised. Baofu says he knows where the younger Sudou, uhh, "lives," and they're going to go check it out right now.

Then he remembers how ridiculous the whole "rumors become reality thing" is and decides to call the Chief to spread a rumor that the bar here sells weapons. Sure enough, some time later, the waiter arrives with a surprising new menu.

That's good news...kinda. Unfortunately, it means that Maya can't exactly have a run-in with the Joker as long as she's carrying it. And what's more important, her job, or the warnings of a weird teenaged boy?

So Maya cheerfully picks up Baofu's lighter and torches it. As they prepare to head for the unknown, Baofu remembers something. He leads the others to a place that will be of great assistance during their quests.

The Velvet Room works exactly the same as it does in IS. It does however have some of the coolest dialogue in the game.
Who is Belladonna singing about? I'm not sure myself, since it could apply to three characters I can think of...


Also, this is the one and only chance to see these dialogues, in which the other party members talk about their first thoughts on Personas. Katsuya says he remembers meeting Philmeon before, now that he thinks about it. Ulala and Maya go a ways back with this too, and Baofu...doesn't trust his Persona. He's aware of its power, and has been for a while, but he's the kind of man who only relies on himself.

His Persona is, incidentally, the Hanged Man Odysseus, since he doesn't get an introduction like the others.

Those Lovers cards are for Pixie, which is not really all that surprising if you remember the beginning of IS. Pixie is even better in this one, sort of, learning the Megido spell, and reaching even higher values of LUC by default (she'll cap at rank 8, even with no fusion or card-based stat buffs). Megido is not only one of the first all-targeting spells that can be gotten in EP, but it deals Almighty damage so as long as Pixie is useful there's no worries about anything blocking it. Pixie will go on Katsuya because Helios is bad.

Finally, Maya decides to visit a bunch of shops and see if there's anything interesting people have to talk about.
At Etheria, she finds out that even the highly gullible Ulala doesn't buy into their mystic mumbo-jumbo. That must really be hokey.

In Rosa Candida, Katsuya and Baofu talk a bit about Sumaru's history, specifically the claim that ancient ruins were found while digging a subway tunnel.

At the // there's a Wang Long expert. She'll ask what month Maya was born in, and despite there being a fan book or something with the actual date (July 4, 1976, supposedly (!!!)) this opens up a text prompt where you can type in...things. Basically you won't get a response if what you type in is not the name of a month and she'll ask you to do it again. With at least one EXTREMELY AWESOME exception. When you give the name of a month, she'll tell you about your Wang Long horoscope and how you'll be blessed by good fortune and perhaps some enlargements. Yes, there is actually kind of a point to these fortunes.

Finally, Baofu's in the party now, so who's Aoba's rumormonger? Anonymous. They post current rumor information for the epic lulz, and you can read it on (what used to be) Baofu's message board. The other rumor right now comes from Chunky at Gatten, who says Time Castle sells Spell Cards. How unuseful, we don't have the money for them.

Sudou is up in the Sanitarium on Mt. Mifune. This has confused me ever since I played Innocent Sin, because it *seems* like it's supposed to be the same as Katatsumuri in that game, but the sub-area map is completely different. I could easily buy that the Kanji were just translated differently or just crunched down because "Katatsumuri" is a lot of letters and would require refitting the text boxes. But then on the soundtrack mine says "Mt. Katatsumuri - Mifune Trail" so I have no idea. Anyway!


The front is blocked by police so Maya has to go the back way. The Mifune Trail looks like the one that PANTS used to get up to Caracol in IS, except having explored the whole thing I know that Mifune is almost completely linear. There are some boxes hidden in the woods, including Spell Cards and stuff. Maya decides to start making contracts like crazy.

Making a contract only requires two things:
Maya (or maybe any party member, but she'll be the highest for most of the game) needs to be equal or higher level to the demon
The demon needs to be "Happy" (Green) three times in the same contact.

If these two conditions are met, the demon will offer to make a contract. If the level is insufficient, then the demon will run off, maybe leaving money.

Getting Puck's attention takes the Maya + Ulala contact, where they'll have a beauty contest. He's level 6, which Maya just so happens to be, so he'll agree. Next time Maya meets him, he has a circle under him to indicate the contract.

Contracted demons will act a little differently than uncontracted ones. It's very important to figure out how to work with them *before* contracting, because if you anger a demon too much then they'll break the contract and you'll be back at square one. Making a contracted demon happy again will get them to offer a favor. You can solicit for money, an item, or information. Money is somewhat worthless, since if you really want that you can just kill stuff. (Yes, you'll get more from contracted demons, but still) Items also tend to be bad early game, either weak spell cards, or stuff Maya can buy. However, most demons don't just run around with rumors on their sleeves so that's not always a good bet either. If they don't have anything to give you though, then they'll at least fork over some cash before taking off.

Also, if you *have* a demon rumor, then a fourth option will come up, to have the demon spread it amongst the other demons. Or at least that's how I remember it working, I didn't run into many demon rumors on my first play.

On the other hand, if you make a demon interested (Yellow), the contact that would normally get them to cough up Tarot cards, they'll give you not only their standard Tarot cards but Free Tarot cards. Since Arcana like Priestess, Empress, and Hierophant don't have any demons, getting Free Cards and having Kaneko paint them in the Velvet Room is one of the only ways to summon those Personas. As it happens, Maya is contracting specifically *for* "Free" cards.

Like Pixie, Puck enjoys being questioned about ripping off Ulala. He gets excited at the thought of having done something bad, then says he did something else too!

I think you can guess what I had Katsuya say next.


About 2/3 of the way up the hill, there's a screen with a river running across it. The demons get a little higher level at this point, which means more contracts are in store, to try and get a few more cards faster. Maya, Ulala, and Katsuya convert the Chariot Ogre demons together, then Maya interviews them for cards.


(Gah, I keep taking pictures of text boxes *before* I choose. I obviously picked the last one.

For some reason, most demons are offended at the thought that Maya would not like her brain torn out and eaten)


Hidden deep in the trees is a small shrine, with a sign dedicated to a "Junnosuke Kuroda," later known as Master Fuyou. He served under another man, named "Tatsunoshin Suou."

Weird.

The shrine takes 100 Yen coins. Maya thinks it's probably a waste of money (and worse, time), but isn't *completely* sure (only about 99%) and doesn't think she'll be back here, so she decides to keep throwing them in until it seems to be full.

The shrine is pretty close to the Rear Entrance of the Sanitarium. Maya and the others hop inside to see

Baofu recognizes the guys as being part of the Tien Tao Lien, the Taiwanese mafia. Since he's supposedly from Taiwan himself, Katsuya asks if they're his "buddies," to agitate him. This kind of pisses Baofu off.


Next time: "Tell that to my f###in' dad!"

I'm just as relieved about this as anyone else. I can play off the text boxes better when they completely speak for themselves, and point out the most important lines more easily without drawing excessive attention to them, breaking up the flow too much, or anything like that.

Plus, it makes the game way easier to play, the contacts more fun and entertaining to post, and a bunch of other stuff. It's just great all-around.

On the other hand, I apologize for being inconsistent as hell with all the names. Spell names, characters who have different names in the English version than Japanese...it's like I pick randomly from post to post.

Man, PANTS is some kind of badass this time around, huh? I could get used to this.


Is there anything special to know about "playing Persona"? I assume it's something that was explained in the original game.

Not especially. You walk around in circles for a minute, then right when you're about to ask yourself what the point is and why the hell you're doing this, you get knocked out and meet Philemon. Then you don't remember it very well unless you're already teenaged for some reason.

You can watch the first scene of Persona 1 to see if that says anything I haven't though. (Aside from, "Shut up! This is for all you can eat!") I don't think it will explain much...if Earthbound is the "quirkiest" RPG there is, then Persona 1 is the Just Plain Fucking Weirdest. (If I beat it before the end of this LP I'll probably make a post like the one Turnip did for Devil Summoner, albeit stupider. It will be called "Fuse me with a cute girl! Let's *not* play Revelations: Persona")

I doubt that Baofu's coins can put a hole in anyone's faces.

I actually really hate this choice, since not only does it do nothing (as usual) but both of the options are really wussy. No "shut up and let's get going" or anything. Baofu says the dead guys were sent as hitmen by Tatsuzou, and when Katsuya doesn't understand why he'd do such a thing, Baofu says that's what they want to find out.


In the Velvet Room, Maya talks to Kaneko. She asks him to paint 45 of the (46) "Free" cards she has into Empress Tarot. She then talks to Igor to summon the Arianrhod Persona, only to realize that nobody is high enough level to make this Persona. Arianrhod is level 15, but somebody has to be within five of that. Baofu joined at level 8, which was the highest at the time, but now he's only level 9. After fighting a couple battles, she returns.


The spell in blue is one learned through Spell Cards. Each persona you summon normally (i.e. not through Philemon's "giving you free stuff" in IS, or Mutations) can be taught *one* spell through cards. There are restrictions, of course. At the very least, you can't give Personas spells which are totally opposite from them. Jack Frost can't be taught Agi spells, for example. Other than that, I think there aren't really limits and you could give Pixie Megidolaon. But I haven't tried! (The Annihilation Card is expensive and I registered the first one I got)

Arianrhod starts with Zan, which sucks, and will learn Straight Slash (bad), Hama (not especially good), Dia (too expensive on this Persona), Wall of Air (probably not useful enough), and Zionga (sweet!). Lightning magic is harder to get than Almighty in Persona 2 which is kind of wrong, except most Almighty magic sucks. (On the other hand, there aren't any Maha ZioWhatever spells either, although the All-Hit lightning stuff is alright). Arianrhod is strong against Physical and weak to Magic. This is a little bad, since Magic is more likely to be all-targeted, but whoever's wearing her will generally be okay. For now, it's Ulala, so that she can form Ominous Waterfall with Maya while Pixie and Odysseus use Ryuhi Tensho (any Wind + any Wind)

"I am the silver wheel, Arianrhod...The one who destroys evil with the rainbow...I'll be etched with you on the scribes of fate!"

Moving on.

There are still Ogres in this place, so Maya takes her last chance to squeeze a little more out of the contract. The Ogre asks Maya what the square box that humans look at at home is.

"Television" usually frightens demons in EP, occasionally angering them. (In IS, it makes them Angry and sometimes Interested) Frightening demons is hugely ineffective since you can get them to go away by making them happy, too, or just end the battle with interest. Worse, there's almost no contact that's any good for it until after the factory dungeon. I don't know why I didn't take my chances with something better.

In room 206 a nurse tells everyone that the patient in room 303...Sudou, that is, summoned a bunch of demons who went and killed a lot of people. As the party passes by 303, Katsu leads everyone inside. Katsuya is drawn to the wall, which features pictures of the Joker's targets. Maya looks at something scrawled on the walls...



Baofu reads it. (I didn't remember this was in EP until after I got past this part in LPIS, which sucks, because I would've used it instead of the other translation) Interestingly, it doesn't have the last line about "time winding backwards" this time. Katsuya and Ulala guess it's some kind of prophecy, referring to things that...already didn't happen.

Maya collapses and Ulala asks if her chest is hurting again. She tells Katsuya that she got a weird bruise after meeting Deja Vu Boy.


There are copies of it written literally all over the walls and floor. There's also a strange drawing of an eye, and a butterfly...


The encounters are all easy in the Sanitarium, they don't even have the kamikaze move that the Zombies on Mifune did. However, this one really sucks. Robin Goodfellow's Maha Magnus will rip up Ulala and Katsuya (because Pixie is weak to Earth) while the two Erinys screw everyone else up with status effects. Maya is practically invincible to all this, and she already has Diarama if they use physical attacks, but she still decides it's not worth bothering.

There's a couple of good treasures here as well, a Mithril Silver (which will be useful much later) and an AGI Incense (I don't know who gets this yet). On 4F, Ulala and Katsuya gain a level right in front of the Director's Office, restoring their HP and SP. Excellent!


Sudou's got a pretty big monologue here, where he confesses to the murders 10 years ago ("The voices won't let me off with just arson.") He's lashing out at his dad and preparing to bust out of the Sanitarium for good. Katsuya asks how he gained so much power locked in a little room for ten years.



Sudou's phone rings, he says there are people outside calling him. Baofu looks through the window and seems to recognize them, so he excuses himself. Jerk. Sudou tells the men outside to relay a message to his father: "I'm coming for you!" He then explains that he's trying to restore the "Other Side," because "This Side" is all wrong.


He thinks Maya is just pretending not to understand, then he unleashes his Hellhound on the party, telling them to come to the Sky Museum in Konan if they survive. I wish this LP could include music better, but I *really* wish it featured voices, because Sudou's screeching is hilarious. As are classy battle cries like "Don't underestimate me, you *bleep*in' bastards!!!" (Ulala) and "It's whoop-ass time!" (Maya, of course)


I had a lot of trouble with the Hellhound the first time I played because Baofu isn't in the party for this fight and I had run away from a ton of enemies. This time I just had to have Katsuya heal the person with the lowest health every time while Maya and Ulala spammed Ominous Waterfall (Any Water + Any Water). Arianrhod costs 10 SP for Ulala to summon, which is why she needed the refill before entering the room, but the boss runs out of HP long before she can't summon anymore. Outside, Ulala yells at Baofu and Katsuya tries to call his superiors until Baofu convinces him not to bother.

Konan is open on the map now, since that's Maya's next destination.

At her apartment, Ulala tells her that she's been practicing Flamenco dancing. Katsuya asks if there's been a break-in, but this is all just because Maya is a messy woman. Ulala will tell Maya not to go back into her room if she tries to open the door. I'm sure it's funnier to imagine what she might have back there anyway.


At the police station, Maya will hear how popular Katsuya is with all the female officers, but also that he sacrifices a lot for his family, especially his younger brother. (He actually wanted to be a professional chef, or at least I remember that being what turns up later.)


The Sumaru Genie's fortunes are now wildly inaccurate, and it's been widely suggested that she switch to using Wang Long for better clairvoyance.


The pirate is now the Konan Rumormonger, as well as selling drinks. I'll finally actually bring up the food system in a couple updates, because usually it's almost pointless.


Mary still works at Hiragi Therapy, continuing to traumatize, err...help people. She recognizes Maya as a Persona user (and Katsuya can tell she is, as well) and asks if she knows Yukino.

Maya doesn't want to shop at Satomi Tadashi, but she does chat people up because that's what she always does.

His son also happens to be on a field trip to the Museum today. Oh, no...you can't be serious, man!


Actually, if what Ulala was babbling about was important at all, I'm sure she'd just be able to say it.

Next time: Flowers for PANTS

The scene with Sudou reminds me that Katsuya is one of the only characters with decent voice acting in this game.

Inside the Air Museum, Katsuya freaks out about all the kids. He starts to plan evacuating them, when suddenly somebody else catches Maya's eye.


They recognize one another, and realize they met at the train station. Their encounter is cut short when the Joker calls out on the announcement system.

The Air Museum works pretty much the same way it did in IS. There's one fewer group of kids to rescue on 4F, and the time limit has been cut back to 30 minutes (which is still not at all stringent) but it's the same quick little dungeon it was before.

On 2F, in the room overhanging the lobby, Maya is strangely drawn to the balcony overlooking the plane. She looks down and doesn't see anything, though, so she asks Ulala if she heard a young girl's voice. She has no idea what Maya's talking about.


Today's fun contact is with Star Kimnara. This is probably my second favorite demon question (after "Why Humans hair on head only?"). Answering "Humans" to this question usually doesn't work so well.


On the roof, Sudou is holding Jun, trying to make him remember that he was the Joker on the "Other Side." He's also trying to make Maya remember. He counts down and PANTS tells everyone to jump out of the way as a bomb explodes under their feet.


As Maya tries to help him up, the Joker moves to kill her, but Jun pushes him into the hole. They pull PANTS up and everyone gets onto the blimp with the kids. The same FMV from IS plays as the blimp takes off, with a tiny bit added near the end showing everyone inside of it. It's a bit silly looking really.

Katsuya asks his brother how he learned to fly the blimp, to which he only says "I saw it once."

After weighing his regard for Maya's safety against her demonstrably poor vehicular operation skills, he tells Jun to manage the blimp. He heads out back, telling everyone to stay where they are, but everyone heads out to see what's going on.

Out back are Sudou and PANTS. One of the Tatsuyas just lost half his face in a fire for the second time and he's not happy. He laments what seems to be his "destiny," but PANTS says there's no such thing as destiny-the future can always be changed.

The Joker starts howling about voices again and prepares to attack. PANTS tells everyone to stand back. Yeah right, a teenaged boy against a super-powered serial killer? The Joker also summons two Shax demons and two Minotaurs.


Oh.

PANTS is pretty much invincible in this battle, but Apollo starts at rank 1. Fortunately the Shax are weak to fire anyway, so he fries the two of them with Agidyne and then starts punching the Joker over and over. Maya heals with Media while the other three perform Cyclone Slash (Any Wind/Any Water/Maha Garu (or its superior versions)). It hits all enemies and the Minotaur demons take a lot of damage from it, so they're quickly cleaned up.

The Joker's persona is just this weird...Joker thing. He casts Agilao a lot, but after the demons are gone he starts using Old Maid as well. This is very annoying.

Old Maid chooses a random party member and will cause them to cast "Joker" instead of whatever their next action is supposed to be. Joker does substantial damage to the rest of the party. This can be avoided by having the character in question use Defend instead of their normal actions, but since you can't tell who it is, there's no way to be sure unless everyone is defending. Anyway it's not like he really hits that hard, so everyone just keeps going until it blows up, except PANTS because if he used it everyone else would die.

As he dies, Sudou triumphantly shrieks that the Joker rumors won't die. Then the blimp starts to crash. PANTS starts kicking everyone off.


PANTS disappointedly notes that he has nothing to give back, then he sends Jun off. Finally he tries to tell Maya once again to stay out of trouble...

On the beach, Katsuya wonders where his brother went, but Baofu says he's just trying to avoid everyone and that he knows what he's doing at least as well as anybody else.


Ulala's relieved that the Joker is dead and convinces herself that all this trouble is over, even though Baofu says they still have no idea what's happening. Katsuya tries to call his superiors but Baofu again tells him that they're not going to do anything useful about it. They get in another little spat and Suou heads back to the station to communicate with his superiors.


He asks Maya if she's quitting too, before heading back to his lair. She shakes her head "no."

Next Time: It's amazing what you'll find, face to face!

Does anyone else have trouble keeping EP and IS straight? Maybe it's just because I suck at names.

Here's a character primer for Innocent Sin, written to the best of my ability based on this thread (and a little bit of Wikipedia to fill in the cracks). Our resident Megaten freaks can correct me on anything I left out or got wrong.

Realizing that these are different people makes the shrine backstory a lot more comprehensible. No wonder Suou needed a clearly distinguishable nickname.

Well done. I only see two things:

Kashihara's first name is "Akinari" but this never came up in the thread before because I'm not sure where it's ever mentioned and I had to look it up just now.

Also, the Sudou from the oracle is Tatsuya, not his father. I apologize if I left that unclear. He was a student at Sevens under Kashihara and Okamura at the time.

Ah! So Leo's even more important than I originally thought. That makes his role in EP much more understandable.

Wow, I just was surfing Wikipedia yesterday to get straight characters and game names, too. The whole mechanic of belief influencing reality complicates plotlines enough, but it gets a lot more confusing when you throw in a large cast, Hitler, similar names, surname first in Japanese , Hitler, rebooted continuity, evil twins, Hitler, resurrection via rumor, cameos from a game you might not have played and Hitler.

Hitler

Is it weird that I expected the mystery of who the new Joker was to last a lot longer? It seems like they'd just raised the issue when they decided to say, "Yeah, hey, it's Sudou."

oh, this plot will get thicker.

With nobody to pester, or rather, talk to, Maya heads back to Kismet. The receptionist tells her that Mizuno's on her case again. What a shock!

When Maya enters Mizuno has just finished a conference with a freaky woman, Chizuru Ishigami. She was responsible for the rise of the Wang Long craze in Sumaru. When she sees Maya she's very interested by her "aura" and offers to give her a reading.


It seems bothersomely accurate, as she even seems to know about the "Other Side" as well...but then she leaves because she has to go record down at Sumaru TV (right down the block, but still). Mizuno yells at Maya and tells her to get to work. Apparently she's not impressed by the rescue of dozens of young children from a psychopathic arsonist and murderer.

Out in the staff room, everyone's crowded around the TV. Chizuru has a big fortune-telling event, which is about to start. As it begins, she's asked what the Joker's true identity is, and so she begins to "explain":



The "Kegare" builds up in those who have evil thoughts or deeds, and will in some cases posess them, particularly those who have called the Joker. Anyone who used the Joker Curse, she says, becomes a Joker.

Well shit. Looks like we just replaced one crazy bastard with who-knows-how-many more.


Baofu is checking his wiretaps on Tatsuzou Sudou again back at his little dungeon. He finds that they're planning to whack somebody. And they may have found his bugs too. That's nice.

At the Police Station Katsuya gives his report, and Shimazu tells him to get his head checked. Suou protests of course, as he...should? It is all pretty crazy.

Eventually the Chief of Police dismisses him and tells him to stay out of it any more. The two know, even as he leaves, that of course he's not going to, but they don't pursue any further.


The other man in the room is this sinister looking guy, who was also the one who called Sudou at the Sanitarium. Shimazu gives him a list of phone records-people who apparently called the Joker by dialing their own numbers-and gives him a rather vague instruction. Checking the list, the man notices one name right away.

"Serizawa."

Meanwhile, at Gold, Ulala hears from an employee the new rumor that those who used the Joker Curse are cursed to become Jokers themselves. The scene finally cuts back to Kismet.

The news is now on, and Maya learns that there's been a big coverup about the recent events. Particularly at the Sanitarium, which has apparently been destroyed, with the official story stating that there was a gas explosion. In the lobby Baofu is waiting for her, and they swap the information they've just gained before agreeing to head off for Katsuya.


At the Police Station, Katsuya admits that his superiors are definitely fucking things up, but Baofu's much anticipated "I told you so" moment is interrupted by Maya's ringtone. Ulala is begging for help. Katsuya and Baofu immediately begin wondering who she might've had a hit on, and when Maya thinks, she suddenly remembers something...very strange.


She has an inexplicable memory of Ulala trying to kill a con man in the boxing room at GOLD. But she doesn't know his name or anything about him. Baofu suggests that they check out someone in Hirasaka who used to be a man-searcher.

That person happens to be someone we all know and love from IS.

She denies any such rumors, but gives them a tip anyway. Also, since Honmaru Park is closed in EP and there's already a Rengedai rumormonger in Gatten Sushi, Toku lives at Shiraishi. He doesn't have anything useful at the moment.

Katsuya, Baofu and Maya take up a small table near the door and start listening for conversation. Sure enough, there's a guy chatting up a woman who has apparently amassed quite a savings to give to him. Just as things might go really bad, the two men approach. They say they're police officers looking for a "Makimura" who's being pursued for fraud. Makimura tries to save face by denying it, of course. In this moment, Katsuya and Baofu play their trump card. Katsuya explains that they were sent to guard the criminal, whoever he is, because of the fear that she called the Joker to get revenge on him.

This is the sort of powerful persuasion that works wonders. Baofu warns the woman to be less stupid next time.

Most of the talk around town actually sucks this time around. At Lunar Palace Makimura will ask Maya if she made this mess. If she says "No" he'll denounce Ulala for lying and ask who she is to judge him. If she says yes he'll flirt with her, saying he thinks it's attractive to be messy. Ick. Everything else he has to say is worse, and as he goes on about forgetting girls' names and being cheap and conning them you really just want to smash his face in.

Baofu divides his thoughts between saying bad things about Makimura (because he's an ass) and Ulala (because she's got terrible taste in men, clearly), and trying to ponder more about Tatsuzou's schemes. He's certain he's behind the ploy to create more Jokers, but he can't figure out why...

At Etheria though, he only has this to say:


Ulala is still at Gold in Yumezaki. Except I was a little tired after playing this part and haven't finished the dungeon yet (it's pretty much the shortest in the entire game) so I'll try and get the rest of this part up tonight.

(For some reason I have less pictures here than I thought I did. I'll have to check the folder again because I really wish I had a couple of the "missing" ones)

Actually, there are a couple more things to check out.


At the Araya Shrine Jun is sitting around. The same old woman is also there. Jun has a strange feeling about this place. That can't be good.


Michelle, his band ("Gas Chamber," since I never mentioned it before), and Miyabi are all in Sumaru Prison. Katsuya appears lost in thought; when Makimura asks what he's thinking about, he replies that he's considering throwing him in here.

Giga Macho in Yumezaki is called "Seedy CD" in English EP. It's one of the most brilliant bits in the localization. Right now Maya can buy a few CDs to play on her apartment's stereo but this is just a sound-test type thing and therefore pointless in a visual representation of the game. It's also an optional dungeon, but it's not open yet.


Kasugayama High School is also an optional dungeon, and a bigger and more useful one at that. In particular, there's lots to do in the bomb shelter where PANTS and his friends were Alone in the Dark in Innocent Sin, but not yet. It's also useful if Maya just wants to level up Personas (because she can get into a weak battle where she can't be killed and cast spells that won't kill the enemies) or meet with old contracted demons.

Maya also got and spread a rumor that the Sumaru Genie does Wang Long readings now. She decides to check it out. The Genie informs her that her experience gains will increase, but the money earned from battles will decrease.

Finally, before heading to Gold she and the others stop by Parabellum for a drink. Food will temporarily increase one of a character's stats for a while. Some is bad, and some is great. Generally the most useful is the +8 TEC bonus since spells are so important in EP. This can be from the "Magnum" drink at Parabellum, but since a certain character who joins later in the game is not old enough to drink he can eat one of the foods at Gatten for an equivalent buff. There's also a +15 LUC food which is good sometimes but it won't be available for a while, and even then, its vendor is sometimes unreachable.

The food effects eventually wear off, and one by one the party members will start to complain again that they're hungry.


At Gold everyone is in the lobby because one of the female patrons went crazy. Everyone knows what that means. She's locked herself in the Boxing Gym and nobody out here has a key. Maybe someone inside...

Gold takes about 10 minutes in EP, unless you're spending extra time there for some reason. With TEC +8 bonuses Cyclone Slash will basically one-shot everything except Magician Faust demons (which I hate and just contact off with Katsuya) and Tengu (who void Wind, which is very annoying. They're unthreatening, though, so Maya can just run). There are only two open rooms.


In the equipment room Maya hallucinates a huge weight falling from the ceiling right in front of her (sadly, I didn't manage to get a good picture). Nobody else saw anything.


The only other room (Women's Locker Room, 3F, which also happens to be the room with the Oracle in IS) contains a suspicious guy who hands over the key to Maya without incident. Maya decides to talk to Katsuya on her way out, and he asks how she got the key. She tells him a panty thief gave it to her. So his usual chivalry leads him to kick the guy's ass.



Pixie still doesn't know Megido so outside the boxing gym Katsuya grinds her up to rank 8. Baofu is also hoping to learn Soothing Melody on Odysseus since Media is pretty weak in EP but it's not really important because this boss battle doesn't even require healing.

Inside the Gym Katsuya and Baofu tell Ulala that they've got Makimura and that she doesn't need to worry anymore. The Joker gleefully turns around and tells everyone the truth of the matter: Maya was the person she asked the Joker to kill. Her Joker/Persona thing appears.



Joker Ulala is really easy. She punches. She has Old Maid. She casts Maha Garu. And she uses Gigan(tic) Fist. She also uses Fata Morgana (all-target, chance of inflicting Illusion status) when low on HPs. Unlike in IS, "Illusion" status greatly increases the chances of attacks and spells to miss so it's actually really annoying. Maya casts Wall of Air once at the beginning of the battle and it seems to last the whole time, then uses Aqua repeatedly. Baofu weakly attacks her and Katsuya brings the big damage with Megido.


Ulala says that she was always jealous of Maya, because she seemed to have a purposeful and successful life, while Ulala could never stick with anything for a long time. Makimura says that they should "finish her off" while they can. Katsuya gets ready to punch him.



Hey, a decision that actually affects something! I don't really care what gets chosen, it's going to be plenty interesting either way.

Next Time: I shall cleave into your flesh!

It's kind of weird if you know IS, but it's really weird if you play EP first. He comes out of nowhere with his backstory pretty much not explained at all, he's in a bunch of scenes that really don't make sense, then he dies 5 hours into the game even as it looks as if they were setting him up for "Major Villain" status.

Alas, this part was a bit of a dead spot, plot-wise, but it'll start to pick back up next time, and after that...