They say hell is for children. Let's find out if that's true or not with Persona 1!

The fourth floor has a dark area, where everything is... dark. The automap maps where you've walked though, so it isn't that bad. For posterity's sake, here's a full map of the dark area.


The fifth floor leads to what seems like a dead end, but really it's a "fall through the floor" thing. It isn't nearly as terrible as Kama Palace in the SEBEC story though. You just have to keep walking around until you hit the first floor.

In other news, those gold foxes up there? Yeah, be careful around them, because they have Makarakarn. When your battle strategy consists of "Everyone cast your Maha-dyne spells!", this can lead to a potentially nasty situation. The spells will only reflect and hit the caster, but it'll kill them dead just the same. The only reason I survived was because Yukino had been Closed, and didn't cast anything. That was a stroke of luck, let me tell you, because Close 1 doesn't guarantee your spells will be canceled.

Carrie also hangs around here. I recall her being in the Otherworld School in the SEBEC story, but her appearing in Nemesis Tower is hilarious. She reflects guns, so don't shoot her (Nanjou, Ellie and Mara Ring would probably die if their guns got reflected back at them).

There's unfortunately no treasure down here besides the mirror fragment, which I didn't pick up. All that's left to do is climb back up the torture chamber and take the left door.


...which inevitably leads to treasure. The first chest Mara Ring opens is a trap, and he takes damage. The others have actual items inside, though: The Fuuma Short Sword (ふうまのわきざし), a one handed sword that's slightly weaker than the Mail Breaker but hits twice, boosts Strength and Agility by 2, and can inflict Bind. Mara Ring's gonna take this, because Ellie has her rifles and Phaleg's Twin Slash for regular damage.

There's also a Shadow Needle (シャドウニードル) for Yukino, but it's only one point stronger than her current weapon, it hits only 2~4 times and doesn't cause any status effect, so she doesn't equip it. There's a Queen Beauty (クィーンビュート) for Ayase, that's stronger than her Strike Tail, gives +2 to Vitality and Agility, and can inflict Charm. She definitely equips it.

There's a spear for Brown that can inflict sleep and gives him +5 agility, which seems like a good deal. But for us, its useless.

Overall though, that's a decent haul!


Up on the fifth floor, there's a room. Before entering, Nanjou switches his Persona to Aizen Myouo so he doesn't have to waste a turn in battle, and I put him and my healers (Ayase and Ellie) towards the back.

The room is empty, but everyone seems to think there's something waiting for us behind the door. But I can see on the automap, there's just a regular ol' hallway behind it!

...except going through the door doesn't take us back to the dungeon, but into a room with weird ass faces on the walls.

Here's the deal: Those empty rooms are on the fifth, sixth and eighth floors. If you take the Mirror Fragment from the first floor, you'll randomly wind up in her room at one of these points. If you ignore the fragment, she'll always appear on the fifth floor.

...I think.

Michiko appears.

She's shocked that you didn't get the Mirror Fragment, and instead came to fight her. She villain rambles about how there hasn't been enough time for Toro and Akuma-kun to sink into despair. Nemesis becomes more powerful by feeding on the negative emotions of humans.

Michiko says she feels a sick, ugly feeling inside, instead of the anger and frustration of those being tortured. It's Toro's and Akuma-kun's appreciation and feelings of friendship for the party, because TPA rushed to save them. She bitches about how TPA screwed everything up by being unnatural and putting the needs of others before themselves.

Ayase says that they can probably get by with just 8 fragments, so I guess that's the cut off number for the good ending path?

The party does some more collective smack talking, "Michiko you suck you should care about people blah blah friendship etc." Michiko tells them to shut up/how dare they talk to the Beautiful Michiko that way/everyone who enters Nemesis Tower will kneel before her and die.

Ellie tells Michiko that beauty is only skin deep and jesus christ almighty, they finally shut up. Michiko says it's a dog eat dog world and you have to rely on yourself. She summons Nemesis.

...by shouting:
"Nemesis-sama! Become my armor!
Nemesis-sama! Become a sword to bring ruin to my enemies!
Come Nemesis-sama, my other self!
Nemesis Power! Build Up!"


And the battle begins.

I'm fighting Level 31 Nemesis. Like Hypnos, there are multiple versions you can fight. Level 31 is the weakest. The two variables that determine which form you fight are: (A) Whether or not you're doing Nemesis Tower last (if so, Nemesis is stronger); and (B) How long it took you to get to boss room. If you get to the boss in under 20 minutes, you'll fight the weakest. If it takes you between 20 minutes and an hour, you'll fight a stronger version, and if you take over an hour you'll fight the toughest version. All together, there are six forms.

...there's not much of a difference between the forms. Compared to the weakest version, the strongest only has, like, +12 to all stats and twice as many HP.

Nemesis has the abilities Mahaziodyne (マハジオダイン), Decover (デカバー, prevents the target from recovering HP), Tarunda (タルンダ), Dragon Spinner (りゅうがせんかい - 竜駕旋回, Spear damage）, Petra Eyes (ペトラアイズ, Petrifies target), and something called Revenge Ring (リベンジリーク).

I don't know exactly what Revenge Ring does, but I'm guessing it deals the amount of damage you've inflicted? Or something? I've never seen it in practice.

Basically, there's not much you need to worry about in this fight. Nemesis is weak to elemental magic, and she does... something with Photon magic.

In any case, here's the battle plan:

• Mara Ring casts Megidolaon (although I had him using Lithographs to see what all hurt her)
• Yukino casts Bufula
• Ayase uses Elemental Lithographs.
• Nanjou casts Makakaja.
• Ellie can use either Tarunda, or if you want her to actually be useful, Megidolaon.

...Nemesis isn't very strong. You can see, again, the experience scaling quirk, where Nanjou gets more than anyone despite doing nothing but casting Makakaja.


After the battle, Nanjou tells Michiko that she has decidedly lost. Michiko launches into her sob story: She is a poor little rich girl. She leaves, swearing she'll have her revenge on the party one day.

And that's the last we'll be hearing of Michiko.

After she leaves, we get an Ambrosia (アンブロシア). Ooooh, how mysterious! I wonder what it could be for? We also get another Mirror Fragment (かがみのはへん).

Yukino is worried about running into her again, but then remembers Akuma-kun and Toro. They should be free now that Nemesis has been defeated.


And we're dumped back in Heeho-kun's room. For no reason whatsoever, let's go check on Toro in the cafeteria!

He thanks Mara Ring for saving him and Akuma-kun, and says that on the way back from the tower, Akuma-kun found some shiny things on the ground. He says he has no use for them, but thinks that Mara Ring might be able to use them. He hands over two Mirror Fragments (かがみのはへん).

You'll get one from Toro anyway, I think, regardless of your actions in the Tower. But you'll get the second one if you didn't take the one from the tower's 1F. In other words, we didn't actually miss a shard by not taking the one from the 1F. Looks like everything worked out for the best!

Here's our current time:
The first save is after entering the Frozen Castle, the second is after completing Hypnos Tower (and running around the Devil's Mountain for a bit), and the third one is after getting the Fragments from Toro. That should... tell you a lot about the game.

Current number of Mirror Fragments: Six

Next Time: It's highly unlikely there will be a next time, as it is extremely possible that Turnip will kill himself while attempting the next dungeon. That, and it probably wont be up until next Friday or Saturday.

...I need time to mentally prepare myself.

I dunno, Persona 2 is pretty straight forward. Innocent Sin is the easiest game in the series.

Oooh, but a couple of years later, it ended up on the PC! It made it so EXP was divided equally among all party members and you could turn off battle animations. I kinda want the PC version!

Since I have no specific reply to this Part, I'll just take the opportunity to point out that Yukino's design in this game is exponentially superior to her Kangol hat/yellow pants get-up in P2.





"Japanese girl delinquent" is a character type that deserves so much more love than it gets.

Yeah, there's not a whole lot to say about Nemesis Tower. It's definitely the easiest and I really should have done it first so I could get another Ambrosia.



Beg pardon?

Wow, that makes a lot more sense than "Karma."

So, uh, is the rumormonger Toro from P2 the same as the Toro from P1? I would assume he is, given that Hannya makes a return appearance as well...

Yes.

There's also:

Hannya (Revelations: "Harding") - Principal at Sevens
Saeko ("Smith") - Teacher at Sevens
Nanjou ("Nate") - TO THE NO. 1
Eri ("Ellen") - Fashion Model
Tamaki (...but she's a student in if... too, I guess they're just that close) - works at Kuzunoha
Yukino - Photographer
Maki ("Mary") - works at Hiiragi
Brown ("Brad") - has a Sumaru TV show or something
Reiji ("Chris") - works with Toro
Kandori ("Guido Sardenia," the apparent villain of the SEBEC story) - mysteriously reappears from the dead
Nyarlathotep (not relevant in the Snow Queen) and Philemon
Yamaoka ("Alfred") - Nate's "ultimate" Persona

Can't think of anyone else right now.

So since EP makes references to both this and the SEBEC game, all of this happens while Brown and Mark are in jail?

Sounds like they're the lucky ones.

How could you list My Honey and leave out My Darling?

I'm chalking it up to a good faith mistake on Atlus USA's part (just like "Fury" from "Houri"). I wouldn't have known if I didn't have Persona World Guidance.

Even though we didn't take him along, it's time to reveal the mystery that is Brown's nickname:
When he was in middle school, Brown was a loser. More of a loser than he is now, even. Japanese middle schools apparently have really bad bullying going on. Not being a Japanese middle school student nor having any desire to be, don't know if there's any truth to that or not.

Anyway, the school bathrooms are really disgusting (if you went to public school and have a penis, you probably already know this), and apparently a lot of bullying takes place in them.

One day, our tubby loser Brown needs to poop. But he doesn't want to go to the bathrooms, because they're icky and full of bullies. So he holds it in.

...the human body can only hold it in for so long and, well... Brown.

Now you know that horrifying detail about Brown's past, I'm sure you'll be able to sleep easier.

HEY TYRANTS: INTERACTIVITY TIME!
Let's assume that there's a sealed door with candles on either side of it. To open the door, we have to blow out one of the candles. Which candle do we blow out? The left one or the right one?

Thanks for that detail on Brown's nickname. Now we know, and knowing leads to mental scarring and terrified children.

Anyway, the dice told me to tell you that blowing out the right candle will surely result in good things.

Thanks for that, Kishi. Thanks.

Commercial Break: Looking for a Fool


In preparation for the next dungeon, we're gonna need to fuse up some new Personas. So let's fuse together Shiki Zombie-chan with Chirei Leprechaun so we can get STAR Janus:


Janus, Roman God of Gates, learns the abilities Magna (マグナ), Spin Kick (スピンキック), Endless White (えいえんのしろ, 永遠の白）, Undying Darkness (ふめつのく -不滅の黒, if you expect this to be the same as Endless White except Necromancy-based, you'd be correct）, Mahagarula (マハガルーラ), and Maharagion (マハラギオン). Janus's wide variety of spell attribute types makes it a great Persona to have in a SEBEC playthrough. Here, though, not quite as much since we, in theory, have an endless supply of Maha-dyne spells.

Janus drains Terra, nulls Photon and is weak to Weak Boson and Air. Since Janus is a Star Persona... the only Star Persona in the game, it can only be equipped by females. I'm sure it'll be fine on Ayase or Yukino.

Let's through in a Winter Lithograph (とうまのせきばん) so Janus can also learn Mahabufudyne. It'll be a straight up Elemental-based killer!

Let's just confirm our fusion here and watch the animation and...

BWAAAAH???? That's not Janus! That's not Janus at all! Why, it's Fool Tenjiku Tokubei!

Ah yes, Fool Personas are "secret" Personas: They can only be obtained through fusion accidents. But you, yes YOU, can fuse your very own Fool Persona by following these easy directions:

The chance of a of fusion accident happening is determined by the fusion compatibility. Neutral fusions (White icons, Holy Light x Elemental) have a 1/8 chance of an accident; Good fusions (Blue icons, Holy Light x Holy Light) have a 1/16 chance of an accident; and Bad fusions (Red icons, Holy Light x Evil Dark) have a 1/4 chance of an accident.

However! When an accident does occur, Neutral fusions have a 1/32 chance of creating a Fool, Good Fusions have a 4/32 chance, and Bad Fusions have a 2/32 chance.

If you take out your mathemajiggers, you'll find that, by a wide margin, Bad Compatibility Fusions are better for Fool makin'

You can use Spell Stones/Lithographs to give Fools magic, and you can have them inherit spells.

Fools aren't totally random, though. You can "select" which Fool you want to make by making sure the average level of the demons you're using in fusion are within a certain range. For Tenjiku, those levels are 27 or below. For Narukami, it's 28~44, and for ... the last one, Kamakura-something, it's anything over level 44.


Tenjiku Tokubei learns the abilities Sweet Trap (スウィートトラップ, randomly drops a giant punk rabbit/a bucket/a vending machine/etc on one enemy for some damage), Quicka (クイッカ, gives Counter status), Mahamagnus (マハマグナス), Makakaja (マカカジャ), Samrecarm (サマリカーム) and Fire Breath (ファイアブレス). He's also getting Mahabufudyne from the Winter Lithograph.

Offensively, he's not much to look at. Sweet Trap does piddling damage (compared to the Maha-dyne spells we've become accustomed to) and is really only good for ranking him up. Makakaja and Samrecarm, on the other hand? Absolutely beautiful. Samrecarm fully revives one ally, and Makakaja is the all important buff spell. Tenjiku is the second of the three Personas capable of casting it.

Oh, and Mr. Tenjiku? He only takes 25% damage. From everything.

For a quick recap, we now have in our possession:
Two (2) Judgment Personas that null magic, One (1) Moon Persona that drains magic and bad status, and one (1) Fool Persona that only takes 1/4 the damage a normal person would be taking.

...too bad we're not strong enough to use him just yet. To the Devil's Mountain!


I forgot to mention it, but if you talk to Yukino in the classrooms, you'll be able to assemble the mirror. It only shows the FMV for the last piece you obtained, so even though this is the first time I've talked to her, it's already half assembled.

On to an hour or so of grinding Mara Ring up to PLvl 30!

Here's one of Persona's many, many annoying demon speech patterns. Fuck you, Atlus.

Also I learned that if a Demon is both Angry and Interested, and you ask them to give you something, they'll give you a quick strike to the ribs to damage you. Just ask for a Spell Card instead.

Once Mara Ring reaches PLevel 30:

Tenjiku is of a rather impressive stature. It's just unfortunate that he has but four frames of animation. That is not a hyperbole.

Now that we have that, Lilim goes to Nanjou because he's the only other one who can equip her and his Fuutai goes to Ayase since she doesn't really need Ame no Uzume to cast Media anymore.

HEY TYRANTS: You still have time to decide on which candle to blow out: Left or Right.

Left.

He who conquers the left side conquers the world.

Left. Right? Left!

Left.

why can't you guys be like Rai?

Part VII: In which is becomes increasingly apparent that Atlus hates you and your children


Before we take on the last tower, let's head to Judgment 1999 and scratch up some change. There's a Dice Game that works exactly the same as it does in Soul Hackers. It's inferior to Poker because the winnings cap is 10,000 instead of 1,000,000.

Anyway, we play Poker until we have 1,119,470 coins. Mara Ring picks up all the Material Items for completion's sake, as well as about 12~13 of the lithographs they have. You know, in case we need to sell them off for cash to buy armor and weapons.

Now would be a fantastic time to save in the Nurse's office.


The entrance to Thanatos Tower is located in the classroom behind the library. Thanatos Tower is the giant monolith. Since it isn't very interesting to look at, let's pretend that that it's actually a body horror.

The entryway is a short hallway that leads into a single room.


Yukino: "Don't you think there's something strange about this room...?"
Voice: "Hooray! Everyone's here! Welcome, welcome to the Domain of Thanatos! Who's talking? It's everyone's favorite idol, Yamamoto Yuriko!"
>A girl with some serious Farrah hair teleports in.
Nanjou: "Is this supposed to be a joke? For the love of god, speak like an adult." (Yuriko speaks in the Irritating-Cutesy-Japanese-Squeaky-Japanese-Girl Dialect. It is one of many reasons I want to kick her teeth in.
Ayase: "Huh? What's up with the way you talk? It's totally weird."
Yuriko: "Whaaaaaat? Weird? Are you jealous of how ultra cute I am!? Do you think it's some sorta crime to be this cute? Do you think I should apologize for being so awesome? Hahahaha!"

Nanjou tells her to shut up and get out of the way, or get ready to fight. Yuriko says she's just here to tell them how to open the door: If one of the candles is put out, the door will open. She disappears.

Since you assholes said left, Mara Ring blows out the left candle.


Mara Ring collapses and Yuriko reappears.
Yuriko: "Hahaha, look what I caught! Look what I caught! You thought it'd be a breeze to come and get me, didn't ya? Well let me let you in on a little secret: This world is give and take! You want to enter my tower and do take what you want? You'd better be prepared to give! This world is dangerous, you know! And now you have to walk through it without your precious Per~son~a! Come on and get me, if you dare~!"

Sure enough, if you check your menu, all of Mara Ring's Personas are gone. That means no more Tenjiku Tokubei.

...thanks y'all. If we had blown at the other candle, Yukino would have lost her Personas.

The door is now unsealed.

The First Rule of Thanatos Tower: You will forfeit one character's Persona to enter it.


If you try to have Mara Ring use his Persona, you'll get an error message about how Tartarus is blocking it. The clocks also say that we have 6 hours, but that seems like an awful lot.

I mentioned earlier that a character's Magic Attack and Magic Defense come exclusively from their Persona, right? If not, pretend I did. Now, what do you suppose happens when a character doesn't have a Persona equipped and gets hit with magic?

Answer:

Seen here, Berith casting Rough Waves. Yukino is taking 56 damage, while Mara Ring takes 5641. In other words, Mara Ring is going to continue dying. A lot.

The Second Rule of Thanatos Tower: If a character dies in battle, they will forfeit their Persona.


So of course, Thanatos Tower is filled with enemies that use instant death magic: Kuckisake has Mahamudo which is really bad news for Ellie, Hi no Enma has Death Ticker, which is instant-death, and Yaksini has Mahama, which is bad news for Nanjou.

There's not a whole lot you can do against Death Ticker except pray it doesn't get used on Ellie (or whoever has a Judgment Persona). Since Mahama and Maha Mudo won't kill anyone until the end of the turn (at least, from what I've seen. Ellie didn't even die after being hit by Mahamudo), your best bet is to go all out and try to end the battle ASAP.

Unfortunately, Yukino succumbs to Hi no Enma's Death Ticker and her Personas are lost. Which, they weren't really great and she's kind of been dead weight, but still.


Oh, and if you think you can get around the loss of a Persona by using lithographs in battle: Sorry, not happening. Lithographs deal damage based on your Magic Attack... which someone without a Persona doesn't have. So a Scorching Lithograph deals 3 points of damage.

Characters can still use their weaponry, though, which is good!


...naturally, Thanatos Tower is filled with demons that can inflict Guilt status. Above, you see Mara Ring and Yukino completely castrated by the game.


The next time Yukino bites the dust, I figured it would be better to rearrange the party: Nanjou and Ellie, being the most invincible characters, go on point. Ayase stands back between them, while Mara Ring and Yukino stand towards the back rows.

The Third Rule of Thanatos Tower: You can take your Personas back by venturing into Tartarus, land of the dead.

Guys, can you imagine? Tartarus actually has a purpose in a Persona game!


The second floor has the gate to Tartarus. Just north of the Tartarus gate is a Continue Point, so you may want to hit that first.

Naturally, the gate is guarded by Cerberus. He says that this isn't a place for the living, but Ellie explains that they need to enter Tartarus to get their Personas back.

After the scene, if you talk to Ellie, she's excited that we get to see Hell. Ellie is the best.


Tartarus, like the Dream World, is exquisitely and meticulously designed: The only difference is the ground is covered in the fog texture. The enemies inside Tartarus are little bit tougher than they are on the first floor of the tower.

West of the entrance is the room with the Personas. If you've been wondering who the girl in the purple uniform that keeps appearing in the towers, her name is Yabe Mariko. She's an occult fangirl that's closer to Akuma-kun than Ellie. She's from a neighboring school (it'd be great if in the PSP version, she's in a Seventh uniform). See, she's in the Occult Research Club at her school, but the administration is going to shut it down because she's the only member. She wanted to get proof of paranormal activity, so she wanted to consult with Akuma-kun. She's super excited that she's been able to experience this supernatural event first hand.

To reclaim your Personas, you have to speak to the images of your characters.

That's technically all we need, and if what Ayase said to Michiko is true, we can probably skip the rest of Tartarus and head back to the tower.

...but that's no fun, is it? If you pay attention to the music, you might notice there's no clock ticking... I wonder if that means...

There's a dark area in the middle of Tartarus. I will try to capture the excitement of walking through it.


Compelling stuff. Dark areas would probably be a little more annoying if I didn't exclusively use the automap for navigating. Here's a full map of the dark area for those of you stupid enough to be playing along at home.

Taking the North path:

The Northeastern most room, there's a treasure room. The skull shaped chest contains the a Mirror Fragment (かがみのはへん). One of the small chests deals piddling damage to Mara Ring, and the other has the Suitenguu Charm (すいてんぐうのおふだ), a material item used to fuse Magician Varuna.


Just south of that room is another treasure room. This one has a Luna Blade (ルナブレード) that I gave to Ellie. It hits all enemies in its range and boosts all stats by 1. The other chests contain 3 Dis-Palyzes (ディスパライズ), 3 Dis-Sicks (ディスシック), and 3 Dis-Stones (ディストーン).

West of the Northeastern room is more treasure. One of the boxes contains the Reaper! The Reaper is a trap that'll reduce everyone's HP to 1. Theoretically, this should be bad, but it takes one cast of Mediarama to heal everyone back up to max, it costs Ellie like 7 SP to cast it, and she has 240 SP. So, unless I get stuck in a room that has 30+ Reaper chests that I'm forced to open, there's not much danger in them.

The middle chest contains a Blue Tablet (ブルータブレット), a material item that can be used to create World Seiryuu. World Personas aren't special like they are in Persona 3 and 4.

The other chest is a poison trap.

Now it's time to go back to the dark area and take the southern exit.


In the first door, there's treasure. Magic Stone x 5 (ませき), Kinmou Cube's Whip (キンモウキュビノムチ, I don't understand the reference), a Reaper, and a two Soma (ソーマ). The whip is pretty decent for Ayase, it's stronger than her current one and can inflict Close. It also gives +2 to Strength, Technique and Luck. And boy do we need luck in this place.

The skull chest contains another Mirror Fragment (かがみのはへん).

If you speak to Ellie, she confirms that there's no time limit while in Tartarus.

Following the path around the perimeter of Tartarus, we come to another treasure room at the end:

The skull chest is empty! Mariko got here first, and wants to take the mirror fragment back with her as a souvenir. However, she is willing to sell it for 5000 yen. Since I'm pretty sure I gained like, 20,000 yen just by walking around Tartarus, this should be no big deal. Pay up and she hands over the Mirror Fragment (かがみのはへん).

Time to head back to the dark area so we can take the western path.

There's only one room over here, and it contains: One White Tablet (ホワイトタブレット, material item for fusing Hermit Byakko), one Black Tablet (ブラックタブレット, material item for fusing Temperance Genbu), and another Mirror Fragment (かがみのはへん). Genbu is the third Persona that learns Makakaja, so you may want him for that.

With all four Mirror Fragments and our Personas back, we're done with Tartarus. Back in Thanatos's Tower, the only way to go is to head north to the stairs.

To the west of the stairs on the third floor, there's a Healing Fountain and a Velvet Room. Let's take a moment to see what we can fuse.


Hey look, it's Cu Chu Chan! Magician Cu Chulainn isn't particularly good. He drains Terra, resists Ignis and Aqua, and is weak to SCIENCE! He learns the abilities Double Stab (にだんづき - 二段突）, Magnus (マグナス), Mahamagna (マハマグナ), Outma (アウトマ, makes enemies run away), and Dragon Spinner (りゅうがせんかい - 竜駕旋回）. A rank 8 Cu Chulainn can be returned for the Gae Bolg, a good spear for Brown that can inflict Charm. Which you should already know because that's what happened to eirikr.

I have no intention of fusing Cu Chu Chan, but I felt the need to show him so eirikr will know that he is not forgotten.

Anyway! South of the stairway are the weapon and armor shops. Let's buy some shit!

Shopping list, weapons:

• Ayase: Dollar Shot (ダラーショット), twice as powerful as her current gun. Combined with Fuutai's insane Tech stat, she should be a stone cold gun killer. Too bad handguns still have shitty range!
• Mara Ring: Avenger (アヴェンジャー), which is only marginally more powerful than his current gun but it gets an extra hit.
• Yukino: Well let's see the most powerful one for sale is...

...

What the ever loving Christ, Atlus. I'm not super sensitive about being politically correct, but naming a shotgun "Slave Hunter"? Really? I'm forgoing purchasing that particular gun because I am white and from the South and therefore have sever reservations about buying something like that. Instead, she picks up the Kiraihou (きらいほう).

Nanjou and Ellie get Gebhard M2s (ゲバードM2), which are just about twice as powerful as what the currently have, but only hit 2~4 times.

Everyone gets Cupid Bullets (キューピット), that can inflict Charm.

The armor shop is, for once, manly, with lots of manly armor for men. The guys... I mean, MEN get: Yakuto Helmets (ヤクトヘルム), Yakuto Armor (ヤクトアーマー), Yakuto Guards (ヤクトガード), and Yakuto Legs (ヤクトレッグ). Each piece of the Yakuto set is a little over twice as strong as the Plate Armor.

All this new stuff makes quite the difference:
The armor for the girls is the same as the stuff in Nemesis Tower.

ONWARD AND UPWARD!

The way to the next staircase is to continue south from the shops.


Thanatos Tower gets a lot easier once you're back at full strength. You can still get fucked over and have to backtrack to Tartarus, and I got really lucky a lot of times because Mahamudo or Mahama missed Nanjou and Ellie. Mara Ring had to switch to just casting Sweet Trap because Makakaja was making him eat up all the EXP and he's already almost 10 levels ahead of everyone else.

It's also important to note that my characters are so far below the current enemy levels that I can't get an Spell Cards. That's a shame, because the Zombie Painter over there is really useful for fusion.


Note that I've spent like, 3 real life hours in the dungeon at this point. The fourth floor has some suspiciously open rooms, which look so out of place in a game that primarily takes place in 1 tile wide hallways. I think the tiles around the clock are damage tiles, here.


There's a treasure room on the fourth floor:

• Fuuma no Suzu (ふうまのすず, casts Outma)
• Oniguruma (おにぐるま), for Yukino: +5 Strength, +1 Vitality/Tech/Agility, hits 1~3 times.
• Phurba Dagger (プルバダガー), for Ellie and Mara Ring: +5 Agility, inflicts Close, extremely powerful.
• Magical Guard (マジカルガード, casts Makarakarn)
• Longinus (ロンギヌス), for Brown: Hits up to 3 times, various stat boosts. Not quite as good as the Gae Bolg.

The last chest is poison. Overall, a really good haul.

The fifth floor has a treasure room almost directly south of stairs. I would have missed it if I hadn't seen it peaking at me from the automap's corner.


The loot:

• Answerer (アンスウェラー) for Nanjou: Boosts Strength by 3, Tech by 3, and gets 3 hits.
• Physical Guard (フィジカルガード, casts Tetrakarn).
• Jewel (ほうぎょく, full HP restoration)
• Metal Card (メタルカード, used in the Code Breaker casino game)

Aside from the Answerer, the other stuff kinda sucks. Oh well.

I also want to point out that the Rakashas running around up here have an attack called Flash Flood (刹那五月雨撃) that hits one character multiple times for about 30~40 HP each. Most of the attacks tend to miss, but if they get lucky and all or most of the strike manage to connect, you could be making a trip back to Tartarus to reclaim a Persona.


The sixth floor has, again, eerily open rooms. The center tiles in these 3x3 rooms are traps that'll damage the party.

The sixth floor also has tentacle demons

There might be another treasure room on this floor, but I'm just gonna make a beeline for the room in the Northwest corner.


Inside, there are two skull chests.
Yukino: "This room is suspicious. There's two boxes... just like the candles from before. This's got to be a trap. Let's not touch either."
>Yuriko appears
Yuriko: "Aaaaw, that's just awful! It took so long for me to come up with such a great present for everyone, and you're just gonna ignore it."
Nanjou: "Heh, do you really think that we're that stupid?"
Ayase: "Uh-huh. It's pretty funny that she thinks we'd fall for it."
Yuriko: "What what what? Yuriko is trying to be friendly!"
Nanjou: "You sound like you're lying." (Man, Nanjou uses "kisama" a lot)
Ellie: "We know there's no chance there's an actual present. You're just wasting your breath."
Yuriko: "Calm down, calm down! Just listen: There are two boxes. You get to open one! Only one! You'll find everyone's favorite sparkly shiny, a Mirror Fragment in one box! If you pick that one, I'll be happy for you and let you keep it! All yours, no questions asked! But! But! But! If you open the other box, you'll have to face a punishment~! It'll be real funny this way, don't you think? Now choose wisely! Good luck everyone! Ahahahaha!"
>Yuriko leaves.

The Fourth Rule of Thanatos Tower: They will try to screw you over right before the boss.

If you open the right box, Ayase will lose her Persona. If you open the left, you'll get another Mirror Fragment (かがみのはへん).

With that, you can head through the other door it the room to the stairs up to the 7th floor.


The seventh floor is completely straight forward, just follow the path to Yuriko's room.

Yukino: "This room... this looks like the sort of place Yuriko would create. Hey, are you in here? Come on out and face us! Or are you plotting something?"
>Yuriko appears in front of Yukino
Yuriko: "Oooh! This is most certainly my room, and if you're gonna be in here you shouldn't yell so much! Oooh, you have a really nice face up close! I can help you stay beautiful forever if you let me kill you! Otherwise you'll get all wrinkly and become a grumpy gramma! C'mon, it'll be fun! You can stay here with me in the tower for forever! That's what the mask told me when I came here! C'mon guys! If you just let me kill you, we won't have to fight and we can all be friends forever!"
Nanjou: "You... with the Snow Queen's power, you became "Death"... You let your own life end here in your own fake world so you could live here all by your lonesome but be pretty forever. What a crock."
>Yuriko teleports in front of Ayase
Yuriko: "S-shut up! A man could never understand the pure heart of a girl! You get me though, don't you? You don't have to get old and wrinkly, you and me can stay here and be young and beautiful forever!"
Ayase: "Pass. You sound kinda dumb and if you think I wanna die you've totally missed the point! There's no way I wanna kick the bucket! I wanna live and experience the world!"
Ellie: YEAH! AYASE SO COOL! You said it better than I could have! Yuriko, you better just give up because there's no way you're changing anyone's mind!"
>Yuriko teleports to the other end of the room
Yuriko: "....I tried! I really tried to be everyone's friend! I went through so much trouble to help you out and make things exciting for you! But why? Why are you still rejecting me? Why? This means! This means I'll have to take care of you by force! Even after I kill you, I won't let you stay here!"
Yukino: "Eh... It's like Nanjou says, 'The only way to fix an idiot is to kill them.' Since you've already died once, it looks like its time to get to fixing you!"

Yuriko summons her Persona: Thanatos


Thanatos is a half lobster tentacle demon
Here's artwork that's kinda similar.

Thanatos only has two different versions: An easy one you fight if you do Thanatos Tower first or second, and an harder one you fight if you do Thanatos Tower last. So we're fighting the harder one.


Thanatos has the abilities Slump (スランパ, causes Bad Luck status), Decover (デカバー), Desanga (デサンガ, prevents Persona changing), Death Ticker (デスティカ, instant death to one/Necromancy based), Hell's Eyes (ヘルズアイズ, instant death to cluster/Curse based), and Trial of Darkness (やみのしんぱん -闇の審判, like Crimson Sublation/Rough Waves, except for Necromancy damage）.

Thanatos is weak to Ignis and Gluon (TEEHEEHEE), as well as Attack.

Looking at that, you might be led to believe that as long as you have Lilim, you are invincible in this battle. That's a pretty reasonable assumption.

The tentacles don't have any skills, and have less than 1000 HP. There are two types: One that absorbs SCIENCE! and is weak to Elemental, and one that absorbs Elemental and is weak to SCIENCE! The image with Yukino attacking highlights which are weak to elemental, and the image with Nanjou shows the ones weak to SCIENCE!

Unfortunately for Ayase, she's killed off by Death Ticker in the first round. Luckily, the rules of Thanatos Tower are not in effect for this battle, dying does not seal your Persona.

Here's the battle plan for Phase I:

• Mara Ring: Casts Makakaja.
• Ellie and Nanjou: Cast Megidolaon to get rid of the weak to SCIENCE tentacles.
• Ayase and Yukino: Defend or use items. Yukino had to revive Ayase in my game. Even though Mara Ring has Samrecarm, it's more important for him to be casting Makakaja right now. Lithographs would probably be a waste because it won't take long for Ellie and Nanjou to wipe the first set of tentacles out.

The tentacles explode into bloody chunks when you destroy them. After the first set is done, Ellie and Nanjou start using Elemental Lithographs while Yukino and Ayase use Mahamagdyne and Mahabufula.

The round after you destroy all the tentacles, Thanatos will rise from the ground, bloody tentacle stumps and all, and move forward. It can now attack with its lobster claw for piddling damage. It did manage to kill Ellie off with Trial of Darkness.

Since it's weak to Gluon, have everyone use Scorching Lithographs (しゃくねつのせきばん) or cast Megidolaon. I let Mara Ring use Samrecarm this time, because I'm reasonably sure our Magic Attack is high enough (the game doesn't tell you when you've hit the limit, but I assume it's four casts).

After taking about 4000 damage, Thanatos will reveal itself as a Moa (talk about an ancient reference). This form can only cast Hell's Eyes, and dies with one Megidolaon from Nanjou. It has less than 1000 HP.

Afterwards, Yuriko is chastened. She says she had fun talking with everyone and was lonely before they came to the tower. She says that she went along with the Snow Queen because she had got to thinking about death and didn't really understand it, so she feared it.

She used to be a happy person, but it occurred to her that she might have already peaked in life, and it would all go downhill from there. So one day, the Snow Queen's Mask spoke to her and said that she be exactly as she is, forever.

And so she was. Stuck in the tower, all alone, existing exactly as she is. All alone, without her parents or friends. All alone, because she was selfish. She says she was an idiot for falling for it, and is genuinely happy that the others came.

Ellie realizes that the reason Thanatos was so powerful (I'm assuming she means the reason it was able to do things like seal Personas) must be because it was feeding on Yuriko's fear and bitterness.

Yuriko thanks the party and leaves. She says she's going to become "human," which I guess means she dies for real.

After she leaves, Mara Ring obtains a Mirror Fragment (かがみのはへん) and another Ambrosia (アンブロシア).

We're dumped back in Heeho-kun's classroom.

Mara Ring speaks to Yukino, and assembles the Demon's Mirror:

All twelve pieces have been assembled! Surely we can save Saeko now!

In case you forgot, here's the rundown of their locations:

• 2 are obtained when you wake up the dreamers in Hypnos Tower.
• 1 is obtained from defeating Hypnos.
• 1 is obtained from defeating Nemesis.
• 2 are obtained from Toro in the cafeteria once you've defeated Nemesis.
• 4 are obtained in Tartarus within Thanatos Tower.
• 1 is obtained from a chest on the 6th floor of Thanatos Tower.
• 1 is obtained from defeating Thanatos.

If you have an insufficient number of fragments, you'll get the bad ending when you try to save Saeko. The mirror won't work, and Saeko will die. The "Snow Queen" will step into the real world, and the Eternal Night will begin. Everyone within the Frozen Castle will also die (well, be turned to ice), however, the ghost of Saeko will save the party by teleporting them back to the real world. They'll see through the hole in the school wall that everything has been covered in ice.

But that won't happen with us!

Onward, to the Courtyard:

...next time.

I also want to stress, yet again, that I got really, really, really lucky in this dungeon.

Guh. Okay, I'm happy you're the one playing this and not me, I would go nuts with some of this stuff. The game is bad enough in that you can (officially) only quicksave in the towers... having your personas taken away is too much!

Thanatos Tower is seriously the worst dungeon I've ever encountered in a Megaten game. Some dungeons are poorly conceived and that makes them irritating, but Thanatos Tower is carefully calculated to drive people mad. The first two floors are really big and have a lot of winding paths that lead to dead ends and you're lugging around dead weight...

There's also a psychological effect, because you know that alls it'll take to screw you over is one enemy getting lucky, one group of Kuchisakes firing off multiple Mahamudos in one turn, or casting the wrong spell on the wrong enemy and getting it reflected back at you (when you exclusively cast Maha-dyne magic, this is a real concern).

You don't really feel the burden in any other dungeons because if a character dies, so what? You can revive them or just wait until the battle ends.

It's also the only time in the entire game, either quest, that I've ever felt a Judgment Persona to be a burden.

Oh, no, I was just thinking it was a lot of time. Even though Thanatos Tower is has a more complex layout (more winding and dead ends) than the other two, I can't imagine anyone ever spending 6 hours walking around on the map.

...though honestly, given how sadistic the rest of the tower is, it wouldn't surprise me if that could happen.

I think though, judging from the general sentiment on different websites, that the actual time limit is about half of what the clocks read. So Hypnos would be an hour and a half and this one would be three hours.

Ｙｅａｈ！！　Ａｙａｓｅ　Ｓｏ　Ｃｏｏｌ！


I don't know about Kinmou, but "kyuubi" means "nine tails." Makes sense for a whip!

Aaah! Thank you, Kishi. This is why the menus keep fucking me up, because I was thinking it was supposed to be FOREIGNESE and not ANCIENTJAPANESEDEMON.

Part VIII: WORDS


Yukino: "LASTO! Use the mirror!"
>Mara Ring holds up the mirror. Say Goodbye to Despair, Sensei!. The towers crumble.
Snow Queen: "Aaaah...."
Yukino: "Did it work?"
Snow Queen: "Kyaaaaaaaah!! My face is burning!"
>The mask falls off of Saeko's face and she collapses, a spirit appears in the courtyard
??? (Two-face): "oOOoohh... Saeko.... oaaaah...."
Ayase: " Kyaa------!"
Ellie: "Oh my..."

With that, a boss fight begins:
The Snow Queen's Mask rises from the ground and grows. Since the battle music is different, we are to assume this battle is super important. Could it be... the final boss?

Oh course not, you ninny!

Lady Masquerade has the abilities Mahabufudyne (マハブフダイン), Mahagrydyne (マハグラダイン), Tarukaja (タルカジャ), Parala Eyes (パララアイズ), Monumental Strike (かいてんげき - 回天撃） and Derange Voice (ディレンジボイス, inflicts up to 3 levels of Panic). She also has about twice as many HP as Thanatos had. She drains Graviton and Aqua, but is weak to Ignis, Gluon, Photon, Weak Boson and Air.

Ayase's Fuutai, unfortunately, has such low magic defense that one shot of Mahabufudyne is enough to put her down, so she has to switch to just defending.

The battle plan is largely the same as what we've been doing: Mara Ring uses Makakaja, Nanjou and Ellie spam Megidolaon, and Yukino uses Scorching Lithographs. There's not much else to say about Lady Masquerade, she just begins to highlight a reoccurring problem with Atlus where they think, "Hey, if we give a boss more HP, that makes it more difficult!"

After the fight:
Ayase: "We did it!"
Yukino: Saeko-sensei! Are you ok sensei? You're not hurt or cold or anything are you?"
Saeko: "Thank you, I'm ok. What about Tomomi?"
Nanjou: "Tomomi...?"
Saeko: "Tomomi... the spirit that's bound to the Mask. She's one of the girls that played the role of the Snow Queen. And... she was one of my best friends when I was in the drama club."
Yukino: "Wait... Saeko was possessed by the Snow Queen... and the Snow Queen was her best friend?"
Nanjou: "But why would her best friend try to sacrifice her?"
Saeko: "It's all my fault... a long time ago, I hurt her..."

Flash back to the Drama Club room, when Saeko and Tomomi were still in school.
Saeko: "And you get to be the Snow Queen! You'll be the last student who ever get to play the role, Tomomi!"
Tomomi: "Thanks... I know you wanted the role too, Saeko. Say... this mask... do you think what they say about it is true...?"
Turnip: "You'd think Atlus could have gotten Kaneko to make a portrait for non-gross Tomomi that didn't have the sneer, don't you?"
Saeko: "How can you say that?! How can you get caught up in such a silly superstition? Even if it were true, if you've got a bright enough personality, you can overcome any kind of curse!"
Tomomi: "Oh Saeko... maybe I'm not as strong as you..."
Saeko: "Have some confidence! You beat me and got the lead role, so you should be celebrating!"
Tomomi: "You think so...?"

There's another flashback. Tomomi is in the drama room, talking to another student.

Underclassman: "Eh? I can't believe you let Saeko trick you like that, senpai!"
Tomomi: "Huh? What are you talking about?"
Underclassman: "You mean you really don't know!? Saeko refused the Snow Queen's role! She... we're all terrified of the curse! That's why... that's why you got the role Senpai..."
Tomomi: "She refused... because she was afraid...!? You're lying! I got the part because I was better than Saeko... that has to be it..."
Underclassman: "Tomomi-senpai, they've tricked you. Even though it's the lead role, you didn't get it because you're a good actress..."
Tomomi: "...."


Third flashback:
Tomomi is hiding in the drama room and Saeko is trying to coax her out.
Saeko: "Tomomi, are you in here? C'mon, the show's tomorrow, we have to make sure everything's ready."
Tomomi: "Baaghhh...."
Saeko: "What? I can't understand you."
Tomomi: "Bad... It's bad I'm bad I'm bad I'm bad...!!!"
Saeko: "Huh? What's wrong Tomomi? Say something!"
Tomomi: "Bad bad bad the mask is bad they were right..."
Saeko: "Tomomi... are you ok? What about the mask?"
Tomomi: "The mask... the mask... I put it on... I put it on... and it burns... it's burning... it hurts... it's bad it's bad it's bad...!"
>Tomomi turns around so Saeko can see her and we get a character portrait: half of her face has been disfigured
Tomomi: "Look at it!"
>Saeko screams, there's even a poorly digitized voice clip to go along with it.

Back in the present:
Ayase: "It's not your fault sensei. She made her own choice."
Saeko: "Maybe. But you can't say that for sure. I think... I think somewhere, deep inside, I felt like I was better than everyone else. Even to my close friends, I was just nice to their faces. Deep down, I didn't care how Tomomi felt..."
Yukino: "Sensei..."
Saeko: "The mask's curse isn't real! It's all my fault!"
Yukino: "Stop talking like that!"
Saeko: "....."

Nanjou: "Hey! It just occurred to me..."
Yukino: "What's that?"
Nanjou: "We beat the Snow Queen, but the school's still frozen..."
Ayase: "Yeah... and the sky's still that weird color, too."


Voice: "Ahehehe... are you getting cold out there...? Hahahahaha..."
>A dark figure appears in the courtyard

Saeko: "What is that?!"
Ellie: "WHAT!?"
Entity: "Poor, poor Tomomi and her human weakness... poor, poor Tomomi died because of it. I suppose I should thank you, I've been sealed in that mask for so long...but now that it's been separated from its host and destroyed, I'm all back together now. I am the Queen of the Night, here to bring an eternal night of emptiness and despair to this world."
>Nice job breaking it Nanjou.
Yukino: "Do what?!"
Queen of the Night: "Nothing's changed. Come to see it for yourself! Watch as the Eternal Night descends upon the world! From the summit of this Frozen Castle, a blizzard of dispair will fall, consuming all with hopelessness! Come now, scream! Wail! Gnash your teeth, and tear your robes! Ahehehehahahahahahaha!"
>The Queen of the Night disappears

Ayase: "Wha...? What was that thing?"
Ellie: "It must have been what the Snow Queen saw when she looked in the Demon's Mirror... All the anger Tomomi had inside her, she must have seen it when she looked in the mirror... That's why she wants to...."
(In other words, it seems that the Queen of the Night is a combination of the entity calling itself the Snow Queen as well as Tomomi's anger. Or something.)
Yukino: "So that means when she looked in the mirror all the evil inside her, she lost her real self and now her Persona's gone insane."
Nanjou: "We need to hurry and stop her."
Ayase: "Yeah! Unless we beat her, this night's never gonna end!"
Saeko: "You've all grown so much in such a short time..." (Literally, she must be saying "You guys are awesome at jumping to conclusions!")

Yukino decides it's time to go on and meet the Queen of the Night head on. Since we got all 12 Mirror Fragments, when she tries to reenter the Frozen Castle, but she feels a strange presence.

Tomomi's spirit appears.

Saeko: "Tomomi!"
Tomomi: "Saeko... all of you, thank you. Because of you, I was able to keep my soul. Listen to me: If you can't face yourself in the mirror, if you can't handle what you see, you have no chance of winning..."
Yukino: "We understand, Tomomi. It'd be hard to find anyone who's reflection isn't ugly..."
Ayase: "Yeah, my reflection's a big ugly monster, for sure..."
Tomomi: "No, no one is a monster in their reflection... But, if you keep carrying the Demon's Mirror around, you'll probably meet someone who is... But, there's a way to protect everyone from something like that happening..."

> The Demon's Mirror (あくまのかがみ) has become the Spiegel Shield (シュピーゲルシールド). Spiegel is the German word or "Mirror." The Spiegel Shield is a piece of equipment for Mara Ring, it has ridiculously high evade, defense that's on par with the Yakuto Guard, and it gives +9 Tech. It's a nice thing to have.

Tomomi: "I don't know whether or not it'll be of any use to you, but the costume worn by the protagonists in the play is in the gym's storage room. It was kept there to bolster the seal on the Mask..."

Yukino asks whether or not the storage room is even in th Frozen Castle, and Tomomi says that it is, she and the other victims of the Mask made sure of it. She says it's on the second or third floor and that she'll be watching from heaven.

Before heading into the final dungeon, let's pop over to the Velvet Room and fuse Tenshi Archangel with Ryuou Yato-no-kami to create Judgment Azrael:

Azrael is just like all the other Judgment Personas we've fused thus far. It has the abilities Wing Flap (はばたき - 羽ばたき), Baikouha (バイコウハ, Exorcism damage to a cluster), Frenzied Song (きょうらんのうた - 狂乱の歌, inflicts Terror on a cluster), Recarmudora (リカームドラ), Tarukaja (タルカジャ), Judgment of Darkness (やみのしんぱん - 闇の審判, Necromancy damage to a cluster). We're also throwing yet another Scorching Lithograph (しゃくねつのせきばん), but even if we didn't, Azrael's Baikouha and Judgment of Darkness abilities are really nice to have by themselves.

Azrael goes to Ellie, and Phaleg gets passed on to Yukino. Yukino's Urvashi is handed over to Ayase, because Fuutai's magic offense/defense is pitiful.
The entrance to the final dungeon is in the classroom at the south end of the Castle that we could never open. Inside, there's a giant glowing ball. Brown's there, too. He'll hand over a Scorching Lithograph (しゃくねつのせきばん) that he won at the Casino and wish you good luck.

In case you're wondering, if you didn't take Nanjou, he'll give you another Phurba Dagger (プルバダガー), and Ellie will give you a Full Moon Lithograph (まんげつのせきばん) which has the spell Samrecarm in it.

Whenever you're ready to enter the final dungeon, all you have to do is touch the light. The screen'll shake and the party will be whisked off to... another classroom.

Yup, the final dungeon looks exactly the same as the rest of the Frozen Castle. Lame. There's not much to say about the second floor (remember, we've been on the first floor this whole time). It's set up in a grid pattern, the Ballet Club's room is to the Northwest, there's a room with Heeho-kun and Heeho-chan in the Southeast, and the stairs are to the Northeast.

The trick is that near each of the intersections, there are trapped tiles that will move you in a certain direction. Getting to the stair case is a trial and error process. Have fun! (Actually, I'm gonna put together a map later)

It brought back memories of Void Quest.


The enemies are plentiful and not very difficult. Of course, I pretty much settled into the habit of spamming Megidolaonn and Mahabufudyne over and over to win most of the battles. Baikouha is surprisingly useful here, it'll kill those Legions outright, and it's a good thing Lilim has Mudo to help put down Virtues.

Speaking of Legions, on the third floor I got back attacked. Ayase ended up in the front. They took turns trying to tentacle rape her.


Southwest of the stairs on the third floor, there's a classroom with Mariko inside. She says she was exploring the Frozen Castle, but got tired and needed to rest. Yeah, the girl who had no trouble getting around Thanatos Tower was winded walking to the third floor of this dungeon. Right. In the closet there's a Mars 133 (マーズ133), a really powerful rifle. It hits one target 1~3 times. It goes to Nanjou.


There's an empty classroom due west of the stairs from the second floor. Inside the closet, there's a Crimson Tablet (クリムゾンタブレット), a material item used to create Sun Suzaku. The stairs to the fourth floor are nearby.

The storage room is up nearby too, but I'm having... difficulty getting the Spiegel equipment and I'm actually worried that I have to have Brown to get it.

The fourth floor brings more fighting:

Now, there's two things we can do here: Head North then East around the winding, twisting path and take the stairs to fifth floor, or head North then South at the first turn to see what we find. Let's see what we can find.


The southern path leads to... stairs that go down? How strange! And look, over there! A huge, empty room! Again, those should make anyone with the slightest bit of common sense really nervous. There's a damage tile right in front of the open area, which does not bode well.

You see, here, Atlus has fallen back to its favorite tried and true "Make the game longer!" design feature: The room of many holes in the floor.

Luckily:

At the other end of the room, there's a small hallway that's... a dead end? No, the end of the hall has a pitfall that'll put you in a new, special area of the third floor.

There's a classroom just beside where you fall. Inside, Heeho-kun and Heehoko-chan are hanging out. There's also an Alexandrite (アレキサンドライト) in the closet.

Heehoko-chan wants Ambrosia, and notices that Mara Ring happens to have some. She wants to snatch it away from him, but Heeho-kun says that's not nice. Heeho-kun says that he's willing to trade some FABULOUS PRIZES for Ambrosia. Let's check out what they've got:

First up:

The Rosetta Stone (ロゼッタのせきひ)! Yes, you can own this famous piece of history for the low, low price of a single Ambrosia! Features Hieroglyphic, Demotic and Greek text.


A Mounted Deer (しかのはくせい)! It adds a touch of class to any home or office. With such exquisite taxidermy work, you'd never be able to tell that it was shot in the face.


Contract of Judgment (さばきのけいやくしょ)! Oooh, what a mysterious item! I wonder what could happen if you signed it? The only way you'll be able to find out is if you take it!


Buffalo Skin Drums (バッファロービーツ). An authentic set of Indian Tablas, made with the skin of a Buffalo demon. I'm sure they make an amazing sound!

Spotted Glasses (べっこうぶちのめがね). They're tortoise rimmed glasses. The glass is cracked and the frames a busted. And... it looks like there might be blood on them. But I'm sure they're perfectly fine and a totally wonderful prize!

HEY TYRANTS! Which do we want? We have two Ambrosia, so we can get two.

...

Ok, I'm not gonna just let you go in blind, I'll tell you what these items do: They're material items for the party's ultimate Personas.

The Rosetta Stone is for Mara Ring's Emperor Amen Ra (Level 62). Amen Ra resist Elemental, drains Gluon, and is particularly weak to Photon (although he's also weak to SCIENCE!) He learns the abilities Agilao (アギラオ), Agidyne (アギダイン), Shibabu (シバブー, inflicts Bind to a cluster), Lighting Storm Strike (しゅうらいげき - 集雷撃, deals Photon damage + shock status to a cluster), Fatal Blue (しゅうえんのあお, 終焉の碧 - More powerful version of Crimson Sublation), and Heiroglypain (ヒエロスグリュペイン).

Heiroglypain is a strange spell: It has a unique element that Japanese fansites refer to as "vs Bosses" ... it hits a cluster of enemies and has a more powerful base damage than Megidolaon. The only problem is that regular enemies tend to only take about 50% damage from "vs Bosses" damage. Bosses, on the other hand, take full damage from it. Hence the element title.

Amen Ra is the most beloved deity of Ancient Egypt.

The Mounted Deer is for Ayase's Magician Freyr (Level 59). According to legend, Freyr killed Beli with the antlers of a deer. Hence the material item.

Freyr resist Ignis and Aqua, reflects Terra, and is weak to SCIENCE! Freyr learns the abilities Magnus (マグナス), Mahamagnus (マハマグナス), Mahamagdyne (マハマグダイン), Rainbow Purgatory Smash (しちしきれんごくは - 七色煉獄破, deals damage the same way a rifle does), Gentle Waves (じゅうのなみ - 柔の波, stronger version of Rough Waves), Peaceful Death (ごくらくおうじょうは - 極楽往生破, major Axe damage to one enemy).

The Contract of Judgment is for Ellie's Judgment Michael (Level 62). Michael, being an upper level Judgment Persona, reflects all magic except for Curse and Necromancy. He learns the abilities Deathbound (デスバウンド), Tarukaja (タルカジャ), Mahakouha (マハコウハ), Parala Eyes (パララアイズ, Paralyzes cluster), Dekaja (デカジャ) and Tetrakarn (テトラカーン).

Michael really isn't woth it. There's another Judgment Persona, Armaiti that's only at Level 55 but has Mediarahan and Mahakouha. But hey, if you guys want him, go ahead.

The Buffalo Skin Drums are for Yukino's Empress Durga (Level 57). In Hinduism, the world was once ravanged by the shape shifting buffalo demon Mahishasur, for it was said that no man could ever slay him. And since no man could stop him, clearly he was unstoppable. As the male gods discussed their plight, the goddess Durga, hearing their prayers, appeared before them and set off to slay the demon.

Durga is woman, hear her roar. Durga has the abilities Gryva (グライバ, Graviton damage), Unending Darkness (ふめつのくろ - 不滅の黒, Necromancy damage to a cluster, not as powerful as Judgment of Darkness), Wolf Fang Retribution (ろうがてんちゅうぎり - 狼牙天誅斬, massive two handed sword damage to one enemy), Fallen Eden (ごくらくおとし - 極楽落, Terra damage to cluster), and Mahaziodyne (マハジオダイン).

The Spotted Glasses are for Nanjou's Judgment Yamaoka (Level 60). As a Judgment Persona, he reflects all magic except for Necromancy and Curse. Yamaoka is a Badass Surfer Butler from Beyond that learns Lullaby (こもりうた - 子守唄), Whip of Love (あいのムチ - 愛のムチ）, Diarahan (ディアラハン), Makarakarn (マカラカーン), Mahakouha (マハコウハ), and God-Level-Unescapable-Million Strikes (からさでやおろずうち - 神等去出八百万撃, major fist damage to one enemy).

So... who's it gonna be?

We need Yamaoka. Need. (However, I'm not going to sway anyone else's votes by posting the picture here) I guess I'm also going to vote for the Deer, because I like Ayase (she amuses me the same way Rise does in P4) and Durga is cool, but also in Innocent Sin.
Now to be fair, pretty much everyone seems to think that I laugh at all the people who complained that Omega in Final Fantasy XII got "nerfed" by having his HPs cut down from 12,000,000ish HP. Because damn if he wasn't still both pathetic and boring.

I, too, am sold on the Badass Surfer Butler from Beyond.

My other vote goes to the drums, because mythologically, Durga is the Goddess of Badass.