Midnight's just around the corner. Let's Play Persona 3 FES!

Anyway, with nothing else to do, Emcee just watches a bit of TV and heads off to his room to study for the rest of the night.



The next day, Emcee finds himself stopped by Kenji again, and again he's asked about his relationship with Yukari. Before he can answer, the bell rings, giving Escher the break he was looking for.



No helping this, though. He's just standing there...



Thankfully, Kenji knows a kickass Ramen place and invites Emcee out for a nice supper to learn more about his enigmatic classmate. They briefly discuss how the head chef manages to get the recipe just right, something that Kenji claims is due to a secret ingredient.



Emcee agrees with that assessment, being a fellow gourmet who can appreciate a good meal. You know, maybe this Kenji guy ain't half bad.



A secret plan, eh? Emcee's always up for more food and accepts the offer.



This looks like the start of a beautiful friendship.



Back at home base, Mitsuru lets us know that we can check up with her anytime to see how the others are doing for a Tartarus run. Good to know, good to know.



One thing to note is that, from time to time, the others will give up some information about themselves when you talk to them in the evening, discussing their personas , their weapons, and so on, as a way to get to know them better.



Sometimes they even play off each other as well. Run for it, Junpei!

Emcee is such a gossip, and can't help but listen in on a pair of students chatting outside the school. It looks like the athletic clubs are looking for new members - guess Emcee could go check it out, maybe scope it out a bit before making a decision.




Kendo, Swim, Track... so many options, but he can only sign up for one before they fill up. Which club should Emcee choose? If only someone could decide for him before the month's out.



In the meantime, there's nothing else to do but go out for another bowl with Kenji.



Kenji, Kenji, Kenji. Always the predictable womanizer. Emcee decides to reply with a wink and a nudge to lead him on a bit. At this point, the conversation shifts a bit to their taste in women, with Kenji preferring his a little bit older.



Emcee, on the other hand, is a fan of all the world's women. Yes, even the older ones, but not exclusively.



Kenji shifts the conversation on a little high school crush of his that he has on one of the teachers at the school. Perhaps this is the secret plan he has in mind? We won't find out for now, as he has to catch his favourite show, but at least he promises to let us find out next time.



For now, we reach Level 2!



Junpei's happy to see how things are going. Good to hear!



More gossip, this time about an Arcade in the Mall. Apparently they like to change the games around a bit day by day, so you won't be able to practice the same one everytime.

Lunchtime! Occasionally, a fellow student will drop by around this time to let you know they're available in the afternoon, but sometiimes it can get a little silly when a bunch of people drop by. No fooling, I remember I got something like a five-person procession at one point in one of my earlier playthroughs.



Kenji also drops us some information about Yukari. This, of course, means that we won't be able to go out with her until we've maxed out our Charm, so for now she's pretty much off-limits. But who cares? It's ramen time.



Sick of school? Nah, Kenji says, just life in general.



This is roughly when people tend to give up on Kenji, I think. Maybe it's just a trick of translation or just poor wording, but saying that you're going to "make [someone] fall in love with [you]" comes across as intensely creepy. Thankfully Kenji doesn't actually mean this, but hearing him say that is pretty cringe-inducing.



Emcee tries to bring this up, but Kenji's a little too thick-headed to hear.



Oh well, at least we get another S. Link rank out of it.



Don't worry about it, Yukari. This is a video game, so those clubs are going to stay nice and open until Emcee goes and signs up for one.



Dawn of the
25th Day



Now a bookstore's open! Man, so much is going on while Emcee's around here.



Kenji isn't available on Saturdays sadly enough, so Emcee will have to find something else to do with his afternoons today. Maybe he can go check out that new bookstore?



For those of you wondering where Kenji's gone off to, he's just on his way home, staring longingly at the bikes he doesn't have.

Well, here we are...



Hmm... is the mackerel holy or unholy?



Persimmon... tree...? I don't think Emcee nor I saw one on the way over. Time to backtrack!





"Hey boss, I dropped some leaves!"



Non-smoking, please. God, I love Bunkichi.



Seems like the Old Man tending to the bookstore is happy that we thought to bring the Persimmon Leaf with us today. His legs got a little stumpy over the years and hasn't had the chance to pay it a visit.



He introduces himself and his wife (which will get more screentime, I promise!) as Bunkichi and Mitsuko, the elderly couple maintaining Bookworms Used Books. Emcee really likes the looks of the place and hopefully he'll be dropping by more often.



Yay, Social Link!



Well, that's enough for now. Hopefully later updates won't be as talky as this one was!

Next time: Parallel Worlds: Let's Play Innocent Sin Online!

I vote track.

Two story school.

Damn it.

Oh yeah, I vote for track too. Or swimming.

I vote for track as well. I know how deeply meaningful this choice will be.

By the way, I'm still thrilled that I tricked you into doing the Answer. I'm running through it right now, and want someone else to suffer as I have suffered.

Will we be getting the primer on how S-Links level up (matching Personas, etc?)

Kendo! Because I've played the game twice, and that's the one I haven't seen yet.

I wonder if more people give up on Kenji when he makes the face.

Kendo, because of the unsynced sound effect of sticks clashing.

Kendo. He needs the swords practice.

It's a picture and text LP.

I didn't realize I had typed too many "of" copies. Thanks for pointing that out.

You're welcome.

I've always gone with swimming, and I sure as hell ain't gonna stop now!

Yep, that's the plan. I'm just waiting for an instance with no convo to help with the explanation first.

Track makes the most sense, and swimming lets you see all of the undetailed character models without any shirts, but I have to vote Kendo for a piece of dialogue that comes up late on.

By the way, I have to point out that, unless something really crazy happened in FES, you should be able to finish all of the non-school-related S. Links without "prioritizing" them above the other ones on the basis of them having more votes. Just think it's worth pointing out in case it'll allow more to be finished.

Knowing nothing of the consequences, I vote first choice Kendo, second choice swimming.

There's a difference?

I chose Track & Field, but nothing yet has happened in my game that's indicated anything other than "generic sports practice"...

So that's another vote for kendo -- because I have to know. (But swimming's fine, too.)

If you're going to be using swords, Kendo exists to help you get better with swords*.

*Will not actually make you better with swords.

I picked Kendo in my playthru, therefore I vote for Track 1st and Swimming 2nd.

After reading the P1 and P2 Let's Plays, I found it interesting that P3 would change the way you get new Personas (outside of Fusion, I mean.)

In earlier games, you had your basic Persona, and then established contracts with demons to earn the right to summon them as well. But because of the context of this game, where you don't negotiate with anything and just win new Personas via Shuffle, I wasn't all too clear on their nature. That is, whether the acquired Personas were really fragments of one's psyche (which makes sense for the protagonists' basic ones, but does Emcee act like a Pixie around some people? Maybe he goes all Orobas at Club Escapade...) or independent spirits and demons to be summoned through the same power that enabled your Persona.

Since P3 and P4 revealed a whole new aspect of the relationship between Shadows and Personas, we can deduce where the Shuffle Personas are coming from, at least. But that still doesn't say whether they're awakening a facet of your personality, or establishing a link with an otherworldly spirit.

(Also of interest: each character's basic Persona still has the same "biomechanical construct" design that Kazuma Kaneko is famous for; further Personas look more organic, like regular people in fancy outfits or mythological beasts.)

Oh, and go Kendo, man. Emcee yearns to be called the Blue Thunder of Gekkoukan High.

I AM A HORRIBLE PERSON.

I haven't forgotten about this LP, honest! I, uh, just got a bit distracted when Pokémon Platinum came along. Even still, I've got three months (!) worth of updates to catch up on and waiting on this any longer isn't gonna help me pick away at it. So onward we go.



To recap: Our hero, Emcee Escher, arrived in Iwatodai at the start of April to enroll in Gekkoukon High, and found himself heading over to the dorm in the Iwatodai area. Some weird shit went down the night he arrived (what with the sky turning a funky colour, the electricity going out and nearly getting shot by a brunette roughly his age) but everything got sorted out quickly enough and quickly enrolled in his new school.

After getting his bearings, Emcee met some new friends in Yukari and Junpei and quickly acclimated to the new school. However, something evil was afoot in the area, and one evening the dorm came under attack by mysterious shadows. Emcee faught them off with his Persona and fell unconcious for two weeks.

He came to eventually, and finally the others in his dorm, Mitsuru, Yukari and Akihiko, gave him the explanation he needed. Shadows were predatory beings that fed on the minds on other humans, and the students at the dorm had banded together to form a group called SEES - or Special Extraculicular Execution Squad - to use their powers of Persona to fight them off. With that in mind and a few new recruits on the way, SEES took advantage of its newfound manpower and started its exploration of Tartarus, the source of all the Shadows popping up.

And now you're all caught up!



Junpei's feeling a bit tired from our last romp through Tartarus, though I honestly can't blame him considering how late these runs last.



I could do without the cheesy jokes, though...



Huh, I was wondering where she's gone off to. Welp, off to bed then.



No drinks for tonight, I guess.



Oh hey, it's Kenji!

Remember when I said S. Links grow as you spend time with characters like Kenji? Well, to be honest I was only giving you half the story. There are certain point requirements before you can reach the next rank in an S. Link, points which can be gotten in a variety of ways in the conversations themselves. Choosing the right choices in selections and bringing a persona of the same arcana are two major ways to advance to the next skit, nothing particularly fancy.

However, when there aren't enough points to advance to the next skit, you often have chances to just hang out with the character in question to build up some more trust, either just by spending time with them during the course of a normal day or accepting invitations to hang out like the one Kenji's making here. You'll have to make up the points sometime, however Sundays tend to be pretty valuable due to the number of events exclusive to the day so it makes budgeting your time a little bit trickier. Still, if you want to raise an S. Link higher and that special someone is calling you, it doesn't hurt to accept once in a while.



For Kenji, sadly, we'll need this Sunday open in order to make time for a special event. Er, sorry! The good news is that rejecting him doesn't affect the S. Link in anyway so at least there's no lingering awkwardness. Though if we accepted the invitation and later bailed, then we would be in some serious hot water.



With nothing left to do, our intrepid hero takes the time to study up. Sometimes studying tires you out, but for some odd reason Emcee's been taking it all in stride. Odd...



Ah, Sundays. Nothing like waking up early and catching the latest episode of Phoenix Featherman R. But enough of that for now, we've got bigger fish to fry.



Yeah, we'll do that.



So, what is it about this Sunday that's so important, you ask?



Why, there's a movie marathon running of course.

I mentioned this earlier on, but movie marathons are a great way to build up extra points for your personality traits, with each flick adding on a whopping six points (out of an eighty max) to a specific aspect. There are two marathons in the month of April and catching both is of upmost importance in a normal Max Link run.

Thankfully, we're not under such restrictions, but today's marathon is great for building up our courage, a stat we're sorely lacking in. So let's spend the day watching away!



Why, I think we're feeling braver already.

Yeah, that's... that's great. Might as well head on to class...



Oh hell.



Junpei knows what I mean. Honestly, I don't know why they don't just do what I did in High School and skip the damn thing and grab a soda. Well, aside from attendance issues, I mean. But honestly, I doubt they'll be missing much here.



See?



And to make things even more suspect, the principal's plagiarizing Mitsuru's speech. Man, fuck this guy.



Later in class, it seems Mitsuru's got something she wants to tell us...



...later. For now: class!



Today's lesson: algebra. At least, I think it is.



Uh...



...huh.



I do, but I'm not exactly sure this qualifies as "math".



Today's question for the daily double: Numbers were invented this many years ago.

"What is 6,000 years ago?"



Correct, for 1,200 dollars!



Hooray for math!

Wha- But why so suddenly?



Makes sense, since she's taskmistress supreme of SEES. But shouldn't Emcee be given some more time to adjust? He only arrived a few weeks ago, after all.



What.



Yeah, hi. Mitsuru twisted our arms and all but forced us into Student Council.



......



Yeah, yeah.



Oh well, at least Emcee's always got his X-Ray Vision.



Hi.



Introducing two of the only three student council members with actual presence, Hidetoshi and Chihiro. Get used to seeing the latter's face, guys; thanks to your votes, we'll be spending an extra special amount of time with her.



But for now, we'll just spend time with Hidetoshi. I guess.

Thou art I, I art me, we're all one happy family~



Don't give her ideas, Junpei. She'll just try and recruit you too!



Wow. For the record, this was supposed to be a pessimistic report on the economy in-game. The irony here is almost staggering.

So I guess the housing crash isn't canon then, or...?



Oh well. Economic downturn aside, Emcee's gotta get his karaoke on.



And now it's time to study.



Next morning, Mitsuru takes the time to inquire into our current habitual needs. Funny how she didn't take the time to ask before dropping council work on us...



Anyway, the day goes by quickly and we find ourselves outside the council room with Chihiro.



Hey baby, wanna catch a cup of coffee?



Sh-shut down.



Well that didn't pan out. Guess it's time for some good ol' exercise with the Kendo club, just like you voted! It's democracy in action, folks.



Hiya.

But these guys and gals aren't the real stars of this S. Link...

Why does everyone keep bringing this up? Sheesh, Emcee just sleeps at the same dorm as her, is all.



I believe so. You're in Emcee's class, right? Always hanging out in that sweaty tracksuit of yours and sleeping through Literature class?



Nah, Emcee's gonna come whenever he feels like it. It's not like he's got any obligation here anyway.



Chariot, huh? Guess that means this is the rival s. link.



Oh hey, sweet. Now Emcee can join us in the 21st Century.



DOHOHOHOHO



Junpei pawns off an old MMO to us to celebrate the big fix. Nothing wrong with taking it for a test drive, I suppose.



But for now, Emcee will take the time to study.



Hey, it turns out Emcee's been studying so hard that he's gained an academic level! Every day brings us a little bit closer to geniushood.



Perfect timing to test out that MMO.

Huh, fancy opening. So this is what Phil Omon's been up to all these years...



Command?



Oh, it's just another player in the game.



So that means this game's essentially a waste of money, isn't it? Man, way to go, Junpei.

Emcee still needs a name for his character. Hey gang, what should we-



I, uh, was gonna suggest PANTS*, but I guess that's fine too.

*Note: Not really.



Heh, cute.



Sure, will do.



Woo, new S. Link!



I do believe this is the start of a beautiful friendship.



Even though "Maya"'s long since logged off, Emcee ends up spending the entire day and night grinding away. It's always sad watching someone fall off the wagon like this.

We run into Kazushi the next day during lunch, when he asks us for a quick jog. There's not enough time, so oh well, guess we'll just have to make up for it at Kendo I guess!

Kazushi: Not very subtle.



Whoa, déj� vu.



Yeah, the Ancient Tomb isn't as interesting. Go ahead, I won't mind.



No, no, I said go ahead. By all means, go crazy with your Sengoku love.



>:I



More Chihiro fun. We'll have to talk to her a few more times before she'll begin to open up.



Heyyy wait, Emcee's male isn't he?



D'aww, so MOE~



Well that's it for today. Now off to Kendo class for some good ol' exercise.



*Swish*

......

*Clap*



What, already? Toughen up, you big baby.