Persona 3 Portable 06 - June 1

[surgeworks]

05 - May 2 | Table of Contents | 07 - June 2
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Alternate title: Shinjiro! ...and some other stuff.

 

We had almost finished up the second half of May when we last left off. The last event of that month is a Tartarus run, which hopefully shouldn’t take up too much of this post.

First, Akihiko. He’s in our party now, so what’s notable about him? His Persona is an Emperor, and it’s Polydeuces, better known as Pollux, one half of the Gemini twins, a constellation that has its origins in Greek myth. Pollux was a boxer, and was immortal due to his godly heritage while his twin, Castor, was mortal (their mom was impregnated by a human and a god, and the Greeks didn’t understand reproductive biology that well). This of course, led to a tragic parting.

If I give that a DEATH point, don’t I technically have to give Junpei one too for Hermes? Actually, yes.

DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 15

(Hermes ferried souls of the recently deceased to the Underworld in some Greek lore).

He’s level 12 and his spell lineup looks a lot like early-game Yosuke’s: Just replace Bash with Sonic Punch and Garu with Zio. He has Dia too, unexpectedly. So, pretty balanced, and he’ll be learning debuffs later.

We promptly spend 14,200 of our 14,900 yen just summoning Gurr, utterly breaking us, so we’re gonna have to work hard to earn all that yen back. Maybe it’ll work, because according to Mitsuru, Tartarus is on one of its unstable days. We accept three requests from Theodore (Get a Lead Medal from a Wealth Hand, get the second old document, and get lanterns from the Phantom Mages in Arqa).

Speaking of Arqa, that’s the second block of Tartarus that got opened up with the Priestess’ defeat, and it’s where we’re headed. With Akihiko in tow, we head up.

Yukari is not into the Battle Panties we put her in (she gets to wear them, as we’re still in the FemC-only Angora Sweater, which has better stats). We ascend up to floor 17, and the spooky beat from Thebel upgrades into a surprisingly funky track with the addition of a couple new beats. And indeed, Arqa looks funky as hell, with patterned vivid purple floors, mounds in the ground, and faces sticking out of the walls. Junpei does absurd damage with his two-handed sword, and he and Yukari quickly level up. Mitsuru’s having trouble sensing things, so she isn’t much help. Early on, we see what can happen if a character gets stuck with a lot of enemies when we split up—Akihiko has to use his turn to heal himself every time, meaning we had to bail him out. We get charmed by an enemy while alone and this quickly leads to us nearly getting killed.

I should note that despite me being overleveled, Arqa is a pretty steep difficulty spike. I ran low on SP by healing very quickly and couldn’t get more at the clock due to being broke. I had to supervise a lot of battles.

We bring Theo his Lanterns, and he’s thankful because the Velvet Room’s lighting is kind of shit—he gives us a skill card for them. We fuse Fortuna and Oberon, who levels up to 17 thanks to Hidan’s Social Link and fills another request for us, in addition to having nice and much-needed skills. Theo gives us Akihiko’s winter outfit.

The first miniboss on floor 25 is three Crying Tables. They know Agilao, which is a nightmare this early in the game. The second on floor 36 is the Change Relic, which Mitsuru informs us is the Empress Arcana—

Arcana Believe It: 17

—and which knows Magarula, which is definitely a pain in the ass. The block ends on floor 40 with another dead end. We get the second old document, for which Theo gives us a Recarm skill card, which is invaluable. We also get the Lead Medal from the golden hands in Thebel, which Theo trades for the Toy Bow—a good weapon for Yukari that does better damage and has high odds of inflicting Rage. We promptly get a request to kill Arqa’s golden hands and get a Steel Medal. Fucking great—but we do it. For that, we get one for Junpei—a spiked bat that causes Fear. We also get past Level 20 and can store up to 10 Personas now. We locate a few rare floors as well—floors covered in gold shadows and floors covered in powerful high EXP shadows, both of which we abuse, and the latter of which definitely helped the big gaps in the party’s skillset.

We also get our first double attack! It’s with Yukari and it’s great—the FemC and the volunteering party member run up to a specific enemy and nail it at the same time, auto-critting. Gurr finally levels up, giving me access to Growth 1, which allows any inactive Persona equipped with it to gain ¼ of the EXP your active Persona does. We also use that to fuse both Hua Po (who comes with some nice skills) and use both of them to make the Vetala with Maragi that Theo wants for another request. For that, he gives us an item we can fuse King Frost with. We then use that guy to fuse Pale Rider. Lastly, we fuse a Persona we’ll be needing: Neko Shogun—or at least we try. We get a fusion accident for the first time, and get Legion instead. We fuse it properly the second time and then remove several more Personas we’ll be wanting for Social Links. We’re left with 15,000 yen by the end of it.

Sorry, that took longer than expected. We leave, leading to 6/1.

Mitsuru meets us at the gates to share worries, and everyone is in summer clothes now. We visit the clinic, and then try a new Social Link: Akihiko’s. If we hadn’t been doing Charm boosting, the glares of all his lady admirers would prevent us from pursuing it—but as we’re the Queen Bee, we dominate them with our powerful presence.

Akihiko takes us to the ramen shop, which we’ll quickly learn is a favorite of his. He says much the same thing Junpei did a while ago—two specials. Extra large, however. This dude and his insane appetite not only goes the length in out-eating us, but wants to go to another restaurant. He teases us a little, and the Social Link begins. Strangely, it’s not the Emperor Arcana, which is what his Persona is. It’s the Star Arcana.

There’s a scene when we get back to the dorm. Junpei’s heard a rumor that the abducted-and-unconscious girl was the victim of an angry spirit. Yukari is spooked, but Mitsuru is not. Akihiko wants him to continue, too.

> Junpei leaned forward and spoke in a mysterious voice…
> ...You don’t know where he got it from, but he took out a flashlight…

His face is even shadowed from the underside in his portrait while he tries to spook us with ‘Junpei’s Believe It, or Don’t” ghost stories. Everyone just sort of lets that moment pass, so he’s a little bummed. But they think the rumors are worth investigating, the rumor being that the girl tried to enter the school at night. Junpei teases Yukari, and this sparks her to organize competitive investigating—to prove it’s just an urban legend. Mitsuru and Akihiko slyly pass off any involvement in that. After the scene ends, we take photos at the arcade.

We get another Dark Hour clock cut-in. Guess who?

CREEPY BOY IS BACK AGAIN.

He’s happy to see us, back again as he promised, and wants to know how we are. We tell this kid to let us sleep already, damn it, and he whines about it. Shut up, kid, you’re disrupting our sleep and we’ll be as rude as we please. Creepy Boy wants to reminds us that the moon will be full again in another week, as if we’d forgotten. That’s all he wanted to say, so he then vanishes. And since that served no point at all?

Calm Down There, Edgelord: 10

We’re still tired come 6/2. Yukari’s fired up about her investigating, but we’re not, and we’re probably not going to try. We stay awake through Mr. Ekoda’s stories today, then visit the clinic, and our Courage attribute changes from Tough to Fearless. Today, we visit Saori in the library committee.

There’s not much traffic, and the game straight-up tells us it’s boring. Saori asks for help barcoding books, which we agree to, and she accidentally bumps into a girl walking in. Said girl is immediately on edge…and then asks to borrow Saori’s physics notes, which she immediately allows. When she leaves, Saori says she’s a classmate, and we note how very polite she was. Saori’s never been able to get used to that, and muses that when she sees us in the halls, we look like we’re having fun. When we say she should’ve come up and chatted with us, she says other people would ‘think the wrong thing’ if we started getting along well.

…? We rank up on that odd note.

When we get back to the dorm, Junpei says he thought all the stories were fake, yet Yukari is seriously getting into her research. Could this be the power of the Junpei Zone, as he says? We leave to play the arcade horror game, just after selling a bunch of crap to Officer Kurosawa and finding out Treasure Coins are worth a whopping 20,000 yen each.

We’ve gotten sick by 6/3. Outside the school gates, Junpei confirms that the only one bothering with research is Yukari. After visiting the clinic, we go hang out with Bebe.

He tells us we’re making a knit doll today, slipping in a compliment as he does, and while I’m sure the translators had fun, it’s “l’amour”, nor “le amour”. We complete the doll, wherein Bebe calls us cute again, providing us another item to give to Social Links on dates. Of our skill, Bebe is very positive, saying we’re good enough to be his rival. He then moves on to what he wants to make—something Japanese, but he doesn’t know what yet. Well, why not a kimono? The idea gets him very excited, but he’s right to say that on top of not knowing how to make it, it’d be expensive. He’s grateful for the idea, and we rank up.

At the dorm, Akihiko complains about girls running their mouths about the rumors, and Yukari and Junpei are equally sick of them. We go play the arcade quiz game.

We’re still sick on 6/4. Yukari walks up and mentions that she’s gotten so worked up over the ghost stories that she’s having nightmares. Yeah, it’s time to call a quits, friend. According to her, however, she did get useful information. Hmm. We then go out with Junpei.

The code used for this meeting in the guide is….a bit complex and I’m not sure I understand it, honestly. I’m pretty sure it’s saying “answer anything for the first three questions, but then 1 and 2 give you the most points on the fourth, but if you pick 3 on the fourth, you get a follow-up where 1 is the best answer”. I...yeah. Well, Junpei says he feels like there’s a wall between us and them, them being everyone else at school and us being S.E.E.S. A guy we apparently know named Kenji walks over. He immediately assumes Junpei and us are dating, given that apparently standing next to each other is dating, and tries to snap a picture with his phone. But the picture he wants is actually of himself and a girl.

………..Jesus, how desperate for validation are these kids…

It taps something in Junpei’s memory and he wonders aloud if Kenji is the pervert stalker. However, he dismisses this on the apparently concrete evidence that...Kenji is into older women. I…what? Because he expresses an attraction to women older than him, this kid begging for a random girl to take a picture with him can’t be the one to have been taking unwanted pictures of her before? That makes no sense!

Ill Logic: 04

You do find out about this earlier in the male MC route, by the way. Kenji is the Magician Social Link and won’t shut up about how hot older women are.

Right now, Kenji proudly agrees with that tidbit. Knowing how Persona 5 deals with this, I get a bit of angry lockjaw. That’s a topic for another time, though. He then points the finger at the obvious suspects: photography club students. Going on that lead, we next find ourselves in said club’s dark room with Junpei and the club president, who couldn’t look less innocent if he tried. He denies knowing anything about any photos of us. Despite that, he’s determined to be as sincere as it gets, and this turns out to be a fruitless lead.

Back outside the school, Junpei expresses frustration and says he’ll try asking his guy friends again. Appreciating it, we tell him we’re counting on him. He’s fired up and promises to work at fixing this mess, and we rank up.

Nothing new is happening at the dorm, so we save and go to the photo game.

6/5 happens. We’re still sick. Yukari meets us outside the gates to talk more about the ghost stories, and at this rate we’re so sick of it we stop pretending to be interested. She wants us there tonight, though, to talk. Bebe comes by during lunch to ask if we can chat about something that seems to be bothering him. Akihiko tries the ‘fancy meeting you here’ routine right outside our classroom, the dork. Yukari comes to us after class, and wants to know if we asked around. No bitch, I had better things to do, and Junpei is equally done with this nonsense. We boost our courage at the clinic for the umpteenth time, and then we spend our afternoon with Akihiko.

We join him in his training and run to Naganaki Shrine. We’ve both worked up a good sweat, so we rest—and I will forever be furious that I was denied a 3D scene for this Link, and thus will never know if the portrait is accurate and Akihiko really does go on miles-long jogs in sweatshirts and red vests.

We offer to join him on his regimen, but he makes sure we know we’ll be doing more than just running. *Eyebrow waggle* No, not like that, but I wish. He mentions he should’ve changed into his workout gear, so apparently he really did come here in his super-nice school clothes. When he says it’s not the light run he expected, we make sure to tell him not to catch a cold. He says he’ll be fine, but sneezes, and then insists again that he’ll be fine, while blushing.

Before we head back, Akihiko wants to know if we’re up for a horizontal bar, challenging us to do a back hip circle. I did that shit in elementary school, man (and it was super fun). Instead of taking him up on it, we call his bluff. This just gives him a chance to show off that he can, which I bet would look cool, if only we could see it. After showing off, he pulls us up to sit on the bar with him.

*Eyebrow waggle*

Akihiko says it reminds him of when he was a kid. If your ‘he’s going to make himself sad and remember his backstory’ instinct went off, you’re not alone, nor are you wrong. He says that he needs to get stronger, or he won’t be able to ‘save anything’. We rank up.

At the dorm, we get a scene, where Yukari attempts to direct a meeting. Junpei settles in and she says she’s gotten lots of good info. It better be, for how much nagging this chick put us through. Her finding? No angry ghosts involved. She talks about how the rumor got started. She quizzes us on why the rumor, while similar to the ghost story, would spread so fast if this was the first time. Clueless, we just pick a random answer.

> “It was the third time!”
> “There was a dying message!”
> “It was a ghost all along!”

Surprise, we’re actually right. Turns out over the next few days, there were two more similar happenings. She continues about how they weren’t in the same grade, but something linked them, Junpei rightfully expresses the same irritation at being quizzed, and our options are as follows:

> “They ate out a lot!”
> “They hung out together!”
> “They went to our school.”

Right again. Apparently these girls had started being out late since getting involved with the wrong sort of people. Yukari then brings up...field research. She wants to take us to this one place the three victims regularly visited in order to get info. Junpei’s familiar with it—it’s behind Tatsumi Port Island Station—and he’s wary of it. Yukari uses this as a reason we should all go together.

Ill Logic: 05

For someone who just wanted to determine if ghosts were or weren’t involved, she seems extra determined not to let her ‘case’ drop even if it means dragging us to a dangerous place. I thought I had understood Yukari to be someone who didn’t like heading straight into bad news. I also understood Junpei to be the one who rushed into danger without thinking, so this is quite jarring—it also says that it’s pretty serious if he doesn’t want to go.

You could just...you know, not go there? Or ask police? Imagine if they had to defend themselves. It’s not yet been addressed whether they can or can’t use their Personas in the standard 24-hour time, but if they can, they’d have to risk exposing themselves and their operation.

She tries to wrangle us into going, and we’re not havin’ it.

> “Of course!”
> “I’m scared to go...”
> “Maybe next time!”

She says not to worry—Junpei’s just exaggerating like always, but he’s sticking to his word. He wants to avoid that part of town and not get in over their heads, shock of shocks. Yukari, on the other hand, says all we’ve done up til now is take orders, and she wants to do something on her own for once. Junpei relents, not seeing that he has any choice. Thus she has twisted our arms into going, tomorrow that is.

After the scene ends, we talk to them again. Yukari’s determined, but Junpei is uncomfortable—apparently, there’s like some sort of meet-up there twice a month, like an ‘ex-convict reunion’.

….yeah.

WISTLH: 11

Sorry, but no teenage chick in a heart choker would be dragging me along to Thug Alleys. If she’s trying to be headstrong, she picked a hell of a way to do it. Akihiko says that he doesn’t know what we’re planning to do, but just to not overdo it. You’re in the lounge with us, Akihiko, open your ears. We go play a horror movie at the arcade and then hit the hay.

6/6. Junpei regrets opening his big mouth and getting Yukari fired up. According to the guide, we were supposed to have triggered flags for the Devil Link, but if so, I’ve missed them, so I’ll keep an eye out. We spend some time with Maiko. It’s a holdover visit, though.

That night at the dorm, Yukari, Junpei and we set off, the latter two still apprehensive and digging our feet in. According to Junpei, wandering into that place with two girls is ‘like wandering into a lion’s den with steaks strapped to my face...’. I’m not going to give that a WISTLH, because he’s remarking on other peoples’ perversions, not being a pervert himself, and in this case he’s probably right. Junpei asks how she can be afraid of ghosts, but not violent thugs. Yukari answers that it’s easier to be freaked out by things you can’t see, but he counters that he’s more worried about things he can see, like bats and knives.

Don’t forget guns and axes. Just sayin’.

“*sigh* Big deal, so it’s a little ‘dangerous’...”

WISTLH: 12

Listen bitch, that sort of nonchalance towards walking into the hood is absolutely unacceptable! Don’t make me smack you!

She tries to spin it as an adventure, failing to convince him. I am really just wishing she’d listen to reason. We are then given three choices, two of them making it hard.

> “Adventure time!” (hell no)
> “This is such a pain...” (I agree.)
> “You’ll protect us, right?” (Kisses up to Junpei, but also implies I want to go.)

The last one succeeds in convincing him—he blushes, making my heart fly out of my chest, and is down to go very quickly.

“H-Huh? Hey, you know it! Leave it to me! C’mon, let’s go!”

I feel guilty about that.

Ominous music starts up as we cut to a back alley of Tatsumi Port Island. We’ve just walked up, and the tough guys and gals there immediately have problems with us. Junpei stammers to explain our presence as he’s told to scram. A thug calls him ‘goatee’, at which I let out a small snort. Leave his goatee alone, man.

Yukari promptly opens her big fat mouth, saying we don’t need anyone’s permission to be here. Junpei wisely asks her if she’s out of her gourd, but she brushes him off.

“Come on, don’t be intimidated by these scum!”

Tough chick in the corner promptly snickers and threatens to post pictures that would ‘make her daddy cry’. Yukari is annoyed, probably because her dad is dead, don’tcha know, and the thug from earlier is starting to get pissed off. He mentions that he feels sorry for ‘Goatee’—before (presumably, I can’t see it happening) punching him in the gut. Junpei falls to the ground.

Sure, punish the dude for what the girl said.

A ‘familiar voice’ rings out. Nice! Officer Kurosawa’s here to help us! No, actually, it’s the dude from the hospital in the heavy coat and beanie! He walks up, promptly excusing us as not knowing what we were getting into, and takes responsibility for us leaving. What a stand-up guy. Mind, he still looks like he’s chewing something unpleasant while he says it, but still! Thug Man puffs up, but Beanie Man dodges his punch and headbutts him onto his ass. Thug Man, embarrassed, tries to puff up again, but Beanie Man calls his bluff and he backs down. Tough Chick and friends laugh at him. Thug Number Two curses him, letting us in on his name: “Shinjiro”.

He also confirms that Shinjiro is indeed from Gekkoukan High. Must admit that he looks and sounds a bit old to still be a student. Deflated Thug tries to threaten him, but he’s not fooling anyone at this point.

The thugs scram, and the ladies stride off. Junpei promptly announces Shinjiro-senpai to be awesome. Quite correct! Shinjiro recognizes us as the ‘clowns who were in Aki’s room at the hospital’.

*EYEBROW WAGGLE*

I sense homoerotic best friends for life here. Shinjiro chastises us for coming to a place like this, but Yukari asks him to wait, as we came here for a reason. He asks if Aki told us to come here. He hmmphs, but hears us out, and he knows it’s about the ghost story before she even says anything. He mentions those girls who are in the hospital now were here talking trash every night, about all the shit they’d been doing to some girl named Fuuka.

Those cunts got exactly what came to them, then. Maybe they were trying to look like tough bitches for the actual tough bitches? According to Shinjiro, people are saying it was Fuuka’s spirit that did it. Yukari’s as confused by that as we are, since presumably Fuuka is still alive. Or not, as Shinjiro reports she hasn’t been home in over a week and might be dead. Somehow this fact passed us by, despite having spent the past week ‘investigating’ it, and Junpei mentions he thought she was out sick. Shinjiro muses on Aki’s trying to make up for his past, and mutters about him not letting go.

He shrugs off any more questions and asks if we’re satisfied. We thank him for saving us, and he warns us not to come around here again. Yukari follows up that he’s very kind, putting him off. He leaves, and we go back to the dorm. When we get there, Junpei is relieved he was there to help. Akihiko chides us for going to such a dangerous place and I want to deck him for it, considering his blasé attitude before we left. Does Yukari have anything to say about dragging us and Junpei to a dangerous place and getting Junpei hurt? No.

WISTLH: 17

Five points, because that is directly her fault twice over. She never apologizes, ever. We go play the quiz game at the arcade.

6/7, eve of the full moon. We deny Bebe and Rio when they call—we have an Oracle visit for Junpei scheduled. We notice the Lost are out in droves today before we get to the shrine, running into Junpei and Yukari there. They’re talking to some grade school boy. He gets a portrait when we talk to him, so obviously he’s important. Yukari introduces him as Ken Amada. Apparently they help him with his homework. We draw our fortune, and lose a thousand yen for our blessing. That night, we go for coffee.

6/8. Today is the full moon. At school, we head to the faculty office to ask about the missing Fuuka with Yukari and Junpei. Mitsuru is already here, with another student, talking to Fuuka’s homeroom teacher, Mr. Ekoda. Same reason, of course. The other student is actually that bitch of a girl we saw in the courtyard laughing about bullying her—she’s very distressed about it all. When Yukari makes note of her, Mitsuru demands to know what she did to Fuuka.

Mr. Ekoda interjects, reminding the girl, Natsuki, that she’s not being interrogated and doesn’t have to say anything if she doesn’t want to. According to Natsuki, Fuuka is an honor student, but not really all that different from her, thus why she knew which buttons to push to torment her and make herself feel better. She recalls ‘messing with her’ on May 29^th. Said ‘messing’ involved taking her to the gym and locking her in from outside and leaving her there through the night.

Maki, the beta bitch, went to the school alone that night, afraid not that Fuuka would commit suicide, but that she would be in trouble if Fuuka committed suicide.

Holy shit.

Maki never came back though, and was discovered laying outside the gates the next morning. Natsuki tried to go to the gym to let Fuuka out, but it was still locked. When she unlocked it and went inside, she wasn’t there. Everyone lost their shit, and her group went looking for her starting that night. But every night, another one went missing, meeting Maki’s same fate. Picked off one by one.

Mitsuru doesn’t tear into Natsuki, but chooses instead to take a chunk out of Mr. Ekoda—he’s been attributing her absences to illness all this time, and he had to have been aware she was actually missing. Ekoda hoists up his big boy pants and doesn’t deny lying, but claims it was for everyone’s peace of mind. Mitsuru shreds that flimsy excuse, and his failing to report a missing student to the police for “the good of the class”. He tries to waddle his way out of having done any wrong, but she ain’t havin’ any of it. He ignored his responsibility as a teacher to protect his career, and she calls him out on that. He’s left stammering while Mitsuru turns to Natsuki, asking if she noticed anything unusual about Maki and the others before the incidents.

According to Natsuki, all of them heard a voice that only they could hear, calling their name. This all but confirms to Mitsuru and the audience that this was the work of shadows. She then begins to discuss this, right in front of Mr. Ekoda and Natsuki.

Ill Logic: 06

I was under the impression this was top-secret business.

Apparently, people being conscious during the Dark Hour without a Persona is a result of them being targeted by shadows, and not at random. Mitsuru turns to Natsuki and insists she stay at the SEES dorm tonight, as it’s safer. If she hears the voice, she’s to tell someone immediately, and not leave the room under any circumstance. Mitsuru also thinks Fuuka will be alright. She turns to us, and says we’re to meet after school to discuss the operation—we’re rescuing her. Mitsuru has a hunch she’s still inside the school.

We cut to the student council room, where she outlines our objective as a rescue, and our execution as the infiltration of campus. Junpei’s confused, and Yukari notes that at midnight, the school becomes Tartarus. Mitsuru postulates that Fuuka must’ve wandered into Tartarus due to being locked in the gym during the Dark Hour’s occurrence, and become trapped there. That was ten days ago, so one would think she’d already be dead, but maybe not. Akihiko chimes in, remarking on the stretched time intrinsic to the Dark Hour—while it may have been ten days for us, Fuuka may have only been in Tartarus for ten hours.

Junpei reminds him that the Dark Hour, especially in Tartarus, is a rough affair. We, experienced Persona-users, can barely handle one hour, much less ten. Akihiko rejects this line of thinking, as the only option besides rescue is to let her die or be dead. He has an idea though: entering the same way she did. We just go to the gym and wait for midnight.

Mitsuru isn’t sure herself, and admits things could go wrong, but we can’t just do nothing. Akihiko is particularly adamant about this, refusing to let her go un-saved. See that backstory flag? It’s waving. So, we’re sneaking into the school! Junpei actually pipes up with some help.

We cut to the command room in the evening. Mitsuru can’t get ahold of Ikutsuki, and thus doesn’t know how to get inside the school after hours. Junpei has a way to get in, and it turns out to be a goddamn explosive. Mitsuru is surprised, but agreeable.

Ill Logic: 07 06 07

I recall us being rather concerned about people waking up to unexplained damages to buildings during the last full moon, right? Did that just fly out the window? What, Junpei couldn’t have just stolen a janitor’s keys?

Ah, but that actually is closer to what he did. Not sure how they got the explosive conclusion (because we can’t fucking see it happening), but he admits to Yukari that he just unlocked a door, was all. Took away the point because there was no explosive, but re-awarded it because Mitsuru was still chill about one if there was.

Well, off we go. Junpei brags about getting us in, and the seniors compliment him in French. He is left confused and a little diminished. We go to classroom 2-F, where Yukari is spooked, and Junpei teases her. She calls him Stupei, and he actually gets irritated and tells her to stop calling him that. Akihiko tells the two to quit chattering, while Mitsuru says we need to unlock the gym and lays out our plan of attack: split into two groups and meet in the main hallway on the first floor.

Junpei notes that the faculty office is in their path, and wonders about finding answers to test questions. Mitsuru calmly and effectively de-balls him before he can really consider it. But she’s taking him with her to the janitor’s room anyway. We have the option of going to the faculty office with either Yukari or Akihiko, and still being mad at Yukari, we pick the handsome senior.

We’re then handed control again. A wolf howls incessantly as we explore darkened corridors, an experience I again feel rather robbed of without a 3D environment. We get to the lobby, and Akihiko notes footsteps, wondering who’s here at this hour. We hide behind a pillar. A security guard passes. Once he’s gone, we resume our mission, and head for the faculty office.

We start searching for the key. Akihiko finds it right away, except it’s actually the gym storage key, so it’s not the right one. Il est diminué. We see the right key right next to where he’s looking, apparently unnoticed. He gives up and says it isn’t here.

> “It’s right there...”
> “I found it. Let’s go.”
> “Are you blind!?”

We’re not rude bitches, so we pick the first option. He’s a tad surprised, but then we’re off. We meet up in the main hallway with the others. Mitsuru immediately orders us to divide into teams again, only this time, three of us are headed in, and someone is staying outside with her. She’s going to try to find Fuuka once the Dark Hour begins. Akihiko and I are going, and Yukari tries to take the last spot. Junpei interjects, wanting to make up for screwing up the monorail incident with the Priestess. I like that a lot!

So it’s Yukari staying behind with Mitsuru. She’s annoyed, but ultimately fine with it over getting into Tartarus.

The Dark Hour hits!

Meanwhile, back at the dorm, Natsuki has been left alone. Nice going, guys. How is she supposed to inform you if she hears a voice now?

Ill Logic: 08

Natsuki does not fail to pick up on this. She is also experiencing the weird green light, and all the water turning red, and all the circuity failing, of course. Then, voices that we can’t make out begin to speak to her. She starts to freak out, but quickly becomes placid and monotone, speaking about how she has to go tell Fuuka she’s sorry.

Back at the entrance to Tartarus, Yukari and Mitsuru are failing to get in touch with us despite trying as hard as they can. Yukari says she hopes Natsuki will be alright, and Mitsuru attempts to justify leaving her behind, as they can’t bring her here, and one of them couldn’t stay behind.

Ill Logic: 09

Begging your pardon? Do you or do you not have Yukari, usually a party member, out here doing nothing while you sense things?

Just then, Akihiko buzzes in, and Mitsuru is able to pinpoint him. He’s a lot higher up in Tartarus than she thought he’d be, and communication is fuzzy. It’s breaking up and static-ing, but we get the gist of it: we’ve been separated.

We seem to have been knocked unconscious while Tartarus manifested, but we’re awake now, on some unknown floor of Arqa. Can’t hear Mitsuru, and Akihiko and Junpei aren’t here. Guess who is here, though?

CREEPY BOY! YEP.

We are literally in a full moon event right now, do you mind?! When asked what the hell he’s doing here, he just gives us the same non-answer: he’s always with us. Creepy Boy says there isn’t much time to talk, but he says there’s more than one ‘ordeal’ this time—aka two bosses. He lets us know Fuuka is waiting for us, and that we’ll need her. He says goodbye and then leaves.

Calm Down There, Edgelord: 11

Unnecessary? Hand-hold-ey? Yes.

We’re given control, and Mitsuru attempts to buzz in and keep us updated, but can’t get much through, although it isn’t hard to make out what she’s saying. We begin to explore, and run into some enemies we easily dispatch. We do have new enemies like the Corrupt Tower, but without Mitsuru, we can’t scan them. When she next tries to get through, she’s saying they aren’t on this floor. We also hear a mysterious voice asking if we’re human. We ascend a floor, and this voice asks why ‘they’re’ here, then another floor. Then, we finally meet up with Junpei and Akihiko.

Akihiko’s set on not going in this way again, and Junpei brings up the mysterious voice. We hear it again, and it’s a girl’s voice. Enter a surprised-looking girl with dark teal hair.

Behold Fuuka Yamagishi! Our rescue mission is already done! Fuuka’s confused, but we hold off on explanations for now. While Akihiko tries to get ahold of Mitsuru, Junpei makes sure Fuuka is okay. She’s apparently managed to avoid confrontations with shadows, apparently through some sort of sixth sense. Akihiko speculates that she’s using her Persona’s power without summoning it, and she’s probably better with that field of ability than Mitsuru is, the latter’s Persona being battle-oriented. He hands her an Evoker, scaring her, and with that, we’re out.

In cutscene form, we see something for the first time that we’ll never actually see while playing, or again at all: a hallway in Tartarus with an open wall, showing the moon. Junpei gawks at it, and Akihiko says research indicates that shadows can be influenced by the phases of the moon, and so can humans. Junpei dryly remarks that it would explain Yuka-tan’s mood swings.

…..was that a period joke, Persona 3?

These two dolts finally piece together what’s been obvious to us for a while (and probably would have been even if Creepy Boy hadn’t been utterly spelling it out to us): the Big Shadows come out during full moons. Mitsuru chimes in to try to warn us of danger, and Fuuka, sensing them out, gives us the details: much bigger than garden-variety, and attacking someone. We hurry off.

At the entrance to Tartarus, Mitsuru and Yukari are being harassed by two huge Full Moon Shadows at the same time—the Empress and the Emperor.

They look quite derpy, but are apparently a big enough threat that the two of them are on the ropes. We step in, and they inform us that normal attacks aren’t working on these two. Natsuki wanders in, quite brainwashed, calling for Fuuka. We get her last name, Moriyama, and she doesn’t respond to Fuuka’s plea for her to leave.

The Empress and the Emperor advance on her and, driven to protect Natsuki, local angel Fuuka Yamagishi puts a gun to her head and pulls the trigger. Her Persona? It’s a large woman with bandaged eyes and a bulbous, hollow lower body which is wrapped around Fuuka like a protective bubble. This is St. Lucia, the martyr commonly depicted as holding her eyes on a plate.

Fuuka’s Persona is support-oriented, as if you needed me to tell you that, and she can sense these shadows’ weaknesses. With her backing us up, we take on the shadows.

Right now is about the part where enemy scanning becomes a pain in the ass. The Empress uses magic attacks, and is weak to all physical ones. The Emperor uses physical attacks, and is weak to magic ones, but they null the opposite. They take a huge chunk of damage from the All-Out Attack we perform right off the bat. This fight was hell for me the first time I played since I didn’t know that, as they use Paradigm Shift on their turn, and change their weaknesses around. Problem is, you can scan them, watch them use the Shift, then get the scan on the wrong weakness. At least, I think that’s what happened. It might’ve just been me really screwing up. Or, you can get the scan results too late, as the party member who could abuse the weakness has already used their turn and they’ll Shift again before it comes around again.

Regardless, we take them out easily enough this time. Being at a level actually appropriate towards not taking massive damage helps. They die, everybody levels up, and we’re safe. Natsuki returns to normal, and Fuuka falls unconscious before they can properly make peace. Akihiko inquires as to where the Empress and Emperor came from, and all Mitsuru can tell us is “somewhere outside Tartarus”. Yukari is worried about Natsuki knowing everything, but Akihiko says that, not being a Persona-user, she won’t remember any of it.

Calm Down There, Edgelord: 12

So the coffins have nothing to do with people not experiencing or remembering the Dark Hour? Oh, cool. Also, just wondering how you figured that out? How many cases like hers can you be drawing on? Didn’t we just figure out that shadows are targeting people?

Ill Logic: 10

Yukari regrets that this means Natsuki will have to forget Fuuka saving her. Mitsuru says it probably won’t matter—looking at her, she’s distraught, and she says Natsuki has learned her lesson.

6/9 arrives, and we’ve become tired as usual. We’ll pick up here next time!

Counts:

• DEATH IS INEVITABLE – 15
• Calm Down There, Edgelord – 12
• Villainous Cancer – N/A
• Romantic Plot Cancer – N/A
• Ill Logic – 10
• Arcana Believe It – 17
• Bad Game Design – 12
• WISTLH – 17
• Aigis I’m Stuck With You – N/A

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05 - May 2 | Table of Contents | 07 - June 2