surgeworks

July 2 | Table of Contents | August 2
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Alternate Title: Shitty Villains

Last time, we dealt with the troubles of Mutatsu, the cynical monk, and went on a trip to Yasoinaba with our volleyball friends.

Monday morning, 8/3. Theo is calling, letting us know two people are lost in Tartarus and need rescuing. Yukari calls to hang out, and we oblige, going to get fried shrimp and shabu-shabu at a restaurant, and handing over some chocolate truffles to sweeten the deal.

Nothing new is happening at the dorm, and guess what? We have a Tartarus trip tonight, as it happens. What’s funny is that the guide mentions we should try to level up to 31 and get Eligor to help with Mutatsu. Here I am at level 33 and have had him since the Link began, thus why we’re also ahead of schedule with it—we’ll have some free days soon, hopefully.

Aigis is at level 29, so we’ll ignore her for now. As noted before, she has a multi-target physical, leaving Junpei as the only one without any multi-target skills at this point. Akihiko and Mitsuru need leveling, so we take them to the new block, Yabbashah, first, after accepting Theo’s requests that require us to deal with enemies. Yabbashah turns out to be a strange floor, dark but with odd blue-green tiling along the walls and floor. I should mention that “hard” doesn’t even begin to describe Yabbashah. We’re ten levels ahead, so we’re not under too much pressure, though we can still die. Our teammates however, still don’t have much health, and die several times. We fuse Nata Taishi, which while not fantastic, is better than a lot of our Personas thus far, having Swift Strike, Masukukaja, Rebellion, and a regenerative skill.

Our first miniboss is three Furious Gigases on floor 72. They know a lot of physicals, have high strength, and kill us with their Rebellion and Power Charged physicals. Thanks to good luck though, we handle them easily with no resistance whatsoever the second try. The second miniboss is the Fanatic Tower on floor 85, which we’re informed is a Heirophant.

Arcana Believe It: 21

It repels fire, ice, and electricity, has no weaknesses, and likes to use charged Maziongas, making anyone but Junpei at this point dead weight or worse. For its defeat, we get three magic mirrors (which is good, as we used up two holding it off), two homunculi (which we need for Theo), and a Soma (also good, since we used our one Soma healing from its attacks). The latest dead end is on floor 89.

We fuse Incubus, giving it all three physical Dodges, and he boasts a nice surprise: Spirit Drain. For as long as we can use it without dying, we can keep our SP up 15 points per turn. Life Drain, which it also has, is about as useful as Dia, so we can still use it, we’ll just be dropping it by the time Diarama comes along for good. We also fuse Orobas, who levels out all skills and comes with Torrent Shot and our first passive boost, Wind Boost, upping any wind attacks by 25%. We use it to replace the far less useful Wind Break (null 1 enemy wind resistance). We also fuse Loa, fuse Hanuman (loading him with the same three dodges and Spirit Drain and gaining Recarm), and fuse Saki Mitama, gaining Mediarama.

You know, I’ve died a lot in this game, and I think it’s worth noting even though we’re pretty far in, that that fucking poem that scrolls across the screen is about, guess what, death. I’m still weighing whether to give it a point, because on the one hand, it’s pretty appropriate for a poem to be about death when you die. On the other, it’s not appropriate to be forced to see freaking poems about death when you die.

Remember when I said Junpei is lagging because he has no multi-hit spells? He’s also lagging for another reason—his next skill is at level 25, and it’s a light-damage attack. All the others are getting multi-hit and medium-damage attacks. At level 24, Yukari and Mitsuru finally gain Diarama, so they’re not wasting huge amounts of SP chain-casting Dia on near-dead allies.

We turn in our Greasy Gears to Theo for 2 very nice stat-boost cards, and our Relic Fragments for a piece of equipment. We give him a Homunculus, and get Junpei’s winter outfit for it, and the fourth old document, for which we get a skill card. We also kill a golden hand for a Bronze Medal, which we bring to Theo for a useful weapon. It has the same damage and hit rate as the Beam Naginata, but using Panic to cause criticals is more useful than the Lacrosse Stick’s basic crit boost. We also, after a crap ton of searching, find the sword he wants, an Onimaru Kunitsuna, for which we get gemstones.

We get a bit of a shock on a very small post-boss floor where there are no enemies, and room enough only for two chests, in which it can’t have been even ten seconds before the Reaper arrived and nearly caught us at the stairs. Holy shit.

We do get all of our party leveled to 29, and then head back to our dorm.

8/4. We’re tired, as per routine. The guide says I’m supposed to go to the shrine to boost Mutatsu’s Link, but I’ve been getting extra points for 8 meetings in a row now, so I think I’ll be safe deviating a little. Fuuka’s called, and we go out with her. We get a boost, and sweeten the deal with sweet fries from cooking club. At the dorm that night, Akihiko mentions his training, Yukari isn’t looking forward to fighting shadows in the summer heat, and Fuuka is also training, to avoid another situation like the Lovers presented us. We go to the mall and see Officer Kurosawa for the rewards for rescuing the missing people: six emeralds from a housewife and an awesome skill card called Divine Grace—a 50% boost for healing spells. We also sell a bunch of crap. Then, we meet with Mr. Tanaka.

He tells us about being “accosted”, which he reports as an odd encounter with a man who actually thanked him for selling fake products. As for why, the man turned out to be quitting his part-time job and taking up study for becoming a public prosecutor, in order to kick the fine print asses of men like Tanaka in court. Tanaka’s all smiles, convinced there’s no chance he’s a threat…at first. Then he starts to wonder. We rank up, having seen a ‘new side’ of him, and he decides to call his shareholders, just in case.

8/5. Rio calls, but we have no Chariot Persona with us, so we turn her down for now. Besides, we have things to do today. Namely, spending time with Maiko.

We find her at the shrine, but not for long. She thanks us for our help, before saying she has to go for now. No, seriously, she runs off right then and there. No sooner has she taken off than what must be her mother approaches, looking freaked out. Alongside her is her husband. Maiko’s dad knows who we are, as she’s mentioned us to him, though the woman doesn’t and is upset to find this out. It should be mentioned that these two are arguing while trying to get info on where Maiko is out of me. Seeing as the girl’s plan doesn’t seem to have worked as well as she hoped despite her parents frantically looking for her, we opt for bluntness: we tell them it’s their fault. Her mom cries. All this, while upbeat music is playing.

We promised not to tell, but hey—Maiko does want her parents to find her, after all. Knowing her as we do, we suggest looking at the takoyaki vendor. They take off, dragging us along.

And there she is! Maiko is caught off-guard and doesn’t know how to answer when her parents find her. Her mother reprimands her, but it’s her father who tells her to calm down. They were scared, he says, and Maiko finally responds that she was, too. She spills that she doesn’t want her parents to get a divorce because of her, but he calms her down and tells her to come home. Though her feelings are hurt, we’re told, she’s happy to be with her parents again anyway. RANK UP!

When we get to the dorm, Ikutsuki makes sure to congratulate us on the job we did on the last full moon.

> “Thanks.”
> “It’s because of you.” (Bitch, how?! He wasn’t involved and we don’t have a social link with him, so 1) it’s not even like he was marginally helpful by boosting our Personas and 2) I have no reason to kiss up to him.)

We go play the quiz game at the arcade. Still no attribute level-up.

8/6. Full moon is today.

The Dark-Hour cut in happens, and everyone is in the command room, including Aigis (who will not be involved, I promise). Fuuka’s already located the Full Moon Shadow, reporting that it isn’t an ordinary one, whatever that means, because it sounds like she means it’s special among its cohorts. According to her, it’s by the deserted houses in northern Iwatodai, but something’s odd. This one’s underground, about ten meters so (35-ish feet for us Americans, I think, not quite forty). So it’s in some kind of basement. Aigis pipes up, citing that she can’t find any sort of structure like that in her records, at least not today, but there was an underground bunker used by the military there in the past. Stretched time applying here, it makes perfect sense for it to be here now in the Dark Hour.

...It does? Barring Gekkoukan turning into Tartarus, we’ve gotten no indication before now that structures change dramatically in the Dark Hour, or in any way at all. Whatever, man.

We’ve got no other info on it, and no way to use the current info to prepare. So, might as well go see for ourselves, and determine who gets to take on the Shadows when we get there.

When we get there, we indeed find an underground bunker, but that’s not all. Who should be there but the Three Stooges? Or two of them, at least—Emotionless Gothic Lolita is absent tonight. The remaining two, alarmingly, have slipped under Lucia’s radar.

Evil Shirtless Jesus Lookalike and Evil Nerd are introduced evilly by the former as Takaya and Jin, respectively. He also gives us the name of their group: Strega. Through Google’s magic, I’ve found that “strega” is Italian for “witch” or “sorceress”, which more or less fits in with the fact that these are obviously Persona users—not even gonna spoiler-alert that one, the game’s done a piss poor job of hiding it so far.

ESJL and Evil Nerd let us know they’ve been keeping tabs on us, and mock our desire to save the world—and they intend to stop us. Evilly. We bother to ask why they’re doing this, and Evil Nerd kindly explains that if the Shadows and the Dark Hour disappear, so will their powers, thus they want to preserve them.

…………………….What?!

How can they possibly know that?! That’s an untested, baseless theory. We know Personas existed before the Dark Hour came to be, and the Dark Hour has not failed to arrive on any given night to test that theory with. They have absolutely no way of knowing that an end to the Dark Hour means an end to their Personas.

Ill Logic: 17

The only way I could see this being justified is if they drew that conclusion based on the fact that they can’t use their Personas outside of the Dark Hour. Except that’s not a fact, it’s demonstrably untrue. We already went over Fuuka getting ready to summon at Yakushima, and in case you want to raise questions about how the nature of Fuuka’s differs from that of Strega’s, SPOILER ALERT THIS TIME, a Persona actually manifests in the daytime for one of them.

Ill Logic: 18

What this ends up looking like is that these morons are afraid of losing a power they’re not in danger of losing and want to doom the rest of the world over it. They look like morons. Of course, we know why this was actually done. That’s the justification for their villainy. And seeing as it sucks and is clearly only there so they have some reason to antagonize us, however baseless?

Villainous Cancer: 08

Atlus made their villains idiots just so they could be around to antagonize us in the first place. ESJL calls it the Tower of Demise again, by the way.

Calm Down There, Edgelord: 19

Yukari calls them insane, and ESJL rambles on about not wanting to be pathetic and ordinary and he frankly sounds pathetic and hammy. SEES rejects his logic when he asks them about it.

Evil Nerd says that we’ve all got our reasons for fighting, and “justice” is only an excuse, which apparently makes us all hypocrites.

Ill Logic: 19

Jin, sweetheart, that’s not what a hypocrite is. Even if you think their reason of justice is hollow (which isn’t yours to determine, especially if you have nothing to back it up with), a hypocrite is someone who expresses one belief or discipline and acts in a way that violates that belief or discipline. If SEES espouses justice and protects people, that’s not hypocrisy. A hypocrite is not someone who does something you don’t like or whose personal reasons are not identical to the reasons behind their common goal.

Evil Nerd sees us off, via closing the partition door on us with them outside and us inside. We’re locked in with the Shadow, so we can at least take it out—nice job on stopping us, dumbasses—but we now have to worry about getting out afterward. I wanna give that a Villainous point, but I won’t.

Fuuka reports that the Shadow is moving, and may have noticed us. The group agrees that we need to focus on it for now. Considering I know how this fight goes, how should I prepare? Aigis technically is useful in this fight, but really, any group can take this boss on, since it has no weaknesses to hit and can’t hit any of ours. So we take Junpei, Yukari, and Mitsuru.

We’re on the case—the Shadow is moving downward, away from us, so we need to chase it down. Seventeen meters, then twenty-one, then twenty-seven, then thirty-three...it finally stops and waits for us, but we have fodder to deal with that’s in the way. Once that’s taken care of, we confront…something.

Oh, we can tell what it is. It’s a bizarre sort of tank that the Shadow seems to have possessed, but which one it is isn’t clear. Fuuka attempts to inform us of its Arcana—

Arcana Believe It: 22

Only to find that she can’t really tell. It seems to be both the Chariot and the Justice at the same time. She’s sensing two Shadows, but we only see one. At first, it doesn’t do much but attempt to poison us, but when we chip it down some health, it separates! The turret sprouts wings and flies into the air, while the hull rolls back on two tracks like legs. The former is Justice, the latter is Chariot. Fuuka warns us that they fused into one, and despite being separated now, are coordinating their attacks (which is a lie).

Again, huge thanks to Chris Caine for permission to use his footage.

There’s not much to know about this fight—Chariot uses strike physicals, while Justice uses pierce physicals. Save for some poison mists the two will throw out and some Hama spells from Justice to be wary of, that doesn’t much change. Chariot does have Power Charge, but despite being a fucking tank (you would think it would be the primary defensive partner), it won’t survive long enough to be a threat with it nor its many multi-ailment skills that it tries to abuse critical hits with, and that’s with a team that isn’t overleveled.

There are two gimmicks to this fight. Chariot and Justice occasionally unite and separate after being dealt enough damage, combining their HP along with their bodies and dividing it accordingly. However, they can only be beaten separately. That’s where the major frustration comes along—if you only kill one and the team’s turn ends, the other will use Samarecarm to revive it with full health, starting a disaster cycle. In vanilla P3 and FES, this was virtually cheating, as you couldn’t control your partners, who auto-targeted the weakest enemy, and you had to carry their weight. Now though, we actually have controls we should’ve had at the beginning in 2006, so no Fake Difficulty.

...And yet frankly, I think I must complain.

The first thing I’m going to complain about relates to the Arcana. Some thought clearly went into this boss’s design, but not enough to make it truly challenging or truly interesting. Forgive me as I go into lengthy details on why.

First, the Arcana are misrepresenting the parts of the object they’ve possessed. A tank is a good fit for the reversed Chariot and Justice, which traditionally represent passion, aggression, and drive for the former and law, controlled judgement, and authority for the latter. This works well with the halves of the tank—the hull is an armored weight on wheels, which does its part by being driven and directed by its operator, and the turret is a purely offensive tool. The former is mostly defensive and would have little in the way of attacking were a weapon not attached to it—a Stone Wall. The latter can blow things to bits, but only if it’s aimed properly by someone else.

So why is Chariot the armored hull, and Justice the turret?

Chariot should be the turret, damn it! That’s the aggressive, attacking part of the tank, while the hull is defensive and suits Justice far more!

The Arcana point for this boss was already awarded, so I think I’ll give it a BGD purely for this being kind of dumb.

Bad Game Design: 31

Which leads me to the second thing I’m going to complain about: this boss is piss easy.

There will be differing opinions on this among gamers, but this is just my take. I don’t usually consider challenge in gaming to be all that important; yes, it does need to be there, but I’ll far sooner complain about something being unreasonably difficult than too easy, especially in story-based games. Challenge is important, but at least for me, it’s not a core element—if something to do with it warrants a nitpick from me, it will come in far behind the other nitpicks I’m likely to have. That said, it is possible to get on my nerves by low-balling to this degree.

These things are pathetic. This isn’t like the Lovers, which would’ve been somewhat challenging had its AI not behaved like an idiot. These things spend a fair amount of time attacking; Chariot has Power Charge and can spam ailment skills to boost criticals, but the thing is, there’s no way they’ll ever actually land enough hits to kill. They’re massively underpowered, their ailment skills and Justice’s Hama skills are obviously unboosted, and they’re not fast enough or lucky enough to make either count.

There’s even the previously discussed Samarecarm gimmick for a last chance at making these two more than minor pests...or not, because again, piss easy.

To give you an idea of how insulted I am by this fight, I actually held back from attacking. After all, I am overleveled for this boss anyway, but my more reasonably-leveled team should have some difficulty, right?

Wrong. They took less than one glancing hit each, none of them used anything involving their Personas or items, and the Shadow duo still went down pathetically fast.

If you will excuse me, I’m going to take a moment to fix this, purely because this would be an easy fix.

In a revamped fight, Hull/Justice would cast, in addition to ailments, defensive buffs (Marakukaja), would have some regen passives (Regenerate, Invigorate, etc.), would have some resistances (neither Shadow in-game resists any of the physicals, like you’d expect of a tank boss), High Counter perhaps, and I’d have given it a shit ton more health. Turret/Chariot would throw out its physical attacks, with Apt Pupil as a passive and Rebellion to increase its critical rate. It would be the one with Power Charge, and would cast Matarukaja and Masukukaja to increase damage and accuracy. After the two were done stacking their buffs, Hull/Justice would throw out a multi-target physical to break SEES’ guards so that Turret/Chariot would do full damage to the one targeted.

That took me less than thirty seconds to think up.

Bad Game Design: 38

Five points for how utterly nonthreatening the boss is, and another two for it being a very obvious revamp.

They hand out their experience, and then we’re done.

In the dorm’s command room, Ikutsuki is buzzed by Mitsuru to fill him in on Strega and let him know we whooped Shadow ass, as well as to request help getting out of the bunker. Evidently we get out, because we’re waking up the next day in our own bed next thing we know.

8/7. Saori rings us today, but we have plans. According to Ken, Apathy Syndrome cases aren’t just stopping cold mid-month, they’re actually getting relieved of their symptoms when we beat the Shadows. Nice! We go and see Bunkichi and Mitsuko for the first time in forever today.

When we get there, Bunkichi has good news for us to hear. Someone came by earlier, reporting on signatures gathered for the petition to save the persimmon tree. Mitsuko joins him and us in being happy about this, and he’s so excited he wants to visit that tree right now. RANK UP!

We go to Paulownia Mall tonight. Theo has new requests up, but most of them concern Tartarus, so we won’t accept them just now. Two that don’t are the date to Naganaki Shrine and a request for a drink with his sister’s name. We accept those two, though we’ll be doing them both tomorrow. We’re headed to spend time with Mutatsu again tonight. This evening is our one and only holdover meeting, though I must say he seems like quite a different man through it, talking about smiles instead of cynicism.

Dark Hour cut-in!

CREEPY BOY RETURNS AGAIN.

And this time he has seemingly new information. ‘The end’ isn’t coming due to anyone in particular. Apparently, many people wish for it, and that’s why it’s happening.

OH DON’T WORRY. I’LL HAVE MY WORDS ON THIS LATER, LITTLE BOY.

This? Keep it in the back of your mind because I have a rant waiting on it. I have several rants waiting on it. You’ll get it when the game makes good on this bit of intrigue.

“But, doesn’t that seem like a strange thing to wish for?”

Fucking duh.

> “I suppose some people might.” (Nobody wants the end of the world, dude.)
> “No one would want that.” (See above.)
> “I sure don’t want it.” (See above.)

“Are you certain?”

YES, I’M CERTAIN.

“What about those who hope for an end to their suffering, who wish to find peace?”

WE CALL THEM “SUICIDAL” AND NOT “THE MAJORITY”.

Oh, Atlus. You really should not have spun your game this way. By the way, isn’t that kind of crippling the whole DEATH IS INEVITABLE angle of Memento Mori? Mindfulness of mortality? Whether any person in particular or not is the source, fact of the matter is that this apocalypse is apparently being induced according to someone’s will for it to happen, not simple acknowledgement of the end that comes for us all.

Pharos isn’t done with us, yet. A cryptic message follows: “Soon, the poisonous flowers will bloom. One in your own garden, and three in the garden opposite yours.” I have some idea what that means, but I’ll avoid speculating openly on it for now. Asking him does no good, though he implies our friends are our flowers.

He reminds us that he’s supposedly a friend to us, triggering a rank up. The Death Social Link jumps to 5, completely skipping Rank 4.

As he leaves, he calls us “my dearest”.

Calm Down There, Edgelord: 20

That last bit was put there for no other reason than to creep people out, wasn’t it?

With that, 8/8 begins, but we’ll have to save it for another post. Next time, we’ll take Theo on a date, want to kill Mitsuru, spend a lot of time at the movies, and say goodbye to one friend while making another.

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