Persona 3 Portable 02 - Tartarus

[surgeworks]

01 - Welcome to Persona 3 Portable | Table of Contents | 03 - April
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Alternative Title: Persona's Labyrinth

Last time we left, we’d just moved into a new dorm, experienced stretched time, got walloped over the head with 2spooky4me edge, and met our attractive dorm-mates. We also had a die-or-fly superpower awakening, summoned a huge monster by shooting ourselves in the head, crushed another huge monster called a Shadow, and learned that Mitsuru’s last name, ‘Kirijo’ is the same one as an apparent corporation that at least makes electronics. We also listened to some nice music. So yeah, that was a bit of a strong open.

Ahem!

We wake up in a hospital bed. Yukari is there, and seems surprised. As previously mentioned, we’ve been asleep for ten days—it’s now April 19^th. A quiet, tender version of Want to be Close plays.

Yukari says she was worried and is relieved, and that the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong—we’re just that exhausted. She apologizes for not being able to do anything—I’ll bring that up later—and says that our power was amazing. We ask her what it is we did. She finally says that the power we used is called ‘Persona’, and that ours was amazing. The Shadows are our enemies. After telling us what we already figured out, she apologizes for not doing so sooner and says she’ll explain the rest later.

Yukari follows it up uncomfortably by stating that she’s ‘sort of like [us]’. We ask her what she means, and it turns out she’s not talking about a Persona—she’s talking about parentage. Her dad died when she was little and she’s ‘not exactly on good terms’ with her mother. She clarifies that the two of us are all alone, and says she already knows about our past. She’s telling us this because it didn’t seem fair otherwise. Her dad died in 1999, same as ours, in an explosion. According to her, he supposedly died in the blast, but no one’s really sure, and he was working in a lab run by Kirijo Group (!). She’s hoping that if she sticks around long enough, she’ll find out more. She apologizes again for being no help, and we try to make her feel better.

> “It’s not your fault.”
   > “I was scared, too.”

After some more explanation, we get a slip-up where they used an old voice line with Yukari referring to us as ‘him’ despite the fact that they changed the text to say ‘her’. Sorry, I have to give it this on principle.

Bad Game Design: 12

Yukari leaves shortly thereafter, saying she’ll let the others know we’re awake, and that we needn’t be formal. Before I move on, I’d like to touch on the biggest part of what it is Yukari said.

Yep. We’re an orphan.

*Clasps my hands together* Besides giving it the obligatory points, because of course we’re an orphan, right?--

DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 10

Calm Down There, Edgelord: 06

—I’d like to remark that this is really not all that necessary. In fact, it’s kind of detrimental, because if you haven’t been able to tell by my repeated use of the ‘we’ pronoun, this protagonist is sort of supposed to be a blank slate. Something we can project our personality onto or build up as we go. Slapping an orphan backstory on there throws a wrench in that because we now have to factor that into this character.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that not everyone who’s an orphan has a Tragic Backstory, but in this case, there is one—this ‘blank slate’ is 17 and lost their parents in a weird government lab accident at 7 years old. That’s gonna scar a kid, even if they’re not up-close and personal with the accident part. We, or at least most of us, can no longer jive our personality with the one the supposed blank slate should have. Losing your parents at a young age is kind of a big part of a person’s life.

After Yukari leaves, we apparently go back to sleep, and are well enough to head to school the next day. Junpei is there to greet us, wondering if we had an illness. He also says that he’s got something to tell us, but smugly keeps it from us for the time being because he’s not supposed to say. Yukari pops up to tell him to keep it down. Junpei teases her, calling her “Yuka-tan”. She shoos him off to talk to us in private.

According to her, Ikutsuki wants to talk to us. After school, we’re supposed to come to the fourth floor of the dorm. For now, we show up in Mr. Ono’s class. This Japanese History teacher, wearing a samurai helmet, either has no interest in anything that isn’t samurai, doesn’t know anything about anything that isn’t samurai, or both. He asks Junpei what the style of houses in the Jomon period was called. Again, we come to the rescue—the answer is “mud huts”. Charm increases!

Once back at the dorm, we report to the fourth floor.

Yukari, Mitsuru, Ikutsuki, and Akihiko are all there. Ikutsuki holds our hands again. Akihiko is handsome. Ikutsuki asks us what we know about the 25^th hour of the day. Our only choice is to be ignorant and say, roughly, nothing.

Mitsuru describes the Dark Hour thusly: lights out, nothing working, coffins everywhere. Yep. Sounds right. Akihiko remarks that normal people, inside their coffins, are completely unaware of the Dark Hour.

*Sigh*

Akihiko’s more interested in the creatures that come out during said hour, the shadows, which attack anyone not in a coffin. Make note of this. He also says that it’s this group’s job to defeat them. Mitsuru chides him for being too excited about monster-hunting. Ikutsuki formally introduces said group: the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad—SEES for short. A school club during the day, a monster-eradication group by night, and in secret. Mitsuru is the leader, Ikutsuki is the club advisor.

It’s the shadows, which feed on the minds of the prey and turn them into a ‘living corpse’ that are apparently causing Apathy Syndrome.

Ikutsuki says that although rare, people who can function in the Dark Hour exist. Some awaken powers—Personas—tailor-made to fight the shadows. Mitsuru presents us our initiation—a silver gun in a briefcase. She refers to the gun as an Evoker—we’re being asked to join.

Putting to one side why other things can’t seemingly fight shadows—actual normal guns for example, which don’t require electricity or any sort of complicated machinery to function—we see no reason to decline. We are now a part of SEES, and will be staying in this dorm for good.

>…….!?

A card appears before us! Numbered 0, it depicts the Fool card of the Tarot! It is followed by words ringing in our head:

“Thou art I… And I am thou. Thou hast established a new bond. Thou shalt be blessed when creating Personas of the Fool Arcana.”

We have established our first Social Link, corresponding to the SEES group and the Fool Arcana. Remember what Igor said? Social Links are important to making Personas more powerful.

They also happen to, as the game informs us, give an EXP bonus when fusing Personas of that Arcana. We’ll learn what fusing means soon.

All that talking has worn us out, and we retire to our room. We are given the Dark Hour clock cutscene.

BAM. CREEPY BOY IS BACK, AND HE’S SITTING ON OUR BED. GO AWAY, GREMLIN!

Calm Down There, Edgelord: 07

Gave it that simply on principle. He couldn’t appear anywhere else? Like outside our door to knock? Or get a dream sequence?

The Voice Someone Calls.

Upon waking up to this disturbing sight and asking this brat how he got in, he ominously says “I’m always with you...” and chuckles. He then prophesies that soon ‘the end’ will come. When asked for clarification, he says it’s the end of everything. The world, then, I guess.

DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 11

And despite this ominous warning, he follows up by saying he doesn’t really know what it is.

Creepy Boy then remarks on our Persona power, calling it unusual, ‘taking many forms, but bound by none’. He cryptically says it may or may not save us sometime down the road. He asks if I remember when we met—how could I not—and then this little brat says he’ll be watching us, even if we forget. He then vanishes.

I want to give that an Edgelord point, but that wasn’t entirely pointless. We did find out new info there….sort of.

The next day (4/21), Yukari greets us outside school, saying she’s glad we joined SEES—Akihiko’s injured his ribs and will need time to recover, so now she doesn’t have to be the only one alongside Mitsuru. After class, Mitsuru walks in, and says to get to the lounge when we’re back at the dorm, she has something to tell everyone. No details now, as usual.

When she walks off as quickly as she came, Yukari snottily says she’s probably busy with student council. Junpei picks up on the rough tone. She says it’s not that she doesn’t like Mitsuru, but doesn’t finish before she wants us to leave.

She continues when we’ve walked down to the Iwatodai Strip Mall where Way of Life is playing. Or at least she starts, but then she decides to be a dick about Junpei.

“...Why’s Junpei always have to talk about this stuff that isn’t any of his business, huh!? Plus, he says it all in the creepiest, most perverted way. He’s like the poster boy for sexual harassment.”

Well, that was rude. Don’t be like that, Yukari, you’ll speak it into existence.

We should probably save it, but if I were Junpei I’d be pretty pissed off about being so harshly labeled. So, we’ll just slip in another count that won’t be seen heavily a while.

WISTLH: 01

This is the part where we ask "Was I Supposed To Like Her?" Because Junpei’s so far done nothing to warrant that kind of sour reaction. We’ll see more of that later, from her and him. Now off-topic, she still doesn’t get back to talking about Mitsuru.

We go back to the dorm, and head up to the fourth floor. Akihiko and Mitsuru are there, saying that there’s someone they want to introduce. And who should it be but the man himself! Dragging some luggage, Junpei walks in!

I love Junpei. Joy plays. Joypei.

Yukari’s shocked, shocked! Akihiko introduces him, and Yukari stamps her foot. Akihiko found him, and Junpei has the balls to not bat an eye when admitting that he was found crying and confused in a convenience store surrounded by coffins. Have I mentioned I love Junpei? Akihiko mentions he just awakened his ‘potential’ recently. ….So, what, he was normal up until a few days ago? What happened? What changed? Did something trigger him gaining a Persona? Tell me, Persona 3.

It doesn’t. As usual, we get no explanations. I’m considering starting a count for that.

Junpei asks if we knew about the side effects of awakening a Persona, and we let him feel cool by saying no. He’s all excited about joining SEES, and if you’re not imagining waggling eyebrows on him, you’re doing it wrong.

Ikutsuki arrives, bringing the fun music to an end. Now that SEES has five Persona-users instead of the two they started with, he wants to commence exploration of something called Tartarus.

DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 12

What’s Tartarus? Well, in Greek myth, it’s sort of like the equivalent to Hell. There’s the underworld that Hades rules, but it’s more of a general afterlife, and one part of it where the very wicked go when they die is Tartaros. It’s also the prison of the Titans, including the chopped-up pieces of Chronos, the Titan of time. It’s a pit, abyss, trench, other words describing deep dark holes in the ground.

But what is Tartarus in this game? Junpei remarks that it sounds like toothpaste, and I laugh. Yukari gets to rib Junpei on what he doesn’t know this time, before Akihiko describes it as a shadow nest. We’re due to start exploring it at midnight tonight. Ikutsuki won’t be coming with us, since he can’t summon a Persona.

……? He can’t? So how’s he walking around during the Dark Hour?

He did say that ‘some’ people who function during that hour were Persona-users, not all, so I guess it’s already explained. Still though, that’d make him the only one.

Later that night, we show up at Tartarus, which is…Gekkoukan High School. Junpei is alarmed, but is told to wait a few minutes.

Animated cutscene!

As soon as the Dark Hour hits, the ground starts to rumble. Up from where Gekkoukan High stands, a colossal mass of metal and stone rises, piercing the sky and standing silhouetted against the glowing moon. This, as Mitsuru explains, is Tartarus.

Yeah, Tartarus is a….tower. Not a pit. Well, I’ll leave that be for now.

How nobody, Persona-users included, notices that rumbling and shaking as it appears each night, is news to me. It’s also a labyrinth. Junpei’s still alarmed. When he asks why this happens, no one knows. Akihiko’s excited, and thinks there’s some clue inside Tartarus to explain the Dark Hour.

After that, we go inside. Junpei is awed, as we find a sort of theater with a raised platform, stairs up to it leading into an odd, mechanical door that looks like a clock. Beyond that is the labyrinth. We, Junpei, and Yukari are being assigned to look inside that labyrinth, by ourselves. Mitsuru tries to calm us down, saying that we won’t be going very far and will be getting an info feed from her. They also want to appoint a leader.

Junpei jumps at the chance, excited, but for obvious reasons, Akihiko seems reluctant. He promptly selects us to lead the group.

“Wha…? B-But she’s a girl?”

WISTLH: 02

The given reason for this selection is that 1) we’ve fought the shadows before, and 2) we don’t have any difficulty summoning a Persona, like Yukari and Junpei do. Akihiko asks if we’re ready to go inside, but we’d like to wait for a minute. Something’s drawn our attention.

A weird door glowing blue from inside is positioned at the edge of the lobby. The Velvet Key Igor handed us is glowing, so we stick it in, and the doorway sucks on it. Once we’re in, we’re back in that familiar elevator.

Igor says it’s time, and wants us to find out how and why Tartaros has come to be. According to Igor, no one but us can see the door to the Velvet Room. Remarking on our power again, Igor describes it as like the number zero—empty, yet holding infinite possibilities. What this means is that we are a Wild Card—a Persona-user that can summon multiple Personas and use them as needed. We can gain new Personas by killing shadows, as it happens. When we get some, we’re to bring them back to this room for him to see.

Igor also makes good on his promise to introduce us to another resident of the Velvet Room. Since we’re playing Persona 3 Portable, this is the moment when we’re given the option to choose the gender of our Velvet Attendant. In vanilla P3, FES, and the male MC route of this game, you get Elizabeth, the quirky, somewhat short, but cute female attendant. In this one, we can choose Elizabeth, or we can choose her hotter younger brother, Theodore, which we do—

That beautiful man dressed as a bell boy politely introduces himself, and says we can call him Theo. We then exit the Velvet Room.

When we do so, it doesn’t seem as though the others have noticed anything. We haven’t just vanished, but we do seem to have had a blank expression on our face. Hmm.

With nothing left to delay us, we enter the first room proper of Tartarus. Thus begins the portion of the game where most of the gameplay itself happens. When we get inside, a radio-like version of Mitsuru’s voice comes through. Turns out her Persona’s got some sort of ability to see and hear what we see and communicate with us from afar. According to her, she can’t join us and needs to remain outside for support because the layout of Tartarus changes each day. We’re also supposed to expect enemies at any minute, and she wants us to eliminate all shadows on this floor.

Here's the BGM.

The display in the corner reads that this part of Tartarus is “Thebel Block”. Tartarus is divided into blocks which cover certain amounts of floors. This is the bottom one. Since this is supposed to be a recap, I’ll try not to spend too much detail on each minute of gameplay, but some details are in order here:

First, we can now see our weapons. There’s our naginata, and Yukari is using a bow and arrow. Junpei is wielding a large two-handed sword like a baseball bat, which is amazing.

There’s chests laying about the Tartarus floors, which can be opened for pickups. And pretty soon we come across our first shadow, which wanders around until we touch it, triggering an encounter. Enemies will attack when they see us, but we get the first hit, which gives us an advantage in the encounter.

Our first battle is overseen by Mitsuru. I’ll break it down along with the rest of the game mechanics for those who are interested:

[THIS LINK WILL TAKE YOU TO A POST ABOUT P3P'S COMBAT SYSTEM.]

Our Persona’s stats determine our own. If our Persona has high attack, so will we. Right now, our first Persona, Orpheus, is pretty shitty—doesn’t resist anything, has two weaknesses (Zio and Mudo, the latter of which is a disaster waiting to happen since being weak to an instant-kill element means a guaranteed kill if one is aimed at us). Its stats, in accordance to its low level, are threes and twos. But it’s pretty balanced overall.

Of note is that Personas in this game are based on Greek myth, and a little bit more abstract than the ones in Persona 4, which are less recognizable Japanese myth figures, but more anthropomorphic.

Junpei and Yukari are more focused. Junpei’s Persona, Hermes (Greek messenger god, god of thieves, god of speed and swift travel, transported people to the underworld after they died), looks badass as hell and has a focus on physicals. We’ll be seeing fire and more physical attacks from him in the future. Yukari, and her magic-focused Persona, however, merits mention—her only skill right now is a heal (Dia) and her Persona, Io (one of Zeus’ mistresses who was turned into a cow to hide her from his wife Hera) has no attacks at all right now. Which makes me wonder how she intended to fight off the gigantic shadow that attacked us and why she bothered trying to summon her Persona at all instead of just getting out her bow. Point!

Ill Logic: 01

Hello, ill logic.

Yukari resists and utilizes wind, and is weak to electricity. Junpei’s resists fire and is weak to wind.

One more thing: Both Personas and shadows have an arcana applied to them. Io’s arcana is the Lovers (obvious), Hermes’ is the Magician (power and talent while lacking discipline or direction), and Orpheus’ is the Fool (potential, possibilities, the start of adventure).

Regarding the combat itself, I have no complaints yet. It’s fairly familiar to a Persona 4 player, and an immense relief to a Persona 3 player—party members of vanilla Persona 3 were AI-control only...for some reason. In fact, it’s a little better. Without even being prompted or drawing a critical, Junpei swung twice on a shadow, doing extra damage and killing his target. Kind of like a ‘half-critical’ I guess. I do have some complaints about camera control—it’s done with the L and R buttons instead of my perfectly good right analog stick. Admittedly, the PSP doesn’t have a right analog stick, but it does just highlight how little effort was put into porting this thing onto the Vita. It’s not a pain, it just takes some getting used to.

Anyway. Fighting.

I succeed in clearing the first floor of Thebel of shadows, and gain a level and a Persona, Apsaras, for my trouble. We’re ordered to return via an ‘access point’ teleporter we find on the floor.

Junpei’s excited, but tired. According to Mitsuru, fighting during the Dark Hour can easily lead to fatigue. A sense of camaraderie fills the air, and our SEES Social Link ranks up! We’re at 2 out of 10 now.

We’re advised to get back to the dorm and sleep, but before we do so, we head back into the Velvet Room. Igor finally gets around to telling us that he can fuse our Personas together into stronger Personas if we bring him the cards.

We would have to lose Orpheus and Apsaras to get an Angel though, so for now we don’t intend to fuse. I also have an idea of what Personas we’ll need for other tasks soon, so we leave without fusing.

Despite only covering a measly two days, we’ve done a lot for this recap, and it’s time to end it.

Counts:

• DEATH IS INEVITABLE – 10
• Calm Down There, Edgelord – 7
• Villainous Cancer – N/A
• Romantic Plot Cancer – N/A
• Ill Logic – 1
• Arcana Believe It – 0
• Bad Game Design – 12
• WISTLH – 2
• Aigis I’m Stuck With You – N/A

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01 - Welcome to Persona 3 Portable | Table of Contents | 03 - April