Congratulations on finishing the first half of an underrated title in the Persona series. I'll give you some insight on your commentary.
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Originally Posted by
Forsaken Lover
1. Evil Principals are bad and dumb P4 often gets blasted for being simplistic yet it's the only Persona where the teachers and school faculty are all pretty great and not a single criminal in their midst.
1 Edit: The Principal running as a Nazi punching good guy makes this criticism moot. Go Persona 2.
Part of this is an in-joke from P1. The principle and the homeroom teacher are both from Persona 1 and the guy was known for being an asshole, his name itself sounds similar to an actual Japanese demon which becomes his nickname. He only saves the school if you lie to the student asking if he is still alive, otherwise a statue will be erected in his name and the P1 cast will show up to stop the Nazi's instead.
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2. So I always thought Lisa's "bye bye!" in battle was...bye bye, as in the English words. There is plenty of gratuitous English in this game. ("Nice-uh shot-uh!") but whaddya know, it's just more of her Cantonese. It's "baaibaai" which literally means the same thing as English's "bye bye." This game is educational.
Yeah, it always amazes me the amount of research they actually do for these games.
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In a similar vain, a teacher mentions Lisa has the lowest English grades. Also you can run into Jun's mom at some location. Which I forget but the point is, this run, I made sure to stop by at practically every location after a story event to talk with party members and NPC's. I always wondered about this lady because she has a portrait and looks very distinctive and Shadow Maya was fixated on her. The fact she turned out to be Queen Aquarius and that's where she went was very satisfying. There's a lot of stuff like that in this game.
This is one of my favorite elements about the earlier entries. P1 does something similar concerning two missing classmates. It actually makes party banter worthwhile.
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Also one of the best reason to visit all the bajillion stores is to listen to the music.
I miss the Satoshi Tadashi Pharmacy theme would come back. The fact Nanjou of all people keeps getting it stuck in his head is absolutely hilarious.
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5. Bootstraps Are Dumb
I reiterate my earlier position that P2's bootstraps bulltrout is not in any way good. "YOU GOTTA TRUST YOUR FRIENDS!" I mean, who WOULDN'T stand by and watch a "friend" get beaten down by four people while some maniac holds a girl hostage? Not doing anything is the mark of TRUE friendship!
Although, I didn't interfere. Not because I care about Eikichi's pride, more that I just don't care about Eikichi at all. Best thing he'll ever do for me is get the upgraded Persona 20 hours from now.
Now, as for Lisa's "Save Or Let Her Be" moment, it's a bit less clear-cut than Michelle's. The problem is the game presents the choice in a very biased light. They want you to think "will Lisa betray you to the Joker or not?" As such, standing by and watching means you trust her. She won't give into temptation because she cares about you all too much. HOWEVER we have already establishes Sasaki has a Persona and is in league with the Masquerade. Furthermore, the choices as written are: "Let's watch what happens" and "Let's go save her." Now, saving implies she's in dire danger. Given that she's alone with another Persona user who is on the bad guy's side, it's obvious what danger she is in. Also maybe this is just me but "let's watch what happens" sounds really wrong. You don't just watch when people you care about are in danger.
I'm actually really torn on this. I thought it be easy, I'd just go save her and that be the end of it. And of course I can't deny the gameplay element. I know saving her screws me out of a new Persona. The game is bribing me to "just watch." Oddly, this is making the opposite happen. I feel like it's buying me which is pushing me towards the other choice because my integrity and love for Lisa is worth more than that. And with the writing of that last sentence, I've made up my mind to save her.
Also en route to save Lisa an NPC said Sasaki is a predator. Well, that dispels any doubts or second thoughts I had.
I think this just depends on how you feel about friendship. I tend to prefer autonomy in my friends so I am the type to force my friends to do stuff for themselves rather than always depend on me to help them. It kind of goes along with the old saying: "Feed a poor man a fish and he's fed for a day, teach him how to fish and he'll be fed for the rest of his days". Logically, letting the cast face their own fears on their own seems to me to be the one solution that will help them in the long run. Eikichi's probably made more sense to me since as an actual "thug" type character, it would be more harmful to cramp his style by coming to his rescue than letting him sort it out himself. To me, considering these moments are connected to obtaining advanced versions of the characters starting Personas, it makes sense that they could only be obtained by having the characters learn to grow by themselves.
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6. Superheroes But Only In Other Worlds
You know, something that P3 and onward do is draw a sharp contrast between the normal kids in the regular world and the Persona-wielding superheroes in the various other worlds. But here, Eikichi mentions he used his Persona to beat up people and we see Persona-enhanced strength multiple times throughout the game. Do the Persona powers just not work the same in P4 or 5 at least? There might have been actual dialogue on this but I always got the feeling that the Investigation Team and Phantom Thieves were powerless most of the time. They couldn't just whip out their Personas and kick ass any old time they wished.
Yeah this is one of the bigger changes in the series besides how Personas are obtained. The early games make it obvious that you persona power can manifest in the real world even if not directly. One of the more amsuing ways is with the Rumormonger Toro. He was a minor character in P1 whom manifests Mara of all things as his Persona in the Snow Queen Quest, but since Mara is an avatar of desire, it's ability give Toro an interesting empathy that allows him to read people and makes him a great sales rep. Reiji on the otherhand, an actual party member from P1 is terrible at sales work due to the fact that his personas (Devil and Death Arcana) give him a very intimidating aura despite being a pretty friendly guy as long as you don't mention his brother...
The later games make it obvious the P4 and 5 casts can't manifest their powers unless they are in the TV World or Cognitive World. P3 is a bit weird about it and seems to hold onto the older series considering Chidori's Persona manifests in the real world and grants her unique abilities. Fuuka is hinted to have psychic powers as well, which are alluded to being a physical manifestation of her Persona ability. This only gets weird when you realize P3-5 all take place in the same universe and even weirder if you remember that P2:EP is alluded to be set in the same universe as well.
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7. Everyone In Persona 2 Is smurfing Insane
One thing that always bugged me is that everyone in this game acts really weirdly. Not anime weird, just tweird. Like, Lisa's friends. "We just randomly became idols! Lisa, why aren't you joining in!"? Is everyone in the town supposed to be going insane because of the rumors or the Joker or what? It just bugs the hell ot of me that the only characters who act even vaguely normal are the main characters. And I guess maybe Tatsuya's brother. But every NPC you run into is just really smurfing strange. However I won't deny that, by the end, I kinda loved this crazy little town. Only Inaba was better characterized.
This is honestly one of the things I miss when playing through the later games. I mean the SL casts tend to be eccentric but I kind of miss the wacky shopkeepers and weird NPCs that P2 had. I mean there are some great NPCS in the later games as well but not quite as memorable as the nutjobs in this entry.
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8. Gameplay Talk
You know, it's weird how Fusion Spells are both fun and absolutely terrible. Learning them is both obvious and not obvious. Take for instance the fact I just learned Stone Raise which is Fire > Earth > Wind. Literally the last fight I tried Earth > Wind > Fire just because I was hoping someone who made P2 had heard of the band. It's fun when you just stumble upon a new technique like that but it's also really dumb. Same with Persona Mutations. Okay so certain Fusion Spells make certain Personas evolve? You just have to have pure luck and stumble upon it.
Also I spent hours playing Blackjack so I could get the Orb thingy that lets you Analyze unknown Fusion Spells. It's...not as helpful as I thought. I am learning, though. For instance, I always thought Fusion Spells were just generic magic type + generic magic type. However I have learned some require a specific skill. Like Maya just learned Summon Spirit. Summon Spirit + Wind = Fusion Spell. This only makes the chances of actually learning most Fusion Spells even slimmer, though.
After finally getting Jun I had accumulated over a 1,000,000 Yen so I went and blew all of it getting 10,000 Coins so I could summon Charon.
Also I never in the entire game got a Priestess, Emperor, Empress or Justice card. That seems weird. I guess I suck but you really don't need any of those. For my endgame team I had Beezleboob for Eikichi, Tsukuyomi for Tatsuya, Isis for Jun and just their regular ultimates for Maya and Lisa. I had Charon and some other Persona too there just because why not. I had a Tretraja Card I found and had some other Perrsona learn so I could keep us safe from Hama/Mudo spammers.
I heard Eternal Punishment is a lot harder so I guess I better get good.
I managed to get a Persona with skills to stop random encounters and always escape from battles. I didn't have those last playthrough. These skills helped my second run's enjoyment considerably.
Well, summon spirit makes sense when you realize it combines with any oter elemental spell to summon a demon affiliated with the element. There are also fusion spells that require specific personas. There is one that requires all three Hindu Gods, the legendary Armegeddon Spell with Lucifer and Satan debut in this entry, and there is even one that requires you party to be equipped with the whole Devil Arcana.
I generally tell people to just use a guide to learn all of the fusion spells, just to save people from the headache of finding all of them. As for the mutation and unlcoking hidden skills, while the RNG factor can be annoying, thankfully it just requires the character to abuse fusion spells. I find that easiest way to get a specific mutation/unlock is to make sure the persona you want to do so comes last in the fusion spell because 9 out of ten times they are the ones that get the change.
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9. Law for Life, Yo
"Simply being given what you want is not real happiness!"
Yuck. Stop spouting Neutral gibberish, Lisa..
Chaos is the only way baby, if you want something you have to take it.
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10. Maya Reminds Me of Shion Uzuki from Xenosaga
But that statement you can make to Maya, and everything else about her really, is making me think of Shion Uzuki from Xenosaga.
"Shion, who saw the death of her parents at a very young age and saw the death of a loved-one a few years ago, felt that her own life was always right next-door to death. Therefore, she came to possess the view of life&death where life, which "does not go beyond the state of not being dead", places a leg in death. However one wishes for life, death visits like an unavoidable fate. No matter how deeply one wished to escape death, no matter how deeply those around him also wanted not to die, death mercilessly visits.
Based on experience, the dark feeling of the nothingness of death was controlling Shion's life. Because of that very thing, as if turning her eyes away from death, Shion immersed herself in work to an abnormal degree. By turning her eyes away from death and hiding her head in the work that was before her eyes, she was able to forget the feeling of nothingness. It came to be that it gives her strength in a realistic meaning. Her blindly optimistic speech and conduct is something that stemmed from her feeling of nothingness. "
That last part especially really invokes Maya in my view.
10 Edit: Upon completing the game, Maya is substantially more well-adjusted than Shion and probably isn't just hiding her deep-seated neuroses behind a pleasant face. Although she, like Shion, did more or less follow her father's line of work and were probably unhealthily obsessed with that work.
Yeah they definitely have similarities but as you noticed, Maya is far more well-adjusted about the whole thing. While both can be childish, I feel Maya is more likable since she doesn't have that same self-centered stubborness that made Shion kind of a pain to deal with.
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11. .The Problem is Choice
I have no idea what effect some of my choices had on the game. Like, what happens if you ignore the obvious bomb targets and go somewhere else? Also I left Yukino with Fuji because that's the right thing to do. Let her mourn. I have no idea if this effects anything, I also said Lisa was my love because she is. She always be my bae.
Way back before I even played P2 somebody told me to be nice to Maya. I'm right after the room with the memory of her father and the options are "it's alright to cry" and "suck it up!" Earlier when she was freaking out because of the fire you could gently calm her down or slap her. Like, I really do car about Maya but even if i didn't, I wouldn't play some kind of monster who uses "tough love" at the least appropriate times possible. The fact there are even these options to trout on Maya make me curious about what would happen if you do that.
Going back to the "bootstrap" message of the game, telling Yukino to come with is actually the correct choice which unlocks her Ultimate Persona Durga. The idea here is that Fuji's death will be in vain if she stays to mourn because frankly the world is getting ready to end and she can mourn when the fighting is over. Doing this also saves Anna's life and Yukino's mind since the death of her Shadow Self mentally kills Yukino as well. Another change is that instead of fighting Anna and Shadow Yukino, you face off with more of the Last Battalion to save Anna. Also, if one has played Persona 1, you will know that next to Nanjo, Yukino is the ultimate "cruel to be kind" character in the franchise so telling her to suck it up kind of keeps her on track with who she really is.
As for Maya's things, if memory serves me correct, a lot of the choices will change some of the group talking abilities her and Tatsuya can have and I wouldn't be surprised if it might change some dialogue during her Shadow battle. Don't quote me on that, it's been awhile.
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12. Nobody Likes Yukino?
Was listening to great P2 music on YT and someone commented that Yukino is never included in P2 fanart. Not that I was ever a huge fan of hers but she was actually in the group for most of the game .Jun is like that little girl who replaces Galuf in Final Fantasy V, right down to magically getting the departed character's powers. How the hell does tha teven work for Personas?!
This person simply didn't look hard enough.
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Granted a good part of that might also be the fact she has always gotten the short end of the stick in the West. The scenario she was playable in for P1 was cut from the North American release and Innocent Sin was skipped in the West as well. Her role in Eternal Punishment is pretty small.
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12 Edit: Jun comes into his own in the final dungeon but is still by far the weakest character due to his extremely late addition.
When you factor in that Jun is also Joker and a lot of the plot is trying to figure out why he has a bone to pick with you, I feel Jun has some pretty good characterization. You learn a lot more about his family situation in EP as well, same with Tatsuya.
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13.. Rebellious Teenage Girls
But what's this about Lisa having sex with old guys and doing hard drugs? Nanako's "birthday" just happened and some people were talking about her coming back as a playable character in a future Persona. I jokingly said she smokes and gets a nose piercing because a teenage girl is gonna be crazy rebellious against a policeman father. Then I said that was maybe just an American stereotype. But this stuff Shadow Lisa said makes it sound like it might very well be a stereotype everywhere....
Also I don't hold it against Lisa at all, it just came out of left field.
I kind of feel like it was more shock value than anything, but the main message with her Shadow is her conflicted feelings about being different versus standing out. I've always liked Lisa's story arc, even when I had only read a transcript fo the games script back when IS was still Japan only.
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14. Eikichi Is...Good?!
So Eikichi's dungeon sucked but the conclusion was way better than Lisa's. Like, it was literally perfect. I've never been a huge fan of the character but that ending was good storytelling and a very satisfying conclusion to his character. Really, the fact I have never been overly fond of him makes that ending stand out even more as good writing. It bugged me how he treated Miyabi way way earlier and I've been wondering where the hell she went to so this was just everything I could have wanted.
I love Eikichi's story with Miyabi and I feel the guy comes across like a one note character but has so many damn layers. Frankly I feel like he and Yukino got the best deals out of the EP world.
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14 Edit: Eikichi and Lisa are totally the prototype for Junpei/Yukari or Yosuke/Chie, right down to the constant physical abuse. They pack that in the shrines and Xibalba. Lisa hits him about five times in those dungeons which means they packed all that into the last...5 hours of thee game or so. It's weird. Although Eikichi dodging it after you beat his dad is amazing.
Yes and no, technically Nanjo and Masao are the archetypes from Persona 1, but Lisa and Eikichi start the gender dynamic for it.
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All that being said, and I intend to start playing EP later today(probably after posting this in fact), I'm not sure where the whole "P2 spits in the face of "the Power of Friendship solves everything" idea came from. Sure Maya died and her friends couldn't stop it but the ending shows that they all got back together even when they forgot everything.
That's not completely true, but once you start EP you'll understand. Technically the groups payment for restarting the world was not just their memories.
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Also was that ever actually Hitler or was it just Nya in disguise?
He was Nyalarthotep all along, same with Jun's father since his real father died years before the plot began and the ghost in the Sevens Sister High clock tower is heavily implied to be him because you can find out that's where he committed suicide.
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Favorite Protagonist: Lisa Silverman or Maya Amano.
It's one of these two fine ladies, not sure which. Lisa is of course always there for you right from the start. Her problems are pretty easy to relate to. I especially like how her relationship with her father matures which is, again, one of those things you only notice if you go out of your way to see it. Kind of annoying but that's how this game was designed. As for Maya, as the co-lead of this game (some argue she's the real main character and Tatsuya is sort of the Vaan of P2) she's charming, spunky and I was profoundly interested in where her relationship with her father was going. You get hints of this all the way at the start of the game with the Demon Negotiation option she has. But it's not really brought up or discussed until way later, like dozens of hours later. And even then it only really gets one scene. I still found it powerful. It helps her theme song is perfect no matter the mood they are going for. But yeah, even more than Lisa, Maya was the person I always wanted to protect.
Yeah I love the female chracters in P2, Ulala is one of my faves in EP. Maya is nice cause she carefully balances being this likable person that everyone loves without being so damn perfect you feel like she's a Canon Sue. Lisa is also a treat but I would be lying if I didn't say that a lot of that has to do with her relationship with Eikichi which always felt like an amsuing sibling relationship. Their nicknames for each other are hilarious. Interesting enough, when Nocturne was being developed, Maya and Lisa were used as testing models for the new engine along with Sid from the original Devil Summoner.
(SPOILER)https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20120508105509
Another fun fact is that one of the new themes Fuuka can play in Tartarus for FES and P3P is actually a remix of Maya's Theme.
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Favorite Antagonist: King Leo/Tatsuya Sudo
Some people have said the Crawling Chaos is their fave Persona villainb ut I don't get it. He's basically Zemus. Who the hell likes Zemus? I don't care if he was teh root behind it all, he is in, at most, a handful of scenes and is never talked about other than that.
I like Sudo because he has presence in the story.
Maki: [about King Leo] It's a violent, wicked resonation unlike anything I've ever felt before. That power brings only misfortune, and it will consume as many lives as it can..."
He puts the fear of God into Maya, he jerks the heroes around for three dungeons, and he has a great sense of trolling. You get these two fancy riddles and our heroes are like "what could the next puzzle be?! What cryptic message has he left for us this time!!!!?" And it just says "I'm at the Sky Museum. Signed, King Leo."
Basically it seems to me that Sudo went insane and tried to validate his insanity. Ever heard the defense of "I'm not crazy, YOU'RE ALL THE ONES WHO ARE CRAZY!"? Well, in this "rumors become reality" world, that actually can work. Alls his delusions become fact and he's no longer the twisted and abused victim that he once was. Or so my reading of his psychology goes.
Oh don't get me wrong Sudou is a great antagonist, though I love his role in EP a little better, but EP kind of seals the deal on Nyalrthotep. I mean you don't even know about his existence until near the end of the game but, in EP, you will learn fairly early he's behind everything. I mean he's actually the "voice" that Sudou here's and the game's retcon the fact that Nyalarthotep is what caused Kandori from P1 to turn evil as well while posing as his Persona. Nayalrthotep's presence is felt a lot more in EP since he doesn't really have to hide it anymore. He's the cause of a ll the problems in the first two entries, and as the only confirmed godlike being in the setting, some fans theorize that every villain in the sequels are simply different incarnations of him since he's the very physical embodiment of all of mankind's negative traits just like all of the future villains are and Nyalrthotep is a well known shapeshifting entity.
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With that said, Sudou is pretty damn awesome and the most memorable of the Four Rulers of the Masked Circle. Still I can't help but feel like his story in EP is a lot more twisted and tragic.
Also, related topic: They always treat her like a joke but is Professor Ideal a villain? She worked with Sudo, a guy whose only other activities seem to be burning trout, blowing trout up and being imprisoned or tortured. She called him the "channeler" presumably referring to the fact he heard voices. She interpreted those voices as aliens or Maiyans or something and wrote this book. Basically, she took advantage of a mentally unhealthy kid. Plus it's all her fault this Hitler bulltrout got started.
Same goes for Jun's father. They were both grown adults, teachers no less, who enabled a mentally damaged and physically abused child instead of, I dunno, getting him to some therapy?
She's not evil, just someone who has spent her lie with strong beliefs that got her laughed out of every respectable intellectual circle. It doesn't surprise me that her wish to prove her theories right would make her an easy pawn for Nyalarthotep. As for her and Jun's father concerning Sudou's mental disorder, it was less them taking advantage of his mental health and more of them actually beleiving the voices were aliens, but again, it's heavily implied the voices Sudou were hearing was actually Nyalarthoteps. So they were all being manipualted by him in order for him to win "the bet".