Quote Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover View Post
So was ther more to that Abandoned Factory than the one room? I looked around for a few minutes but then left because I saw no point except it was the one area they didn't close off. Figured it was for mild card grinding purposes.

And weapons are worthless in these games, I don't even know why they exist. This Jewelry dude in EP wanted me to craft stuff for 1,000,000 Yen or whatever and I was like nope because it's a waste of money. I am using whatever weapons they started with or found and I haven't bought a single piece of armor all game.

Armor was at least useful in IS but weapons have always been pointless.

So you actually enjoy this this brain-melting tedium and repetitiveness?
I don't consider it to be too repetitive since I'm building towards something like leveling new Personas or unlocking new Fusion Spells. I liked the customization options the game gave me and trying to build an optimal team, so I never really felt the system was tedious. It's helped that I also have the contact system to alleviate the boredom of constant battle and I like having the option to resolve conflict in other ways than knocking everyone out.

Yes, the Abandoned Factory is IS and the Bomb Shelter in EP have more to them. They are an optional dungeon that opens up as you play through the game, letting you have easy access to older demons for leveling or more likely,getting Tarot Cards from since the game makes most dungeons one time deals. Eventually you can start meeting Rumor Demons in these areas which are optional bosses you can acquire special material cards or items from. You can also spread the rumors to get the Legendary Weapons or get the special spells for certain demons. This is the only way to get some of the games better Personas. In EP, once you complete the game twice and seen both Eriko and Nanjo's scenarios, you can unlock the room where you can fight Philemon who is considered to be one of the hardest Optional Fights in the Persona series behind the original Elizabeth fight in Persona 3. He also starts the whole "I'll kill you if you try to cheese me with the ultimate Fusion Spell".

Congratulations on finishing up EP, glad you kind of liked it, now you only need to play P1 and some of the side games to complete the Persona series.

Officially, Maya doesn't love either of the Suou boys, and I honestly feel it's obvious Katsuya had a crush on Maya from his dialogue in-between story missions. Her connection to Tatsuya has more to do with the Deja Vu element of him. She feels connected to him but doesn't understand why because she doesn't really have her memories from the Other Side.

Yeah EP is technically the official timeline of Persona where the later games take place though it could be just as likely they take place in a third unknown timeline. Still, P3 makes some pretty clear references to being in the same world where characters from P1 and P2 still exist through the Trish Reports on TV. We know it can't take place in IS since the world pretty much ended in that one.

As for the villains, you get more info about them if you play both scenarios and keep your ears open to NPC dialogue. The Samurai Head is also a bit of a cultural thing, because Japan has several former samurai or warlords who have been deified and considered guardian spirits of parts of Japan, Masakado is probably the most infamous of these figures, so Sumaru is a reference to this type of thing which I always found to be kind of neat.

I never felt like EP was simply about "Rumors becoming reality making people go crazy" which is really more of the first game, this one is more about Deja Vu and the idea of their existing other worlds and other versions of you, which I found really intriguing. The Rumor element is played up in the first third of the game but once Tatusya gets more involved, you realize what's really going on and your party is simply trapped in a rerun that they need to avert before they repeat what happened in IS. I always felt it was a clever way of going about it and I enjoyed seeing the differences between both realities.

With that said, most people agree with you that Maya worked better when she talked and Tatsuya worked better when he didn't. It's like the most universal critique against EP the fans have. There are also lots of fans who prefer IS over EP, but it seems like EP gets more love because it has the older fan base. That's all changed since the series surge in popularity and IS finally getting a western release. It's a shame the PSP version of EP wasn't released over here, especially since it's extra content is way more interesting than IS. You basically have an alternate scenario where you get to play as Tatsuya and see what he was doing all the time he's offscreen and it fills in some more info about the plot and has incredibly deep Lovecraft references as most of his bosses involve fighting the rest of the Outer Gods.

Ellen/Eriko is indeed one of my favorite characters from Persona 1 and I loved her in EP as well. Her 100 Ghost Stories Contact with Ulala and Baofu is easily one of my favorite contacts in the series. I don't necessarily agree with the your feelings about the rest of the cast as I loved Baofu and Ulala. I generally love P2's cast far more than the casts of the other games since they better balance interesting character conflict with quirky personalities.

Honestly, getting those high damage spells isn't too hard, P2 kind of offsets Chrono Triggers issue with Dual/triple techs by giving them a significant boost in power making them more useful than just having everyone use their own spell. You're almost always better off using a fusion spell than old series standby spells like the Megiddo class spells. I mean it's not like you can't use them, but frankly I made it through the final dungeon of EP by spamming the hell out of Dragon Cross. I mean the Ultimate Persona in EP sacrifice better stats for more versatility in comparison to their IS counterparts. This is kind of what I mean about how I really enjoy the game's customization system. The later entries streamline things way too much for my taste.