Part 17: Part Fifteen: Who doesn't love sidequests? That's right. Satan.

Part Fifteen: Who doesn't love sidequests? That's right. Satan.

Last time on Persona 2...

Maya, Katsuya and Baofu went to GOLD Gym, where they discovered that Ulala had used the Joker curse in a drunken attempt to kill Maya. As a result, she became a Joker himself, and the group had to fight her to bring her back to her senses. After returning Ulala to the Velvet Room where her Joker was removed, Maya recieved a call from Anna Yoshizaka, who told her that her friend Noriko had become a Joker and was kidnapped. Noriko was taken to Club Zodiac, and the crew decided to go for the rescue.
First, however, it's sidequest time!

I wonder if someone has proof to back me up on this...was Tek Tek wearing a name tag? What the fuck is a Tek Tek? Well, the orange text indicates that Tek Tek appearing is a rumor, so we head to Kuzunoha and spread it. Before we head into Kasu High to go Tek huntin', though, it's time to stop by the Velvet Room for some Persona updating.

First off, remember this? Well...

I forgot to explain, but...You are familiar with Fusion Spells, correct? When you use it, there is a chance it will cause a Persona to mutate. There are Personas that increase in ability, and others that gain new spells, but there are ones that become a different Persona. But to do so, they need my help, so if such a change occurs, please come to me. Of course, it is not necessary that you mutate your Persona. After mutation, a Persona returns to Rank 1, so please decide on your own whether or not to mutate it. Also, if you have the same post-mutated Persona, it might not let the mutation happen, so be warned.
Igor took care of the explaining on that one for me.

Surya mutates into Hotei, a Fire Persona from the Rod Arcanum; note that the Rod is actually a Minor Arcanum, meaning that you Tarot fanatics might nto be familiar with it. In game terms, Personas from the Minor Arcana - Pentacle, Rod, Sword, and Cup - are highly compatible with all characters but can only be produced through mutation. Hotei here is basically the next evolution of the Helios/Surya line - powerful Fire spells and lots of utility in the form of the encounter-avoiding spell Estoma. He's also got Freila, which does Nuclear damage; this is rarely resisted, so it's a very nice form of damage to do. This mutation sounds pretty good, so we go for it.



And poof, there he is! We hand him off to Katsuya. Baofu's still running around with dusty old Odysseus, though; let's see what we can dig up for him.


Hel is one of the best Personas in the game - she has no weaknesses, voids both forms of instant death spell, and posseses Dark (Mudo), Earth (Magnus), Nuclear (Frei), Ice (Bufula), Wind (Maha Garula), and Fire (Fire Storm) spells. The sheer diversity and utility she provides is simply unmatched by just about anything else, so we call her up right away and hand her over to Baofu.

We're getting kinda cluttered, so it's time to get rid of the old, crappy starter Personas; with the exception of Maia, since we have other things in mind for her.


Deleting, or Returning, any Persona at Rank 8 gets you a rare item based on the Persona you delete. In the case of the starters, you get Incenses, which provide a small permanent stat boost when used outside of combat. Callisto gives AGI...

...Helios gives STR...

...and Odysseus gives TEC. They'll be a lot more useful as stat boosters than cluttering up our Persona list, I assure you. Maya's currently the only one without an updated Persona - Ulala has Iris, Katsuya has Hotei, and Baofu has Hel. Let's see what we can do for her after we take care of Tek Tek; time to Kasu High.

It's not long before the little shit shows up; we try to talk to him to figure out what in the Hell he's supposed to be.


When he doesn't answer, we use Stone Rise to crush him into a thin paste. It only takes one shot.

This wins us his Name Tag; didn't the Pathetic Loser outside want this?


He's grateful as all fuck apparently, because he gives us a Soma - these are ultimate healing items in Persona 2, completely restoring HP and SP for the entire party both in and out of battle. Handy dandy, so we hang on to it for now.
On the way out from Kasu High with the Name Tag, we ran into a random encounter, and used Stone Rise to finish it. This earned us a mutation.

Wait...Maia's going to mutate? Odd. We haul her back to the Velvet Room to see what we'll get.


Whoa. Maia Custom is basically far, far too powerful for this stage of the game - Medirama and Maha Aques alone ensure that. She's our reward for making sure Maia wasn't a Baofu-esque cock to Ulala despite being the whole contract killing fiasco; if we had made any of those decisions wrong, Maia would have never been able to mutate, and we never have gotten Maia Custom.
Now that everybody's got a new Persona, it's time to get to ranking up and learning new Fusion spells, so we head back into Kasu High.

A Light spell followed by a Dark spell gives us...

...Death Roulette, which spins the huge wheel pictured here and kills a member of whichever party it lands on. Not exactly super-useful.

Earth, then Wind, then Maha Magna gives us...


...Land Spark, which looks badass and does Earth damage to all enemies.

Earth, then Wind, then Maha Magnus instead results in...

...Crag Fang, which does an absolute fuckload of Earth damage to all enemies. This is going to be a standby of ours.

Fire, then Earth, then Maha Agi creates...

...L'Oiseau de Feu, which looks even more badass and does Fire damage to all enemies. The name means "Bird of Fire", unsurprisingly.

Finally, any two Nuclear spells cast right after each other result in...

...Nuclear Blast. Boom. The first Area of the Bomb Shelter is also open, which is where we learned the last two Fusion Spells. It's mostly uninteresting, except for...


...a letter from a little girl named Sachiko. Sadly it doesn't give us much to go on, but it's worth keeping in mind.

We also find the map of the first area nearby.
Since we can't go any further than this in the Bomb Shelter for the moment, we decide to follow up on a couple of loose ends. First off, remember that Shiraishi Lady that did the detective work?

Well, she's still at it. There's no need for secrecy anymore, right? Wanna help me find people? Of course, there's a reward. Sounds good to me.

First off, we go after this Ikenaka guy. He's shy and can't do anything on his own...sounds like the sort of person who'd spend a lot of time relying on psychics and fortunetellers, so let's see if he's at the Sumaru Genie's place.

That's why I'm here to have my fortune told to me...I'm scared of messing up. Um...What do you want? Is there something you want? Can you make it quick?

We guess that this is in fact Ikenaka.

What? Man-search? A search for me? That's surprising. Well, I got it. I'll call Shiraishi. Thanks. We head back to pick up our reward.


Kaching. The other loose end was the Sumaru Genie and her new Wang Long fortunes that apparently work.

I decided to do it, and now my fortunes actually do come true! This is a gift from above! Is that great or what?! Now all my answers shall become reality! It is all right this time...disclose what is in thy heart. We pay her three thousand yen and get our fortune told.


Having your fortune told can have a variety of different effects, both good and bad - in this case, it fucks around with the personalities of demons during Contact, basically ensuring that all the practice you've had getting Interest and Joy goes to waste. Not too handy, but she's got some better ones, which I'll showcase later on. For now, however, this is the last of the available sidequests and new features.

COMING UP NEXT: You can find me in the club, bottle full of bub...