Part 102: 9/6: Mementos Sucks
Part 99: 9/6: Mementos SucksReally sorry this updates so late, folks. Ive been a bit busy as of late, and looking at what this update entailed can you blame me?
Music: Beneath the Mask (Instrumental Version)
Weve been putting this off for far too long, and now we reap what we sow. Its not just a Mementos update, but by far the longest one yet. May God have mercy on our souls.
Well start with this one first This intel is on an atrocious land speculator. Hes trying to threaten the old couple who manage the theater in Yongen to make them move out. If we dont do something, things will probably get even worse.
So hes trying to do this because they declined his offer. We cannot allow such a horrible method to succeed.
Very well. I will go along with this.
There are still more. Next is This intel is on a malicious cheating gamer. Apparently hes been cheating at the arcades to show off recently. Its been nothing but an annoyance to the other customers though.
Lets change that immature jerks heart fast. Well show him that a real man fights fair and square.
Very well. I will go along with this.
...Really? No objections? Makoto? This dude is cheating at a video game, hes a minor annoyance at absolute worst. Fine, whatever.
There are still more. Next is This intel is on a harassing boss. He steals the achievements of his underlings without doing any work himself, all for his own profit. Apparently many of the workers have quit because they couldnt handle his spiteful nature.
Using his position of power for wrongdoing? Such a horrible boss must repent for what hes done.
Let us beat that rubbish mentality into submission.
There are still more. Next is This intel is on a dangerous assailant whos shown up in Shibuya recently. He only targets the weak. Many have already fallen victim to him.
Seriously? The hell are the police doin about this? Guess we gotta be the ones who punish this dude.
Let us beat that rubbish mentality into submission.
You dont need to chime in on every single one, Yusuke, especially if you dont have that much to say.
There are still more. Next is This intel is on a college student who is abusing animals to relieve stress. Apparently a lot of cats have died by his hand
How can someone even do that!? I dont believe this.
I could never forgive a human like that. This will be revenge. There are still more. Next is This is about that doctor in Yongen-Jaya, Takemi. Shes in a real pinch right now. An old boss of hers, Oyamada, is trying to crush her clinic to save himself.
This is the doctor in Yongen? Shit
This guy is hiding some serious medical mistakes. It turns out hes quite the criminal.
All right, we gotta operate on that dudes rotten heart then!
OK, it looks like were all ready to do this! We already told Mishima, so the forum post is up and running. There are still more. Next is This intel is on the couple related to Kawakamis former student. They are quite the foul pair of people. Theyre using the incident where that child died to try and extort money from Kawakami.
What ? Threatening her is bad enough by itself, but using a deceased child to do it Thats just too much. We have to do this.
Mm-hm. Ill show off my skills in front of Lady Ann.
Well, at least none of the others had to find out about Kawakamis side job.
OK, it looks like were all ready to do this! We already told Mishima, so the forum post is up and running. There are still more. Next is This intel is on the stage mother who mistreats her daughter, the shogi player Hifumi Togo. She controls every aspect of Hifumis career, and has thus ruined her daughters shogi life. She forced Hifumi to become an idol against her wishes and even plans to fix her upcoming shogi match.
Shes treating her daughter like some kind of tool. We have to release Hifumi from that state.
Very well. I will go along with this.
OK, it looks like were all ready to do this! We already told Mishima, so the forum post is up and running. No objections, right? Mm were good to go if youre OK with it. Thats a unanimous decision! OK, all thats left now is to take down the target in Mementos!
Ominous.
Yo, how many targets we got? 8 of em, yeah? Lets do this.
Eight targets. Kill me.
Music: Mementos
Its coming from below!
Music: Suspicion
Its gotten even bigger.
This happened because we stole another Treasure right?
I feel like its gonna keep gettin bigger and bigger.
I dont think Mementoss territorial expansion is caused by us stealing a Treasure. I bet its things like the number of searches for Phantom Thieves, the ranking of trending words And the access counter on Mishimas website and stuff. Even now, its slowly expanding.
The more we become the topic of conversation, the more Mementos spreads ?
*nods*
Maybe its the other way around
Whaddya mean?
Were the ones expanding it Or perhaps, Mementos grants further passage as we become more prevalent in the general publics cognition.
Like gettin free admission for bein popular?
Thats rather well-put.
For real? Thats amazin! Actually, youre amazin, Futaba! Howd you figure that out?
Piece of cake.
I didnt know at all What have I been doing ?
Music: Mementos
First things first, lets get fusin.
Music: Aria of the Soul
Were going after our next Strength request, a Lachesis with Tetraja. The simplest way there is through fusing another Ame-no-Uzume using Principality and Lamia. You may remember that Ame-no-Uzume was the target of a previous request, which is why were not going to be registering this version in the Compendium/Inmate Registry (in case we want to make completing this Confidant easier in New Game Plus, because the Inmate Registry carries over). We could also try to just Gallows our Clotho, which also knows Tetraja and were going to be getting rid of this visit anyway, but I prefer to do these requests the traditional way (and dont really want to deal with random skill selection).
Next up, Lachesis from Ame-no-Uzume and Isis.
The thread of fate is measured by my hand I am the mask which determines your future
Lachesis is another of the Moirae Sisters, or sisters of fate, from Greek mythology. She was the one who apportioned how much thread of life each mortal received. She was also the one who was said to choose each persons destiny after measuring their thread.
Finally, Jatayu from Lamia and Suzaku.
I will gladly sacrifice my body to help you. If it brings you glory, a new mask I shall become.
Jatayu is a valiant bird from Hindu and Malay legend. From what Im reading here, it attempted to rescue its old friend Ramas wife Sita from the devil-king Ravana (and lost) in the Hindu epic Ramayana, as well as defeat its uncle, the giant bird Garuda, in the Malay story Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa (it lost there too). Im not sure how I feel about having a twelfth of my soul dedicated to the Southeast Asian Bird of Jobbing, but this Persona will come in handy soon anyway.
If youre wondering what skills I gave this Persona, it was Mafrei, Ominous Words, and Marin Karin.
Now, as mentioned earlier, this Clotho is old and busted. Lachesis is the new hotness. Sorry, girl, we traded up for your sister. It also occurs to me that we havent shown off the Electric Chair yet, and Invigorate 1 is a decent skill, so lets do this.
Yikes.
And all that was left is a smoking item. This games fusion animations are fucking gnarly, I tell you what. Also in relation to Clotho, heres what she looked like in the ever-understated God of War 2 (NSFW)! Sometimes I look back on that series and go, man, that was mid-2000s as fuck. What in the hell were we thinking? New one looks cool though, I guess.
Looks like youre getting the hang of this. Well, thats another assignment done
No difficult questions, Justine. Just give him his assignment.
Understood.
Huh ? Whats with you? Youre not usually this cooperative.
I have no intention of abandoning my duty but I would like to know the truth of this situation. After all, we possess a mysterious list which seems to have foretold the current state of affairs Who wrote it? Why do I recognize the penmanship? Why does observing growth feel nostalgic? And beyond that what was the true intent of its creator?
I thought I said no difficult questions
To be honest though I have arrived at a hypothesis.
What!? You know the answer ?
We manage the inmates power via several arcana, which symbolize the mystic nature of this world. In truth, the encounter we share with him is represented by the Strength arcana. Strength represents great power, a mighty will, and the awakening of the unknown
Sounds about right.
Caroline In our interactions, has the inmate been the only one to have had something awaken within him?
Perhaps therein lies the answer.
Wh-Whats that supposed to mean!? Ughhh, dammit! Why do I feel so weird !?
Im sure whatever youre discussing is important and all, but I really dont give a shit about any of it and it doesnt really seem to have much to do with me.
Sh-Shut it, Inmate! Cant you see were in the middle of something!? And we already told you, therere three tasks youve gotta do before you get your next reward! Although this next task is gonna be the eighth one. There arent too many left on the list. Youve come this far, Inmate. I hope you see it through.
If you do so the answer will surely become clear.
And, uh Youre more than just some random shmuck to us now
Aww.
Youre the only one who can find the answer were looking for. You got that, Inmate!?
I feel like my bond with Caroline and Justine is growing deeper...
OK, next! Youve only gotta bring us one more Persona before you get another reward!
We would like you to harbor within you.
You got that? A Hecatoncheires that knows Masukunda!
Well then, weve got eight fucking targets to take down today, so lets jump right in.
Those two look pretty sure of themselves. Real smug lookin.
So theyre blackmailing that teacher, Kawakami, by using that incident where their child died.
But Ms. Kawakami did nothing wrong, right? We have to help her!
Are you ready? Lets go.
Seems like were starting right off with the worst of the bunch.
Music: Desire
FUCK YOU, PAY ME
Clothes, handbags, makeup Theres too many things I want!
Hm? Youre Kawakamis students ? Did you come to bring me money? That incompetent teacher is so worthless! She should be grateful to be a source of income for me!
Shut up! Kawakami got in my way! I was going to use what happened to my son to get back at people! Im not gonna lose I wont lose to elitists like you!
Music: Keeper of Lust
This fight isnt terribly difficult, but the reason theres no video is just because I decided to try some confusion money farming which only one of them is vulnerable to. Mr. Takase will throw money away no problem, but the Mrs. is a different story, and I waste a lot of time and SP before I decided to just look it up and confirm she wasnt susceptible. It ends up working out great for me anyway, though: Mr. Takase was throwing out anywhere between 18-30 thousand yen every time it happened. This isnt an ideal fight to farm money from, especially because they can use Masukukaja to lower your odds of hitting them with Confusion, but while he only threw away money a handful of times, it was still more than worth it.
In terms of what attacks they use, its really just basic medium Ice and Electric spells from the wife and husband respectively, some Physical attacks from Mr. Takase, and the occasional Bufudyne (Heavy Ice damage) from Mrs. Takase. As evidenced by these guys being the first targets we come across (though theres one we missed and are going to have to loop back around for at the end), theyre pretty weak by virtue of the fact that we could theoretically have gone through Kawakamis Confidant and reached them a month or two earlier in the story.
This fight takes a lot of turns, so we get a few opportunities for Futabas new skill, Moral Support, to activate.
Her current rank lets her apply party-wide buffs at random points in the battle, something Rise could also do in Persona 4 Golden. These include:
- Party Attack up
- Party Defense up
- Party Agility up (in previous games this was known as Hit/Evasion to signify that it represented both your hit and evasion rates, but in the future Ill just refer to this as Agility because its simpler, even though one of the Persona stats is also Agility and that might get a bit confusing)
- Party HP recovery (generally moderate)
Full-party Heat Riser is pretty goddamn fucked (Heat Riser is a skill that boosts all three parameters of Attack, Defense, and Agility at once. In Persona 4 Golden, Chies ultimate skill Dragon Hustle, which cost more than half her SP even at level 99, also let her apply a full-party Heat Riser. As you can imagine, this is stupid broken and can easily turn the tide of a fight). Reminder that Futaba learned Moral Support at Rank 1 of her Confidant, which was mandatory. As we rank Futaba up, well unlock more functions of Moral Support that are also amazing, including one thats somehow even better than this one, if you can believe that.
Outside of things relevant to systems that arent in Persona 4 like being surrounded or Mementos mapping, full-party Heat Riser is the only thing Futaba can do that Rise couldnt. Still, incredible.
Music: Sunset Bridge
Name brands Esthetic appointments Without them, people will laugh...
Were terrible human beings. Our son, Taiki, and his real parents were different His parents were both high level elites at big name corporations. Always looking at us coldly Thats why I let our son experience what its like to be forced to grovel!
It felt nice to see him gradually break down from working so much
I guess theres actual confirmation that the Takases totally worked Taiki for profit the same way theyre working Kawakami, yikes. What horrible fucking people.
I guess this is why everyones looked down on us Im not sure now if his birth parents really looked down on us...
I was happy as long as I was with Toshio, but I forgot all about it. I became obsessed with money
Taiki really was a good kid
It seems the Takase couple had a change of heart. I should call Kawakami and meet her in my room...
Im just now realizing how weird it is that two different people have the exact same distortion, to the point where they appear together in Mementos and have their changes of heart linked. Its not bad, just interesting.
That Envy Chain we got is a new weapon for Ann, which despite its garbage Attack rating, has a high chance of inflicting Despair. Were not really using Anns melee attack with any real frequency, so equipping its not a major loss, especially for such a debilitating status ailment.
Next up, Tsuboi, the cat abuser.
He seems a little irritated.
I heard he was abusin animals just to take his anger out on them.
I cant let him get away with something like that!
You guys, dont go easy on him!
Music: Desire
Maybe they die when I use em to blow off steam, but the shelter was gonna kill em, anyway. In fact, I bet those cats are happy to be so useful to humans!
What a poor excuse for a human being! I could never forgive someone like you!
Why dont you complain to the irresponsible people taking their pets to the pound, huh? Well, who cares. You guys are superheroes, right? Then hurry up and destroy this rotten society!
Well take your twisted desires, but first Ill show you the pain you caused those poor animals!
Huh? Wait, are you some kind of cat monster?
Lets do it, Joker! Ill show you the wrath of cats!
Music: Keeper of Lust
Shadow Tsuboi
Humans and cats are a prime example. Now, who is stronger: me or the Phantom Thieves!?
Okay, so the first thing Tsuboi will do is increase everyones ailment susceptibility using Stagnant Air.
Then hell use Flash Bomb to make people dizzy. He might also try to instant-kill someone with Mudo.
This guys pretty simple to deal wit--oh goddammit
ANYWAY (thank god the game lets you restart from the beginning of the last boss or miniboss)
Music: Sunset Bridge
Thats a good idea. Perhaps then, hell understand what those animals had to endure.
I-Im sorry! Wh-What should I do?
Remember the awful things you did to those cats. Doesnt it make you feel horrible?
*sob* Ive done something terrible. Im even less than an animal. Im worthless trash...
I wont tell you to give up your life. But you will spend the rest of your life in guilt.
And our reward is yet another Despair weapon, though this one actually does some damage in expense for not having quite as high an application rate.
Music: Mementos
We have so many goddamn lockpicks
Seems useful.
Mementos Scan doesnt activate as often as youd like (which is pretty much always), but its still good to be able to skip a floor.
Next target, Naguri, the punk assaulting people.
Hes got a crazy look in his eyes.
Hes been known to attack indiscriminately. I suppose he really has lost his sanity...
If we dont make him have a change of heart, I wont feel safe walking around in public.
We have to do this.
Music: Desire
Oh, geez, hes the annoying type...
So, uh, can I help you? You didnt come to pick a fight with me, did you? That cant be.
Stop playin dumb, you crazy criminal.
Im doing the world a service. Weve got an overpopulation problem with too many old people. Just think of this as my own personal brand of justice. Anyways, it doesnt involve you punks!
Urgh, lets take him down, Joker!
Music: Keeper of Lust
Youll regret picking a fight with me. Im going to beat you to a pulp!
Naguri has a huge health pool, but also takes an absurd amount of damage more than normal enemies. My first attack, a medium Psy spell, did 455 damage to him. Rakunda + Bufula broke 1k. Hell use Tarukaja, but even with that, his only move worth worrying about is Swift Strike. Its a really easy fight.
Music: Sunset Bridge
Sorry wont cut it. You attacked and hurt a lot of people, you know?
I What can I do ?
Tell the police everything.
Turn myself in I guess theres no other way. Ive been doing something truly horrible. I need to be punished for it
Oh shit, a Charge skill card. Charge (and its equivalent for magic skills, Concentrate) boosts the power of the next Physical skill you use by 2.5 times. Rakunda plus Tarukaja plus Charge equals some Fist of the North Star, exploding a dude with your pinky shit.
We were fortunate to have caught him before anyone died. We should be quite grateful for that fact.
All right, next is Kishi, the credit-stealing boss.
God, he looks pigheaded
This guy abused his position at work, right? Harassin the people under him and all that.
Its people like him who create awful workplace environments
Lets talk to him.
Music: Desire
Stealing credit from your subordinates is one of the worst things you can do as a superior.
And youd know, Fox!
Thats my way of management. Its efficientI give the orders, and my underlings do all the work. Its a pretty easy job. As long as the numbers go up, that idiot president wont say anything. If my underlings have a problem, they should just get promoted. But since I evaluate them...
How did someone like you ever get promoted? If I were the president, youd be fired!
Shut up, kids! Your reasoning doesnt apply in the real world! If you dont get it, Ill teach you a lesson as your high and mighty ruler!
Lets go!
Music: Keeper of Lust
Your coming here happened by circumstance, but the results that followtheyll favor me!
Kishi will use Brain Shake to inflict Brainwash, but has a rather small HP pool and doesnt seem to have many more tricks than that until he casts Diarahan to fully heal himself. Hes weak to Bless skills, though, so we can take advantage of that to take him down before he drags this out too long.
From that fight Ann learns Maragion, a multi-target medium Fire spell, which we slot in to replace the strictly inferior Maragi.
Music: Sunset Bridge
Youre right. That vicious cycle should have stopped with me. What have I done to my precious subordinates? I made them take responsibility for my mistakes, sent them far away, messed up their lives Its all my fault All mine
How do you intend to take responsibility for all this?
Ill read some business books. Ill try to do what I can to become an ideal boss
I want you to think carefully about what kind of boss youd like to work for. Figure it out.
An amusement park guidebook!? Even if you abused your subordinates, I guess your kids were real important to you
Its nice to occasionally see a motive for distortion that isnt AAARGH IM EVIL!
Hang on, everybody were halfway done hooray.
Music: Mementos
Maybe this means were close to our goal?
Stunning insight, cat.
On the very next floor, we come to the end of this block, as well as Jochi, the man trying to evict the theater owners in Yongen.
Judging from the smirk on his face, it looks like hes scheming something awful.
No, thats me. Sorry, guys.
I heard he was threatenin this old couple, tryin to kick them out of their own movie theater.
If we leave him alone, he may resort to violence.
We cant let that happen! Lets go!
Music: Desire
It seems like youre trying to use force to get people to leave their property?
Land development is important. Getting rid of stubborn people in my way is part of the job. Im not just playing around, like you kids are doing!
Were quite serious. We cant let those who cause problems for others to go unpunished. That includes people like you, who use bullying tactics to get what they want.
Youre just pissy-smelling kids acting big. You shouldve stopped playing hero back in preschool!
Music: Keeper of Lust
Weak to Electricity, likes to use annoying Physical moves. Doesnt really have a lot else in its kit. The thing about Mementos bosses is that the ones that dont kick the shit out of you dont really have that much going for them.
Music: Sunset Bridge
Please, isnt there some way I can have the movie theater?
Yeah, know when to give up.
Oh, er, Im sorry. Ill give up. So please, forgive me...
I hope youll consider the feelings of those who get things take from them from now on.
I-I got it Ill be honest with my superiors. Ill tell them that no one has any interest in leaving Yongen
Not just Yongen! You better make up for the awful things youve done elsewhere, too!
Uh, wait a second. He said he was gonna get fired if he didnt get his bosses this property, right? Doesnt that just mean theyll send someone else? Even worse, doesnt that mean theyre going to keep doing this elsewhere? Hello? Nobody cares? All right.
This is some form of book, likely one that unlocks a new hangout.
I really didn't think I'd go so far over the character limit when I started this update. I didn't even really think I would get near it. Welp, just another thing I'm wrong about! The rest is in the next post!