Persona 5 Part #77 - 7/26: Double Event

Part 77: 7/26: Double Event

Part 75: 7/26: Double Event

Music: The Days When My Mother Was There (Another Version)

That proves she sees us as a threat now. Let’s be careful!

First things first, let’s head over to the Velvet Room and fuse up some Personas.

Music: Aria of the Soul

First things first, a Take-Minakata from Matador and Jikokuten. We give it Dekunda (nullifies all stat penalties on the party), Swift Strike, Defense Master (free Rakukaja at the start of every battle), and Sukukaja.

I will become your new mask and free your heart from the chains that keep its power in check…

Take-Minakata is one of the sons of Okuninushi who got his arms cut off after losing the first sumo match to Take-Mikazuchi (Kanji’s Persona in Persona 4), then became a guardian spirit. It’s pretty metal.

Next up is Sui-Ki from Orthrus and Matador. Most of the 60k yen we have remaining at this point is going to go to Persona resummon fees.

Overflowing power has joined you along with that new mask…

Jeez, this guy loves to talk himself up. Sui-Ki is yet another of the four oni controlled by Fujiwara-no-Chikata. It’s named after water and can freeze anything.

Finally, we create Ame-no-Uzume from Sui-Ki and Kin-Ki, with Kin-Ki having the Dodge Psy we need for the next rank of Strength.

I shall be your new face. Now come, let us rejoice in the melody that draws forth true might.

Ame-no-Uzume is the goddess of dawn and revelry in the Shinto religion, who brought the sun goddess Amaterasu out of hiding.

And that’s all we need for the request!

*chuckle* Not bad. That’s another one done.

Heh, you’re pretty interesting, Inmate!

Aw, shucks.

I must say… as Caroline noted before, this list is quite well thought-out. The tasks are designed to push you toward achieving your goals while also measuring your true strength.

Hm? I guess so… Hey, Inmate! What’re your thoughts on these tasks!?

Such a response is proof that they are the proper difficulty.

Oh well. We should give him the next one. Let’s see here...

Huh…!?

Wh-What the… It feels like I’ve seen the writing on this list before…

Do you speak of the penmanship?

Yeah. Dammit… I can’t remember! Do you recognize it, Justine?

(reading off the clipboard) “Compliment him after he finishes the next task. Don’t spoil him though. Do it just like you practiced, with a piercing glare and angled hips...”

W-Wait, not that! Those are my notes! I, uh, no… I mean…

It seems you have been rather looking forward to the inmate’s visits.

Never mind that! I-I’m talking about the handwriting of the tasks themselves! Stop yanking my chain!

Hm… Now that you mention it, I do feel as though I’ve seen that handwriting somewhere before...

Keep your nose out of other people’s business, Inmate!

To be honest, the sense of deja vu I feel when reading this list is certainly concerning to me. Who made this list… and why?

Whaddya mean? The goal’s pretty obvious. It’s to help train the inmate.

Beyond that though, what exactly is the purpose of training him?

...Rehabilitation?

But that is merely our master’s order. Someone other than him wrote this list, correct?

…… ...Then let’s just assume there’s some purpose we don’t know about. If we’re right in our assumption, the purpose’ll be clear once he finishes the whole list, right?

...I suppose you have a point. Hearing something logical from you is like a cool rush of air amidst the sweltering heat of summer.

Now then, let us reward you for successfully completing our task. We will now grant you access to the Guillotine Booster.

Think of it as a way to increase the number of Personas you can make with the Group Guillotine. Plus, now you can do some super strong fusions using five or six Personas. You should be able to figure it out with some effort, Inmate. I mean, you’ve come this far, right?

We trust you will employ it wisely.

I feel like my bond with Caroline and Justine is growing deeper...

Not a huge reward, but having more Persona options is always nice.

Now then, allow me to give you your next assignment. Please note that the next privilege we provide for you will be quite powerful indeed. Therefore, we will require that you complete three tasks before you can receive it.

*chuckle* All right, here’s task number one!

You need only speak with us once you obtain it. We will be able to tell.

See if you can live up to our expectations!

Before we can check out the new fusions available, though, we are interrupted by Justine.

As a result of your daily efforts, the number of Personas in the Inmate Registry has risen. Our master is pleased with your progress and has yet again bestowed a special privilege.

We’re giving you a discount on summoning from the Inmate Registry! You’d better be thankful, Inmate!

If you fill the registry with even more names, our master says he can arrange further privileges for you. Work hard toward your rehabilitation.

Our reward for filling 25% of the Inmate Registry is… a 10% discount. Better than nothing, I guess.

And here we see the new fusions available. They’re all far, far above our level and thus unavailable.

Now, we can head into the pyramid. But what is a pyramid, really? Well, to answer that question, let’s take a nice long look at the Wikipedia page:

Hey guys! Ari here. I’ve secretly edited my own Let’s Play into my brother’s. I don’t think he’ll notice though, he doesn’t seem to read these before posting them, which explains why he makes so many mistakes.

We’ll be playing Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy, an old PS2 game I dug out of my brother’s collection. It’s all based in Egyptian mythology, which I don’t really care about but whatever. We’ll see as much as we can or at least as much as I care to show before I get bored.

This is Sphinx. He’s boring and sucks and I’m going to ignore him as much as possible.

These other two are Imhotep and Horus. Horus is a jerk and he smells bad.

He dies pretty early though, which is good.

All right, now to the good stuff. This is Tutankhamen, the real hero. Happy birthday!

First thing we need to do is pick what to wear. We can wear this blue shirt…

Or the pink one. My brother says that gender roles are outmoded constructs, whatever that means, so let’s go pink.

Except it doesn’t even let you!? BOOOOOOOOOOOO this game!

In my childish rage I smash this innocent flowerpot.

This causes the maid to move away from this wardrobe, which we can open to find this weird amulet.

All right, I’ll put on the dumb blue shirt.

Outside we talk to this creepy old lady who wants our amulets. Get your own! Anyway, there are… 8 of these things? Geez, that sounds exhausting. What to do?

Why, thank you YuGiOhFm2002 slash YuGiOhAngel! Also, shout out to the dude writing a walkthrough for this game on the original Xbox as late as 2011.

We also engage in other forms of recreation, such as chasing a crow around for a letter. Thrilling! At this point, I’m getting pretty bored so I skip around a bit.

This is our brother Akhenaten. He’s incredibly obviously evil and plotting to murder us. My brother wouldn’t do that. I hope.

I’m still mad about the maid not letting me wear the pink outfit, so I take it out on the silverware.

This Whole Thing Smacks Of Gender!

He’s evil? What a twist!

We find a key in the room where bro was being evil that lets us open the sarcof--scaroph--coffins we keep seeing around. Pretty morbid, but they actually let us—teleport? Yeah, okay.

Once we find all those amulets, we teleport straight into the middle of this weird demonic ceremony with big bro. It’s pretty goth. Then there’s this whole thing where the brother turns Tut into a mummy to like, steal his appearance or something, but the ceremony gets interrupted by Sphinx, and the evil dudes and mummy Tut get sucked into a huge portal that then explodes. It’s weird. Anyway, Tut’s dead.

RIP.

…And that’s why pyramids are the perfect thought-form incubator. Well, I learned a lot from that, didn’t you? Let’s finally enter this pyramid, then.

Music: The Days When My Mother Was There

The giant boulder destroyed the stepping stones, so we’re forced to move around the side.

No point sittin’ around though. Whaddya wanna do, Joker?

Not a bad idea. Considering how humongous this building is, there have to be other ways in.

We will have to investigate every suspicious place we see, both inside the pyramid and out.

Ugh, outside….!? You mean we gotta deal with that heat!?

No complaining. Let’s begin our investigation right away.

But as we make to leave...

We’re only here ‘cause we gotta be! I can’t believe you tried to drop a boulder on us! You want us to steal your goddamn Treasure or not?

Hm, why don’t we make a deal? You wish to proceed further, yes?

A deal, you say?

There is a town nearby. I would like you to take back that which the bandit there stole from me.

Oh yeah, I think I remember seeing a town on the way here.

If you bring what was stolen back to me, I will give you a reward. I’ll even tell you how to proceed.

Can’t you tell us any more details? Anything about this bandit, or what was stolen?

You’ll learn all the information you need to know once you arrive.

...We’ll need to head outside if we want to go to the town. We can go when you’re ready, Joker.

So much for investigating.

Music: The Days When My Mother Was There (Another Version)

She said it’s nearby… We could probably see it from here, right?

Good point. Let us observe the surroundings and search for any towns that may lie about here.

Yes, I can see what appear to be buildings over there.

Want to head over to the town, Joker? It’s pretty far away, so this is my chance to shine!

>Let’s go.

It looks quite desolate… She said only bandits reside here, but still.

There are also new enemies roaming about here. These are Sandman (Sandmans? Sandmen?), who use Wind, are weak to Electricity, and put party members to sleep, being the sandman and all. However, they also have another, more annoying tactic:

After a few turns, they’ll panic and try to run away. If we don’t defeat them in time, they’ll succeed.

That, or we can use one of our Thieves’ Guild charges to block them.

We choose not to, and the problem there is that it causes the security level to go up. Nothing major, though.

There’s also Anzu, which uses Wind as well and is weak to Gun and Nuclear. We’re going to grab one immediately, because in three levels or so it learns the Dekaja we need for the next Strength rank. Unfortunately, my attempts to get the experience needed to make it learn Dekaja will heavily stifle me going forward in a few ways. First, as I’m trying to facilitate two goals that are often in direct conflict, ending battles with All-out Attacks for maximum money gains and trying to keep Anzu on my person at the end of most (if not all) battles, I end up half-assing both. Second, Anzu is not a great Persona. Its only offensive skill is Garula, and its only other useful skill is Masukukaja. Plus, it’s pretty fragile. Third, my understandable reluctance to use party members with redundant skill types means that Morgana’s Wind affinity benches him for most of the dungeon, causing him to not learn a critical skill for the next boss fight. All things considered, I’d probably have been better served just using Gallows, resummoning Anzu, and using Gallows again until it reached the level I needed, but I didn’t want to waste the money.

Heading into the square in the middle of town, we come across a new event.

Welcome to the desert, fellow trader.

Hm? What does he mean by “trader”?

We don’t care about your welcomes. You’re a bandit, right? Just cough up the thing you stole.

...Well, you’re gonna have to catch me if you want it.

Me!?

We’ll have time to talk later. Let’s go after him.

We chase him down.

You’re too slow, moron. You’ll never catch me at this rate.

He ran off again! Hurry up and catch him, fast!

And again...

The bandit runs off once more.

We’ll never catch him if we do nothing but follow his path… We should corner him somewhere.

Corner him? But how?

Let’s use that square from earlier. We can sneak around him and trap him in there!

This plan is really only as complicated as, “run around to the other side.”

He traps himself without much of a hassle.

There he goes…! We finally chased him into the square!

Perfect. He has nowhere else to run now… Let’s do this, Joker!

Tch… Don’t even think about comin’ one step closer.

Heh, don’t be ridiculous. You’ve gotta let me go. I mean you guys came to raid that tomb too, right? Why don’t we work together and share the plunder?

I dunno, the last time a Shadow offered to help me out he turned out to be a huge pervert with an annoying voice.

Don’t talk to us like we’re the same as you! We came here to save Futaba-chan. Now give us back what you stole!

So you wanna do this no matter what, huh? Well in that case… I guess I don’t have a choice!

Raging Bird God

Music: Keeper of Lust

Okay, so the Raging Bird God is actually a pretty annoying fight. It’s got two main skills it likes to use:

(Ma)Garudyne, which does Heavy Wind damage, which is especially bad for Ryuji…

…and Brain Jack, which is a full-party Brainwash skill. It’s probably the real danger, especially if it hits Makoto.

The good news is that Anzu repels Wind, meaning that even though the Raging Bird God nullifies Wind, it pretty much can only hurt Joker indirectly through other Brainwashed party members.

Music: The Days When My Mother Was There (Another Version)

Is this… some kind of papyrus parchment? It looks like there’s something written inside.

Hey, no peeking at a girl’s belongings without permission!

Y’know, just what the hell’s happenin’ in her heart? There’s this bandit, those weird voiced sayin’ “you killed her,” and who knows what else… It’s a total freakin’ mess.

Futaba’s supposed to be the queen of this Palace, but even she can’t control it?

I don’t know… I’ve never seen a case like this…

Well, let’s really sit and think this through. Clearly it’s well worth our time to diagnose this fictional character, especially based on what little we’ve seen, and thus I say--

When we last left off, Tut was dead.

Yeah, rip. Anyway, Sphinx is now in Abydos. How’s that going?

What? That’s dumb!

Hi birdlady!

“Imbecile” is my middle name! Jump in, Sphinx!

...Oh.

Tut’s brother survived, whisked away to this evil castle...

...And is revealed to be a different obviously evil dude!

Also Horus is alive, which is a huge downer. I’m not gonna stop posting that picture though, because I love it too much.

BIRDS

Sphinx rejoins with Imhotep, who says that part of Tut’s soul Sphinx recovered from the ceremony can be used to briefly bring him back in mummy form, which will be useful for… spying and stuff.

Also the agent of this plan is this random basket which Imhotep brings to life and will teleport to Tut, because why not, right?

Bas… Ket? This game is a crime.

Anyway, the Mummy now has to find items to help Sphinx outside of the castle, and these are easily the best, most creative parts of the game. Take this treasure chest, for example:

OH GOD IT WAS ACTUALLY PAIN

Now that the Mummy is somehow carrying an electric charge, he can bring power to different objects.

Like this… thing? Which fires him out of a cannon! For some reason!

But that’s not all the Mummy can do, besides bomb at the box office, har har! He can also...

Die!

Actually, no:

He just gets crushed flat for a period of time.

Now he can walk through these bars!

Look at how happy he is! Aww! (This game ends in a cliffhanger that will never be resolved)

Also we can set him on fire so he can burn things. (Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire)

Once we complete the level, the Mummy conveniently runs out of time and is transported back to where his body fell, for some reason. (This game was not thought out very well)

And so the Mummy is dead once more.

May God have mercy on his soul.

...And that is the exact combination of disorders I think Futaba has, including several I just made up right now. Thank you for your time.