After returning home, we’re introduced to our diegetic save function.
Sojiro: I’m obligated to report on you, which is why I’m having you record your daily activities.
So is the implication that we’re recording all our illegal and supernatural activities too? I don’t know what Niijima was complaining about, she should have plenty of evidence against us.
The cafe’s phone suddenly starts ringing, so I can finally go downstairs. It’s just Sojiro, who’s calling to ask us to flip the store sign (which is for some reason on the outside) to “closed”. I can ask why he didn’t just call my cell…
Sojiro: It’s a personal policy of mine not to save a guy’s number in my phone.
How do you function.
The spooky app appears again. Once again Damien is weirdly nonplussed, but he does at least consider rebooting his phone. Why does he not consider the very obvious possibility this is a police tracking app? No Velvet Room dream this time. The next morning we’re now told to flip the sign to “open” when we leave… but Damien just does it automatically. This would be stronger if we did actually have to pay attention to our surroundings and make sure to get everything right; that would put us in the same headspace as the protagonist.
NPC: Nothing good ever happens… Someone should do something about that.
Don’t worry, in two years, someone will! :)
I now have to navigate the Tokyo subway system to get to school. Damien is once again a square and refuses to go anywhere that isn’t the correct location, so it’s impossible to fail. After I board the train, there’s a meanwhile scene at the cafe where an NPC talks more about the accidents.
The people who caused these accidents supposedly went crazy all of a sudden. I heard that some of them suffered from nervous breakdowns during interrogation.
As opposed to all the other people who don’t break down from police brutality.
I don’t understand the point of this. The game already showed us the real cause is some supernatural thing, but even if they didn’t it’s transparently obvious given this is Persona. Why are we wasting time on the normies coming up with obviously dead-end theories? …And despite my assuming this was a setup, absolutely nothing happens to us on the train and we arrive safely at our destination. Again, what was the point of that cut-away? If it was just to remind us about the accidents, Damien could have thought about it or seen a news program on the train.
Damien discovers the creepy malware has once again survived deletion and reacts with mild annoyance. We then meet a new character, Dead-Eyed Blonde Girl:
Damien just stares at her really intently, which doesn’t brook comment. The PE teacher drives by and offers to give us a ride, but for some reason Damien refuses. Then another kid shows up, Vulgar Boy:
Why are there so many blonds. Are they dyeing? Vulgar Boy says the PE teacher is a perv (and names him as Kamoshida), but doesn’t elaborate. He then mocks us for not recognizing his school uniform even though he’s flagrantly violating the dress code.
Both of us get a magic headache, and we suddenly flash forward to the present-day interrogation. Niijima says a terrible accident occurred on this day, and one of the victims was a teacher at the school. Hey, spoilers! She then once again demands we tell her the truth, and we flash back again. What was the point of that?
The creepy app does something, and when we attempt to take a shortcut through a back alley we wind up in another dimension:
Vulgar Boy takes this weirdly in stride, and just calmly decides we should go in and ask someone about this. The camera shows us the castle is apparently overlaid on the school, so I guess this is something similar to Persona 3 where supernatural locations are correlated to real-world locations.
Vulgar Boy: Th-That’s weird… Where’s the school?
You were seriously expecting this to be the school? What, did you think they renovated the whole campus into a castle overnight and also invented a weather machine to create those purple clouds? It would be at least somewhat plausible for Damien to be this naive if we hadn’t visited the school already and so don’t know this isn’t what the school normally looks like (maybe big city people build weird schools, who knows!), but an actual student should know this is wrong. He does at least have the brain cells to check his GPS, and discovers there’s no service. Then creepy masked dudes with swords show up, who he somehow believes are just students wearing costumes. Do Japanese schools not ban weapons? Once they start advancing menacingly, he finally realizes we should start running. However, they surround us and someone orders them to capture us.
We wake up in a dungeon. I am deeply disappointed we aren’t given the option to say, “Just like in my dream…” (Also, dang, boy, just looking at you makes my spine hurt. Fix your posture for goodness sake.)
We also start generating the magic footsteps, but neither of them seem to notice this so I guess it’s not diegetic? Anyway, we hear screams and Vulgar Boy freaks out. The guards arrive and tell us we’re to be executed for unlawful entry.
That’s Kamoshida, who Vulgar Boy previously described as acting like the king of a castle. So are we doing shadow personas based on other peoples’ perceptions this time?
When Kamoshida gestures, we can also see that he’s wearing nothing but a speedo under his cloak, which presumably has to do with the perv allegations. Additionally, he finally gives us a name for Vulgar Boy: Sakamoto. Sakamoto somehow manages to bowl over a suit of armor, but is immediately gut-punched by another guard. Why they aren’t stabbing anyone after we were just sentenced to execution, I don’t know. Damien tries to help, but Sakamoto tells him to save himself.
Kamoshida: Oh? Running away, are we? What a heartless friend you are.
What? We just refused to run away. This seems like it makes more sense as Sakamoto’s own perception of the world than Kamoshida’s; perhaps he assumes everyone will leave or reject him, and that’s being projected here.
Kamoshida brutalizes Sakamoto some more, then the butterfly tells us the same line from the beginning about this being an unjust game. So was the scene in the opening Damien remembering that? Then a different voice (who I initially thought was Kamoshida but the log identifies as a “Mysterious Voice”) urges us to save Sakamoto.
Mysterious Voice: Was your previous decision a mistake then?
[flashback to Damien’s arrest]
> It wasn’t.
> It might have been…
Both of these options lead to the same result, even though the latter should by rights lead to a game over by demonstrating you’re not determined enough to summon your persona. The dialogue choices have been extremely railroaded in general; I played through this section twice and you always seem to get the same responses no matter what options you pick. I know voice acting makes dialogue trees pricey, but they couldn’t spring for a few short alternate lines?
Mysterious Voice: Vow to me. I am thou, thou art I… Thou who art willing to perform all sacrilegious acts for thine own justice! Call upon my name, and release thy rage! Show the strength of thy will to ascertain all on thine own, though thou be chained to Hell itself!
Huh, this is sounding more like a demonic contract than usual. Fortunately, Kamoshida really drags his feet on the execution, giving Damien time to slooowly manifest his persona. It takes a ridiculously long time, like, this is the fifth game in the series, I think you can expedite this a little. Once it finally happens, the manifestation is pretty metal: Damien’s glasses get knocked off and replaced by the domino mask, which he discovers is fused to his face. He rips it off in a gout of blood…
…And gets shadow eyes. Hm. So who’s our persona? A god of justice?
…Who?
(googles)
…A gentleman thief character invented in 1905. What does that have to do with Damien or all that pontificating about justice?
Arsene: I am the rebel’s soul that resides within you.
Except Damien’s not a rebel. He didn’t even break the law, he stopped a guy from committing a crime and then got screwed over by a miscarriage of justice. Ever since he’s been a goody two-shoes who expresses complete noninterest in anything as rebellious as going to an area that doesn’t have a plot marker.
Arsene: If you so desire, I will consider granting you the power to break through this crisis.
You’ll “consider” it? So you might choose not to help me even if I desire it? Aren’t personas part of you? How and why would you deny giving yourself power from a facet of your soul?
The guards suddenly transform into Pyro Jacks. What was the point of their humanoid form, then…? The tutorial fight isn’t on rails, which is nice. Arsene’s magic is Curse element, which is fitting, and quite unusual for a protagonist.
After, Sakamoto displays amazing vitality after repeatedly getting the crap kicked out of him and tackles Kamoshida, allowing us to take the key and lock him in. Sakamoto asks about Damien’s new outfit, whereupon it magically changes back to normal, including regenerating his glasses.
Sakamoto can’t jump across gaps, but as long as he’s not in-frame he’ll magically teleport behind me. Guess they couldn’t spring for a jumping animation for other characters? Then for some reason I only get a tutorial pop-up for jumping at the second gap, after I already jumped the first one.
Sakamoto insists we can’t get in any more fights even though I beat the last one effortlessly. Ah, ludonarrative dissonance. If they wanted this section to feel tense, they should have made the tutorial fight actually hard, or at least contrived some cutscene event that crippled me afterward.
Sakamoto has unique dialogue for everything I can examine in here, which I appreciate.
On the second floor we find other prisoners, though they don’t look human and I can’t interact with them. There are volleyballs in the cells, so I presume these must be the sports students.
In the final cell we find what I presume is this game’s mascot. Let us pray he is better than Teddie. Sakamoto refuses to let him out, assuming he’s another monster.
Strange Creature: I am NOT a cat! Say that again and I’ll make you regret it!
Not exactly beating the allegations. He offers to show us the exit in exchange for his freedom, and tells us his name is Morgana. We then cut to Kawakami in the regular school, who confirms that time has not frozen while we’ve been here. She’s concerned Damien is skipping school, but not enough to do anything about it. Everyone is so lazy!
If I try to turn around and investigate Morgana’s cell, I discover we politely locked it behind us. Good lord, the railroading. We run into another mob, and Morgana reveals he has a persona too.
His persona is Zorro, another early-twentieth-century outlaw character. I guess that’ll be the theme this time. Zorro has wind and healing skills and is weak to electricity. Morgana gives us the 1-More tutorial, even though I absolutely had it covered and the game needed to make the enemies immortal to keep me from speeding through it too fast. He also gives us some exposition on personas:
Morgana: You saw how Frizzy Hair here ripped off his mask when he summoned it, right? Well, everybody wears a mask deep in their heart. By removing that…
So we’re going with personas being the “true self” again, I presume. That’s gonna be awkward when we start collecting them like pokemon.
Sakamoto finds a prisoner who still looks human and confirms it’s a member of the school sports team.
Sakamoto: Hold on, we can’t just leave these guys here!
Morgana: You really don’t get it, do you? Hrgh… There’s no time to explain.
But there is time to whine about how you can’t explain.
We reach a dead end and I propose busting down the wall, but Morgana insists that’s not possible. Nice to get that acknowledged, that’s always a looming question in dungeon crawlers. Instead we go through the ventilation shaft. Morgana insists he has other business to take care of and stays behind, which isn’t suspicious at all.
We’re deposited into the middle of the street. The creepy app informs us we’ve returned to the real world, which doesn’t brook comment from either character. Sakamoto immediately starts loudly discussing our supernatural adventures, which prove to be of no interest to the NPCs walking right behind us.
Seriously. Maybe they think we’re on drugs and don’t want to engage.
Sakamoto’s yelling does attract the cops, however.
Sakamoto: We were tryin’ to get to school, and we ended up at this weird castle!
Aggressive Officer: …What? Hand over your bag. You better not be doing any drugs.
Oh wow, I was right! Sakamoto immediately flips out and refuses to comply. Fortunately, the “aggressive” officer is incredibly lazy and just lets us off with a warning. We cut to Niijima’s boss, who monologues to himself that a Minister of Transport resigned following the accident and this is all according to keikaku. Thanks for saying that out loud for the audience’s benefit, Obvious Villain! When we return to school we’re immediately accosted by staff, and Sakamoto once again tries to explain they got lost in a crazy castle but we’re totally not on drugs. Kamoshida shows up, but doesn’t seem to have any knowledge of his double’s actions in the castle. Sakamoto snaps at him and the staff threatens to expel him on the spot, but Kamoshida de-escalates and backs down.
Counselor: In any case, you’ll have to explain yourself! Follow me!
Sakamoto: What!? This is bullshit!
“How dare you ask me to explain myself after I broke the rules!” I’ll generously assume he suffered a concussion during the beatdown. Speaking of which, he’s going to have a lot more questions to answer once they see all the bruises. Kamoshida tells Damien he’ll be lenient this time, then immediately threatens us with expulsion if we cause any trouble. This wasn’t causing trouble? Getting mixed messages, here.
We flash forward again and, unsurprisingly, Niijima doesn’t believe any of this. She does, however, confirm that Kamoshida was found guilty of abuse and other crimes after our gang targeted him. Again, spoilers much? I’m not sure what this adds over just letting the story play out linearly.
We get to walk around the school, and obviously everyone hates us.
NPC: Is he the one who got charged with assault?
So they know the crime we committed but not any of the context? How did that happen?
NPC: Did you see what people were saying on that one site? It’s him…
We’re famous enough that random internet sleuths are talking about us and still no one knows any details? I assume it’s going to be explained as the politician gagging the media, but there is just no way his control could be that absolute, especially given some information clearly did leak out. Again, journalists should have been all over this.
Sakamoto apparently did something to the school track team, but the gossipers won’t say what. The volleyball team is also getting preferential treatment from the school.
I find Kawakami and like Kamoshida she is weirdly permissive of Damien breaking the rules on his first day. I assume everyone is just too lazy to actually do anything and all the threats were bluffs. She doesn’t reprimand anyone for loudly gossiping about Damien in class, either.
This guy has a portrait, but not sure what’s up with him or why he’s violating the dress code. I wonder if he’s one of the victims we saw in the castle. We also make eye contact with Blonde Girl, which immediately provokes the surrounding students to say she’s a slut who’s dating Kamoshida. Kawakami doesn’t do anything about this, either. After school, Sakamoto shows up and his hair actually brooks comment!
Kawakami: And you haven’t dyed your hair back to black either…
Oh, didn’t think we’d get followup on that. So he presumably bleached his hair.
Proper First-Year: You mean accidents like that train engineer going crazy, right? I saw a photo of him online… His face was totally messed up.
Hold on, people did see that? Why would anyone blame infrastructure for that and not some disease? Also raises questions of what exactly they were seeing — if the paint footprints are anything to go by, we can’t assume what is and isn’t diegetic. Did they see the black slime, or not?
Sakamoto talks to Damien on the rooftop.
Sakamoto: It wasn’t a dream… right? You remember it too, yeah?
What. The cliche everyone knows for determining a dream is whether you feel pain. Did he not feel that beatdown he got?
Actually, I do wonder… Well-Behaved Student has visible injuries, but Sakamoto seems fine, even though the injuries he took should have landed him in a hospital. Do injuries suffered in the phantom world disappear when you return to reality? That’s the only way Sakamoto’s confusion makes sense — if his injuries persisted, it should be obvious it was real. But even if that is supposed to be the implication, it’s bizarre the game never brings it up.
Sakamoto: Well, just ’cause we both remember it doesn’t mean much though…
What? Why wouldn’t it? Do you believe in shared dreams???
Sakamoto tells us Kamoshida gets special treatment because he took the school’s volleyball team to the nationals.
Sakamoto: …I wonder if we can get back to that castle again…
Why would you want to do that??? Especially when you spent the whole time whining at us to leave when we were trying to explore!
Sakamoto: You know, we might be pretty similar. I feel like we’re gonna get along just fine as “troublemakers.”
Sorry buddy, I’m a goody two-shoes. Also, if he knows anything about our situation, he should know that we absolutely do not want to make trouble. He also gives his first name as Ryuji — someone’s parents had high expectations! — and his nametag changes to match.
Sojiro is obviously pissed when we get home, but once again proves he’s only bluffing.
Sojiro: Look, just behave yourself. One wrong step and your life is over.
“Except for this wrong step, which I’ll overlook because I don’t actually care that much.”
He tells us to go to bed and leaves. Can we be a delinquent and sneak out to enjoy the night life?
Damien: I have to think about tomorrow… I should go out another time…
You are the worst criminal. We get another Velvet Room dream when we sleep.
Justine: Our master wishes to speak with you. It’s for your own sake that you take his words to heart.
Is this supposed to be echoing how we’re surrounded by adults insisting we take their words to heart but they’re actually just saying it to serve their own goals?
Igor: Personas are, in other words, a “mask” — an armor of the heart when confronting worldly matters.
That is the exact opposite of what Morgana told us, so I see persona lore will continue to be incoherent.
Igor: I have high expectations for you.
> What do you mean?
> That’s not my concern.
I can’t choose the latter because my social stats are too low, despite being able to backtalk authority figures just fine earlier. Why is this gated behind New Game+, does it give you something?
Igor reveals that he gave us the creepy app (called the “Metaverse Navigator”) and we can use it to travel to phantom worlds (which he calls “Palaces”).
Damien: I had another strange dream… Fate… and awakening…? More importantly… I need to hurry and get ready for school…
Truly, the Persona experience.