I’m finally able to walk around freely.

Well, mostly.

I can buy bread, but once again it’s inferior to basic healing items.

Loud-Voiced Female Student: What happened with Suzui-senpai? Something must be wrong if she jumped off a building.
Gossipy Female Student: She was close to Takamaki-senpai. Maybe they were fighting over Mr. Kamoshida?

Once again the girls are the most misogynistic, also this is so stupid. You saw her run over to the ambulance in hysterics when none of the teachers were willing to lift a finger. “They must be fighting” is your first reaction to that? Really?

We can also talk to Kamoshida at the entrance.

Kamoshida: You’re really pushing your luck, you know that?

No? Because you already said I have nothing to lose?

Kamoshida: Well, I guess it’s fine. Nothing you do is going to matter anyway.

And the game immediately points out its own plot hole.

Aggressive Reporter: Then just keep that camera running and get everything on film… The audience will eat up whatever we decide to feed them.

Ain’t that the truth. We could get their attention and spill all of Kamoshida’s secrets, but no, we just have no other choice but to do the supernatural thing.

There are also some conspiracy theorists saying the accidents are a government conspiracy and our only salvation is the cult of the “Sun God”. I assume this will develop later.

I visit the “Kiyasuku”. Quality localization.

For some reason we have access to a drugstore in addition to the clinic, and their medicine are the ones that have side effects. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? (This also makes them pointless, since the clinic’s medicine is objectively better.)

I buy some items I assume are gifts from the stores, then advance the plot. Ryuji immediately chooses to be a creep by ogling Ann’s outfit. Ugh, and he was doing so well. He also decides I should pick a code name for Ann instead of letting her come up with one herself. The options are “Catgirl,” “Sexy Cat”, and “Kitty Woman”. Ugh. She rejects all of them and does finally get to choose her own name: “Panther”. We could have skipped this if you had just let her choose from the beginning, dicks.

Ann: And more importantly: Kamoshida!
Ryuji: Oh, right. Let’s go!

Were you so busy thinking with your dick you forgot why we were here? Then of course we have another scene of the characters saying they’re totally going to get moving right after they finish talking about it.

Morgana: I’ll teach you the basics of infiltrating a Palace as we go.

Good lord, how many tutorials does this game have? Then a Velvet Room door appears and Damien willingly walks into the prison for some reason. Is this supposed to be metaphorical? Igor spouts more vague nonsense about how he’ll totally explain everything “in due time”. It’s been a week, dude! He gives us the tutorial on fusion, which is now called “execution” because they want to be edgy. We get the justification that I can’t fuse above my level because the persona will be “too powerful for me to handle”, an explanation that makes sense for demons but not for parts of my soul. They should have just said Damien doesn’t have the strength of will to manifest it or something. Anyway, I kill Pixie and Pyro Jack to make Incubus. Sure.

Igor: A stronger Persona has been born from the body and blood of the old.

What blood? They’re mental constructs!

Igor gives me an additional rank in The Fool, which lets me “see things normally invisible to the naked eye”. Okay.

Why are people raving about how this is so much better than a regular menu? How is it so overdesigned yet so blandly minimalist at the same time?

When I head back, everyone is confused because from their perspective Damien just spaced out. For some reason he does not explain the Velvet Room to them. Morgana forces us to go to the safe room, where he explains they’re due to “a gap in cognition,” whatever that means. He also gives us exposition on Shadows that I think makes even less sense than P4’s explanation:

Morgana: Deep in the innermost depths of every human’s heart lies their true personality — their Shadow.

I thought that was our persona?

Morgana: So it’s not that those guards are transforming into those things… Those are their actual forms. The reason they look like gods and other mythical beings is because they spawn from the human psyche.

So when they remember their true selves and say they’re not Shadows, they’re wrong?

Ryuji: Wait, that don’t make any sense!

Game, if you keep needing to write your characters complaining this doesn’t make any sense, maybe that’s a sign you need to fix your plot.

…I can talk to Ryuji and Morgana, but not Ann. Guess she doesn’t get to have opinions. We get another tutorial, this time for a genuinely new feature: I can pass a 1-More to an ally instead of using it with the same character. That’s handy! There is also a stealth tutorial, showing that I can indeed teleport between hiding locations, thus completely trivializing stealth. We then find a room that’s blocked by bars.

Damien can’t just climb over these barrels. Instead he has to climb over the shelves.

Morgana: If he’s protecting it this securely, it has to be important. That means there should be a way in and out of there.

It’s secure, therefore it must be possible to access it? What kind of mad libs dialogue is this??? I was hoping for a puzzle, but I just use my thief vision to identify the extremely obvious switches I need to press. Riveting gameplay. The treasure turns out to be a map of the Palace. Why would Kamoshida be keeping a map of his mind locked away?

We also get a tutorial on Shadows begging for mercy.

Ann: I didn’t realize even Shadows beg for their lives… That’s actually kind of surprising…

Why? We’ve held them at gunpoint for negotiations multiple times already.

Morgana: Shadows have emotions too, you know. Of course they’ll be afraid if you corner them like that. It might be worth purposefully creating such situations to get them begging for their lives.

Once again, this is deeply messed up coming from supposedly heroic characters. Morgana encourages us to torture people and we’re just supposed to be cool with that?

I murder Arsene, supposedly Damien’s core personality, to create Xuan Wu (mistranslated as Genbu because for some reason the Persona localizers have a stick up their butt about using the Japanese names). This actually produces a scene where Arsene says goodbye.

Arsene: Though I may disappear this moment, I shall always be at your side. We shall meet again… when your fate reaches its conclusion.

This is so nonsensical. They just should not have had the fusion mechanic.

There’s an actual puzzle requiring the player to place themed keys in the correct locations, though that’s still extremely uninspired. This reveals a hidden wank shrine dedicated to Shiho. Why was he hiding that in his heart of hearts? Is he actually ashamed of his pedophilia? It would honestly make more sense if he was; this whole setup of infiltrating someone’s mind to discover their secrets loses all impact when we already know all their secrets. This could have made an effective gradual reveal if there was no indication he was a bad guy in the real world, but instead this is just reiterating what we already know. There’s no subtlety.

We get another forced tutorial battle introducing another type of enemy: pinatas. Some Shadows apparently won’t act except through counterattacks, and if I can kill them they’ll explode, damaging their allies and dropping a rare item. Morgana inexplicably refuses to explain this beyond muttering vaguely about his predictions being correct, so the tutorial has to explain it. Why is he such a bad exposition fairy? Afterwards the characters talk about how scary the pinatas are. Okay.

Atlus: “Graphic design is my passion.”

The path leads to a huge open room with no guards. Just as I think, “This is an obvious trap,” Morgana pops up tell me boy the room up ahead sure looks suspicious, we better prepare just in case!!! Let me play the game, Jesus. Obviously there’s a boss battle (against an archangel because Kamoshida thinks he’s a god, yes we get it thank you) and the boss opens by using Charge. I wonder if they’re going to tutorialize that too, and sure enough Morgana yaps about it. This does at least explain how guarding works, which is genuinely useful information if you haven’t played Persona before. …But guarding doesn’t stop him from oneshotting Morgana from full health anyway, so that guarding was a waste. You couldn’t have tuned this battle a little better, devs?

I am feeling the burn on resource management, at least. I don’t believe you can buy SP recovery items before this point, so I only have a few of those from treasure chests. I wasn’t careful about conserving SP up to this point, so I’m running very low. Encounters are lot harder when I’m not exploiting weaknesses at every opportunity! Fortunately I did have the foresight to buy some revival items earlier, but after the archangel fight I’m running low on those too.

The game railroads me into in a weird room covered in vines, where I find:

Oh great, another unnecessary element added to this convoluted mess.

Ryuji: Distortions… coalesce… into Will Seeds…
Morgana: Should I try explaining that again?
Ryuji: Ugh, just forget it! That’s a Will Seed. Movin’ on…

They are trolling me at this point.

Morgana: It may not be as prized as a Treasure, but it’s still quite the rare find. Making it ours will only do us good… I think.

You THINK? WHO WROTE THIS. I would be worried about absorbing any part of this evil dude’s mind, but they take it anyway. I get an SP heal out of it.

Morgana: There are more of these around here somewhere… As far as I can tell, there are two of them left.

WHY DIDN’T YOU EXPLAIN THIS EARLIER IF YOU COULD SENSE THEM.

I keep going and run into another boss…

…Dick Slime. Okay. It’s called “Torn King of Desire” so it must be a fragment of Mara. It resists everything except physical, so my only option is to hit it with regular attacks the whole battle. Riveting tactical gameplay. It also oneshots characters even when they’re guarding. Am I underleveled? Afterwards I find the final Will Seed, which transforms into an accessory, “Crystal of Lust”. Ooookay. It lets the wearer use Diarama, which I don’t need right now but may be useful soon.

We run into a classic swinging-blades hallway, and instead of just dodging through it like a normal video game protagonist, Morgana is a wuss and insists we need to shut it down instead. Why must this game make every cool thing as boring as possible? You told me to be stylish, game! I have to track down not one but two keys from two identical minibosses that both go down like chumps. Riveting gameplay. This allows us to infiltrate the throne room, where Shadow Kamoshida is too dumb to notice us sneaking behind him and entering the treasure vault.

How did this script get published. Real people had to voiceact this garbage and at no point did anyone involved think maybe this needed an editing pass? Despite having days to explain this crucial detail, Morgana only now pulls more dumb exposition out of his butt because the writers totally weren’t making this up as they went along.

Morgana: Simply finding the Treasure isn’t enough. We’ll need to make it materialize before we can steal it. […] Desires have no physical form by nature.

NOTHING IN THIS PLACE HAS PHYSICAL FORM BY NATURE. THIS ENTIRE PLACE IS A MENTAL CONSTRUCT.

Morgana: Hence, we’ll first need to make the real person aware that their desires are in fact a Treasure. Once they’re conscious they’re desires might be stolen, the Treasure will finally show itself.

WHY DIDN’T WE DO THIS EARLIER THEN. If it turns out we have to delay the conclusion to the next day because Morgana gets off on withholding information I am done.

Morgana: We warn them. Tell them, “We’re going to steal your heart.”

Hold on, this whole operation was predicated on the idea the real Kamoshida wouldn’t know what we did. Morgana says we can do it via calling card, but that’s still a huge risk if anything goes wrong.

Morgana: Once we do that, the Treasure will appear for certain! …I think!

Why did the writers think it was a good idea to constantly undermine our one source of information. For some reason everyone is down with this incredibly risky plan despite Morgana not even knowing it will work.

And yes, we do need to return to the real world and waste another time slot for this. This is so stupid.

Ann: But we need to send the calling card first. When should we do it?
Morgana: Just hold on. Let’s retreat for now, then we can talk more about that stuff back at the hideout.

Yes, instead of discussing our secret plans here, where we were explicitly told our enemy can’t remember anything, we should talk about it in the real world where we can be overheard.

The next day we’re introduced to a new teacher. Please don’t be a creep. He proceeds to show us an optical illusion, but the question is worded terribly.

Mr. Hiruta: Between A and B… which line seems longer?

My emphasis. The answer the game wants is “They’re the same,” but that’s only true for their actual lengths, not which one seems longer. How is this script so bad.

Mr. Hiruta: This is an optical illusion. Some people see it correctly, and some do not. Isn’t it strange that they view the same image differently?

Actually, if you’re not affected by optical illusions, that is in fact a really big deal, because it’s a red flag for schizophrenia. You are a bad biology teacher.

Morgana: Sending the calling card is a make-or-break decision, so really think on it, okay?

I’VE BEEN THINKING ON IT FOR A WEEK. LET ME DO IT ALREADY. The game tries to push me into going on a date with Ryuji, but I would prefer to stop the abusive rapist from driving more people to suicide, thanks.

Ryuji: Couldn’t we have just sent one at the beginnin’ of all this…?

Morgana: It’s not that simple. A Treasure won’t stay materialized forever. Once the impression is gone, the Treasure will disappear. I think it’ll last around a day, at most.

a) You clearly have no idea how anything works, why should we trust you b) This is so traumatic it fundamentally alters their very mind, but also they’ll shrug it off in a day? This is so unbelievably stupid and contrived.

Ryuji: Anyways, let’s send a callin’ card right now, yeah?

Does this school not have security cameras? If not, why didn’t we just murder Kamoshida in his office? Morgana then says the Palace will disappear once this is done, so make sure to leave the rapist alive long enough to loot all the random junk from his brain! Then Ryuji whines about how he wants to be the one to write the calling card. Are they hand-writing it? Shouldn’t that be incredibly identifiable? Like everything else we do this takes a whole day and we have to do the actual infiltration tomorrow, because this game hates me.

“I know this could land us all in jail if we screw up, but you can’t review my work, I want it to be a ~surprise~.” How did it take so long for these kids to get arrested.

Quality localization strikes again. At least it looks like Ryuji was smart enough to use newspaper clippings, it looks like? Though “TAKE YOUR HEART” looks handwritten…

Not that it matters because the idiot is openly bragging about it in the middle of the school.

Kamoshida: Who’s responsible for this!?
Morgana: …Look at that. A predictable reaction for someone who knows what we mean by distorted desires.

What? No, that was a completely generic reaction. Is this a translation goof?

The game makes a big dramatic point of permanently raising the threat level of the Palace to 100%, but it’s meaningless because I can just fast travel to the end. Was really expecting them to disable that.

Kamoshida’s lustful desires are… a crown? That’s pride, not lust. Morgana immediately reverts to cat mode and starts nuzzling it.

Morgana: To think I’d be drawn to human desires this much…

So he’s a Shadow and we’re reusing the previous game’s twist yet again, cool.

Morgana: Doesn’t that prove that I’m a human!?

No? No one else reacted that way.

Morgana monologues about this all being according to keikaku, which gets me a rank up with him. Okay. The treasure’s really heavy and requires all three of us to lift it. I was hoping this would require us to fight our way out of the Palace without fast travel, but no, Shadow Kamoshida just immediately shows up to have a boss battle. He lectures us about how everyone was covering up his crimes for him, a thing we already knew yet Ryuji once again acts surprised by.

Ann: True, [Shiho]‘s a total idiot… letting you manipulate her, trying to commit suicide… And I’m even more of a dumbass for not realizing that! But no matter what kind of fool someone might be… They don’t need your permission to live their lives!

What. Shiho wasn’t even manipulated, she knew Kamoshida was bad news but she decided she would rather put up with his abuse than give up volleyball. This is such mad libs dialogue.

Then we see Kamoshida’s demon form. The symbolism here reads more like general hedonism to me, which is not something we’ve seen from him at all. After I attack him, he heals himself by eating one of the girl legs from the trophy, so Morgana figures we should attack that first.

Shadow Kamoshida: No way… This was from when I won the national…

So what does it have to do with the girls? This, again, really seems like he’s supposed to be pride rather than lust.

We can have bondage stripper angels, but not even the suggestion of a dick on a rapist monster.

He brings in a fake Mishima to pass him the ball so he can do a supermove, then replaces him with Shiho in a sexy bunny outfit.

Shadow Kamoshida: Yeah, all women should obey my orders like this–ain’t that right, sweetheart?

Except he treats the boys as slaves too. The whole sexual abuse thing feels really tacked-on.

There’s a special mechanic where I have to send one character to sneak up behind him to grab the crown, so I’m fighting with only three characters.

Why did they even bother making this a dialogue choice?

Afterwards, Shadow Kamoshida just grabs the crown again because he’s somehow not dead.

Shadow Kamoshida: I’m doing this for them! What’s wrong about demanding a reward for that!?

Is this what he actually believes? Because this would be plausible with a less evil person, but it’s absurd coming from the mouth of someone who openly delights in punching children. Ann intimidates him into relinquishing the Treasure, but he says that if we kill him his real self will die too. Ann decides to spare him because, “If his mind shuts down, he can’t admit his crimes,” to which Morgana replies, “You’re kind, Lady Ann…” So what, is the implication that she’s lying and just sparing him because she’s a wuss? What is this dialogue? Then the Palace starts violently collapsing. I was expecting a cool escape sequence, but instead I just get to watch the characters escape in a cutscene. Are you sure you need me here, game?

Ann: That sucked…

Truer words have never been spoken.

The crown turns into Kamoshida’s Olympic medal when brought into the real world. So is this a copy of the real medal, or did we actually steal it from the school? Either way, this should be hard evidence of our crimes — where did we get this thing?

Ann: This means that Kamoshida’s heart might have changed, right?
Morgana: …Probably. […] This is the first successful example for me too. However, there’s no doubt that this has affected Kamoshida’s personality quite a lot.

“I’ve never seen this before, but there’s no doubt it did something.” I hate this dialogue so much.

Morgana: Remember how Kamoshida’s Shadow said that he’s returning to his self in reality? We all know Suguru Kamoshida is scum. Still… He did seem to regain his conscience somewhat before he disappeared?

How does stealing something make someone regain something?

Ann: Thanks. I finally got to avenge Shiho because of you guys…

Except you didn’t, because you chose not to kill him.

The next day (god they are really dragging this out), Kawakami gives us some hot goss about Kamoshida suspending himself from the school.

Kawakami: The talks about your expulsions may be put on hold too…

Wait, I thought the reason we had a time limit was because he was waiting to do this? If there are already talks about it, why would the board meeting matter?

Ryuji: I guess all we can do is wait…

Riveting gameplay.