Weekly Gaming Blog (Persona 5 Spoilers) · 1:44pm May 13th, 2017
Mona: "Ack! Joker! I fell in the river! I'm drowning! Help me, Joker!"
Joker: "Let's not do that today."
Welcome to my Weekly Gaming Blog!
This week's coverage: Persona 5.
WARNING: This blog contains Persona 5 plot spoilers for 7/19 through 8/22. Proceed with caution.
REMINDER: Although this blog contains heavy P5 plot spoilers, please be mindful of posting spoilers beyond that point in the comments. Please note where the blog's story summary leaves off, and mark any spoilers past that point. (Or better yet, don't leave spoilers past that point in the comments at all. 
)
Newly acquired games this week:
None
Persona 5
(Note: I named my protagonist convicted serial anal rapist Ben Dover Kaito Hidari, so for simplicity's sake I will be referring to him as such (or as Joker) throughout. Additionally, I will be using the group name I gave the thieves in my game, Les Chatons, to refer to the party collectively. Also, and again for the sake of simplicity, I am omitting the narrative framing device of the interrogation from my recaps.)
Current Progress: 8/22 (Evening)
KAITO Lv. 35
Persona Compendium: 27%
Charm 4 | Proficiency 3 | Knowledge 3 | Guts 3 | Kindness 3
Confidants:
0. The Fool: rank 6
I. The Magician: rank 6
II. The High Priestess: rank 1
IV. The Emperor: rank 5
V. The Hierophant: rank 3
VI. The Lovers: rank 6
VII. The Chariot: rank 6
VIII. Justice: rank 2
X. The Wheel of Fortune: rank 2
XI. Strength: rank 1
XIII. Death: rank 9
XIV. Temperance: rank 2
XV. The Devil: rank 4
XVIII. The Moon: rank 6
XIX. The Sun: rank 7
XX. Judgement: rank 3
The Phantom Thieves, Targeted!
The threat of hacktivist group Medjed looms heavy over Japan and Les Chatons.
While vainly struggling to find information about these hackers, Kaito receives texts from an unknown account. The texts are from somebody calling themselves "Alibaba", who seems to know all about the Phantom Thieves and that Kaito is their leader. Alibaba wants Les Chatons to steal a target's heart, and offers information on Medjed in exchange.
Meanwhile, Medjed claims victory over the Phantom Thieves and warns Japan to stop praising them. They warn that there will be consequences for any who continue to worship the Phantom Thieves: their possessions will be confiscated.
While the Phantom Thieves continue to spin their wheels over this, a strange calling card arrives in the mail at Sojiro's house addressed to Kaito. It turns out to be from Alibaba again, who contacts Kaito shortly thereafter. Alibaba seems to be under the impression that the only thing Les Chatons require to steal someone's heart is a calling card. Kaito demands the name of the target Alibaba wants them to go after, and Alibaba reluctantly gives the name Sakura Futaba. Alibaba also threatens to expose the identities of the Phantom Thieves to the police and the public if they fail.
Les Chatons wonder if perhaps this Sakura Futaba is related to Sakura Sojiro, even though it's a longshot. Kaito asks Sojiro about Futaba, which upsets and angers Sojiro, who reverts to his earlier gruff, standoffish behavior after having softened up in recent weeks. As Kaito attempts to gather information on Sakura Futaba from the locals in the neighborhood, Sojiro is visited by Niijima Sae. Kaito happens to return home just in time to hear Sae pressing Sojiro, who is increasingly angry during the conversation. It appears he is about to lose his custodial rights over...
Yeah, I'm not gonna be vague about this anymore. Futaba. He's about to have Futaba taken away from him, or at least that's what Sae is threatening him with due to (unsubstantiated) allegations of abuse. Sojiro all but throws Sae out of Leblanc.
Kaito asks Sojiro directly about Futaba as Sae leaves. Not the best timing; Sojiro gets incredibly angry and leaves.
Alibaba contacts Kaito again. This time, Alibaba is urgent, frustrated, and tangibly frantic and angry. At this point, it's painfully obvious that Alibaba is Futaba. When Kaito presses Alibaba for more detailed information and a personal meeting to discuss the job, Alibaba panics and calls the whole thing off, cutting off contact.
With Alibaba no longer reachable and Medjed not having made any noise in several days, Les Chatons decide they can afford to breathe a sigh of relief and look forward to some summer fun.
Elsewhere, Akechi Goro and Sae meet up to talk shop. Akechi deduces that the Phantom Thieves are terrorists and are responsible for the numerous incidents of psychotic breakdowns and mental shutdowns...such as the one Sakura Futaba has apparently had.
Les Chatons go out for expensive sushi using the money from selling off Kaneshiro's gold briefcase. They're heading back home from Ginza when they encounter Akechi, who informs them that just minutes ago, Medjed has declared war on the Phantom Thieves. Medjed has set a deadline of August 21st for the Phantom Thieves to go public with their identities and surrender to the authorities. If they fail to do so, Medjed will "cleanse" Japan, beginning with a targeted collapse of the economy.
The pressure is on, and the Phantom Thieves have no idea what their next move is.
The best thing they can do is to try to figure out who Alibaba is so they can start there. Makoto deduces, based on Alibaba's frantic behavior and the fact that the calling card was placed directly in Sojiro's mailbox with no postage, that Alibaba had to be somebody with direct access to the house—and further deduces that Alibaba may in fact be Futaba.
The group decides to head over to Sojiro's house to find out what's what, under the pretext of bringing over some fatty tuna as a gift. There's no answer at the front gate, but the gate and the front door are both unlocked. As they ponder this, it starts thundering; they decide to head into the open house and look around. In the dark house, they hear a TV in one room. The girls start to get creeped out; when a shrill scream pierces the darkness, everybody freaks out. Before they can investigate further, and with Makoto rapidly becoming unglued and losing her cool, Sojiro returns home. He discovers Kaito and Makoto hanging out near the genkan and demands to know what they're doing there. The rest of the group then comes out, and they confront him about Futaba.
Sojiro finally relents and asks them all to go back to Leblanc with him, where he tells them everything.
Many years ago, Sojiro knew Futaba's mother Wakaba. When she had Futaba (whose father Sojiro never knew), she struggled to work to support herself and Futaba, always doing her best to raise her daughter alone. She was an ideal working mother, the perfect picture of perseverence. Then one day, out of nowhere, she killed herself. She jumped right out in the middle of traffic right in front of Futaba, which scarred Futaba for life. Sojiro started taking care of Futaba and raising her as his own. He has difficulty getting her to open up, and while she apparently interacts with him just fine, she rarely ever would leave the house. He's done his best to accomodate her, bringing her whatever she asks for, but he knows that's no way for a person to live.
Lately, Futaba has begun having auditory and visual hallucinations. In the last few months, she's virtually become a hikikomori. During this time, social services and Niijima Sae have begun harassing Sojiro, threatening to take Futaba away as a ward of the state.
With the whole story told, Sojiro heads home to check on Futaba. The Phantom Thieves wonder if it's even possible for someone like Futaba to have a Palace, and they decide to tinker with the Meta-Nav to see. Surprisingly, there's a hit, but they don't manage to transport into the Metaverse. As the hour is late, they decide to break for the evening.
What they never noticed until it was too late is that Morgana didn't return with them from Sojiro's house, and has in fact been in Futaba's room this entire time.
Morgana returns late at night and shares his observations about Futaba with Kaito. The next day, Les Chatons discuss helping Futaba on the off chance she can help with Medjed—and because it's the right thing to do, of course. They head back over to Sojiro's house while Leblanc is open and manage to coax Futaba into talking to them through her "Alibaba" handle. After some cajoling, they manage to get out of her that she sees Sojiro's house as her tomb. This unlocks navigation to her Palace in the Meta-Nav. Before anyone can stop him, Ryuji starts the navigation right then and there, and the thieves find themselves standing around barefoot in the middle of a scorching hot desert.
Using the Monamobile, Les Chatons cross the desert, eventually reaching a pyramid. Inside the great corridor of the pyramid, they encounter Futaba's Shadow, as well as a lot of creepy voices. Futaba believes she killed her mother, and she constantly hears voices calling her a creepy child, a murderer, a plague, and so forth.
The shade of Futaba's mother is hanging around in her heart, and Futaba's unwillingness to let people in leads her Shadow to erect tons of traps to push Les Chatons away, resulting in driving them out of her pyramid with a Raiders of the Lost Ark style rolling rock trap.
Les Chatons regroup at Leblanc, where they decide to change their hideout to Kaito's attic room (which it should have been all along instead of, y'know, all the stupidly public places they've been using). The next time they enter the Pyramid, Shadow Futaba is more amiable, but they still have a long road ahead of them to steal her heart.
As Les Chatons explore the pyramid in search of Futaba's Treasure, they learn more about the guilt and despair that Futaba has inflicted upon herself. When they reach the Treasure chamber, they run into a complication: the Treasure is hidden behind a cognition of Futaba's bedroom door, which in real life she believes no one can pass. In order to deliver the Calling Card and get Futaba to open the Treasure Chamber, they have to get into her room. This leads to an amusingly frustrating and difficult sequence, as Futaba still doesn't completely understand how they do what they do, and is also determined to hide in her closet whenever people are in her room. However, ultimately the Calling Card is delivered, and the door to the Treasure Chamber opens. It's mission time!
As Les Chatons make their way through the heavily-guarded Treasure Chamber, Futaba is visited by her own Shadow in the real world. Also, unbeknownst to Les Chatons, the Metaverse app has appeared on Futaba's phone. She uses it to enter her own Palace.
At the top of the Treasure Chamber, a massive Sphinx with Wakaba's face tears open the top of the pyramid and attacks the Phantom Thieves. The Sphinx is an opponent unlike anything they've dealt with before: powerful, unreachable, and deadly. As they despair over their inability to deal with this menacing foe, Futaba arrives. Confronting her own Shadow and the distorted cognition of her mother, Futaba begins to remember her past more clearly, and comes to realize some things.
For years, Futaba has told herself that her mother hated her, that she was a terrible, selfish child, and that she drove her mother to her death. What she now realizes is that her mother loved her terribly, and wanted desperately to finish her research into cognitive psience so she could spend time with Futaba. The "suicide note" that the men in black suits read out loud to Futaba in front of all her relatives was cruel, mean-spirited...and 100% fake. Having finally realized the truth of her past, Futaba rejects the lies that drove her into hiding and awakens her Persona, Necronomicon. With Futaba's help (and her ability to hack her own Palace), Les Chatons are able to destroy the distorted cognition of Wakaba. A memory of the real Wakaba appears, and Futaba is finally able to say goodbye to her mother and make peace with her past. Once the memory of Wakaba disappears, Futaba distractedly returns to the real world without so much as a word to the Phantom Thieves.
Back in the real world, Kaito and Makoto find Futaba passed out just outside the front gate of Sojiro's house. They call Takemi Tae to examine her; Tae says there's nothing really wrong with her physically aside from lack of muscle definition and general shut-in syndrome. Worried about Futaba's condition, Makoto decides they need to call Sojiro over and confess everything. The group gathers in Futaba's room, where she's spread out on her bed and is out cold. Before anyone can blurt out the whole truth, Sojiro says it's nothing to worry about—sometimes Futaba just "runs out of batteries" and passes out, and she's often like that for days. Relieved, Les Chatons decide that all they can do now is wait for Futaba to wake up. Meanwhile, they begin trying to think of a possible backup plan for dealing with Medjed just in case Futaba doesn't wake up in time.
August 21st arrives, and Sojiro asks Kaito to join him for a cup of coffee to commemorate the anniversary of Wakaba's death. In a sober mood, Sojiro starts talking about Wakaba, and about the visits he's received from Niijima Sae. It turns out Sae is after Wakaba's research. Sojiro suspects Wakaba was killed for her research, but he can't prove it.
During their serious and sober conversation, Futaba just wanders in unexpectedly, complaining about the coffee being cold without acknowledging anyone or anything. When Sojiro wanders off to do whatever Sojiro does when he wanders off, Futaba asks Kaito about the date, then ponders that she feels like she's forgetting something. Kaito reminds her about Medjed, and Futaba hurries back home to her computer with Kaito and Morgana in tow. Futaba slips into an unresponsive state of extreme computer nerd and won't answer even the most minute question. With nothing to do but wait, Kaito and Morgana start cleaning up Futaba's shithole of a bedroom.
By evening, the room is much cleaner, and Kaito and Morgana are waiting on Futaba's bed. She suddenly announces it's taken care of, then looks around in confusion at her clean room. Kaito and Morgana tell her they cleaned (she seriously never noticed them cleaning around her); Futaba shrugs it off, saying "I took care of Medjed, someone else took care of my room, it all worked out in the end!" and pulling out a pillow so she can fall asleep right at her desk. Bemused, Kaito and Morgana head back to Leblanc to sleep.
The next day arrives...
The news spreads across Japan: Medjed's website has been hacked and replaced with the logo of the Phantom Thieves. Additionally, the personal information of one of their Japanese members has been released to the public. On the TV news, the bald politician who destroyed Kaito's life appears and discusses the incident. He brands the Phantom Thieves as a menace to society, calls the entire cabinet of Japan useless and ineffectual, and makes a grand declaration of initiating a plan to reform the Japanese government. Basically, he goes Palpatine.
Later, in Kaito's room, Les Chatons and Futaba gather to talk freely. Futaba doesn't really say much during all this except when directly questioned about what she did to Medjed. Futaba reveals that she is the original founder of Medjed—in fact, she was Medjed back at the beginning. Then hackers around the world started adopting the name and using it for cyberterrorism, and Futaba got sick of it and went underground, switching to the alias Alibaba. She further reveals that the threats against Japan came entirely from the Japanese members of Medjed, who are essentially weak-ass posers.
With ten whole days of summer vacation left, and a well-meaning but ill-conceived determination to draw Futaba out of her shell, the Phantom Thieves decide to take a trip to the beach, where each of them will spend a whole day alone with Futaba, getting to know her. Futaba never actually agrees to any of this...
Meanwhile, Niijima Sae and Akechi Goro meet up again to discuss this recent turn of events. Sae is angrier than ever about the Phantom Thieves, and Akechi is barking up the wrong tree even louder now: he's absolutely convinced the Phantom Thieves are behind the mental breakdown incidents, and is determined to deliver his justice (his personal justice) upon them.
À SUIVRE...
Thoughts:
- It's official. I hate Ryuji and I want to burn him at the stake. There is literally no situation in which his existing makes things better.
- I'm not terribly fond of Morgana either. STUPID CAT, STOP STEALING MY EVENINGS FROM ME! I HAVE SHIT TO DO, YOU LITTLE PRICK!
- I feel sorry for Makoto, being completely barefoot in the desert. Ouchies!
- So there's this one anime cutscene right at the start of the Pyramid Palace which exists for no other reason than to make a stupid, creepy perverted joke. Even I find that to be in poor taste.
- Necronomicon is...a bit tentacle-rapey. O_o;;
- Temperance is an expensive Social Link. >.<;;
- Futaba is my fetish. She is all of my fetish that isn't Sunset Shimmer. Also, now I want to see an Equestria Girls version of Moondancer who's basically Futaba. It would totally work.
- If I may be a complete pig for just a moment here:
* Best tits: Ann.
* Best ass: Makoto.
* Best legs: Futaba.
Lastly:
Moth: RAILROAD BEACH TRIP FOR HACKER GIRL!
Zef: HACKER GIRL WHO HASN'T BEEN OUTSIDE IN YEARS
Zef: AND HAS SEVERE AGORAPHOBIA AND INABILITY TO COPE WITH STRANGERS/NEW SITUATIONS
Zef: LET'S GET HER HALF NAKED ON A CROWDED BEACH
Yeah, like you and Zef said a while back, "there's a big difference between what Persona 5 says, and what it does." And its just really obnoxious to watch the more cringe inducing moments like that cutscene, or Ryujis "bad fortune" in Shinjuku.
Also agreed on Ryuji, I'm a bit ahead of you at this point and he is just...GAH! I love his social link, but I absolutely hate main story Ryuji.
I will note one other thing, am I the only one who had trouble getting invested till Kaneshiros dungeon? I mean, I enjoyed the Kamoshida arc, but gameplay was limited. Madarames arc was a satisfying beat down, but it was kinda...meh, Yusukes creeping didn't help in that regard. I was bored by most of the early confidants, but the later game ones are really interesting. Am I the only one who feels things took a while to get cooking?
When I saw that Alibaba was a name dropped in the game, I though to myself "This would make for a great Party Member Persona if Atlus wanted," and since (kinda spoilers) The Ultimate Personas are legendary tricksters, I looked up Medjed to see if he also fits the bill...
i1.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/018/827/Medjed.jpg
I have never been so dissapointed in life.
4530857
It's not just you. One of the main reasons it's taken me this long to get this far is because the early game kind of grinds you down and wears you out.
4530857 I would agree, though I just thought there was more in this game in terms of how much time you're allowed to have. I mean, the third dungeon is when the game actually really opens up for you. Before that, you're still in tutorial mode.
Also, I totally agree with MythrilMoth about Futaba...expect I hate Sunset Shimmer, so I can't agree. Oh well...
How can you not love Futaba and her constant pop-culture references and weird metaphors? The only reason why I didn't romance best girl was because I saw her more like a younger sister (and I'm not into that clishé).
ohhh sweet little Futaba...
I also really like her dungeon; you already explained how it perfectly describes Futaba's personality (well, except for that one annoying mini-boss). Even the awesome dungeon theme is fittingly called "The Days When My Mother Was There".
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..
...
I'm gonna go cry now
I gotta say man, outta all the palaces, I think I liked Futaba's the most. You could really see all the psychological stuff that went into this game. Second, yeah, Futaba has to be best girl. And finally......YES. BAD KITTY!! STOP TAKING MY EVENINGS OF LEVELING MY CONFIDANTS!!
If I ever god this game, I would totally name myself Ben Dover.
I won't, since I don't have a PS4, but that's what I would do.
I'm honestly not sure who I dislike more, Ryuji or Morgana. On the one side, Ryuji is loud, annoying and doesn't contribute anything, as he's certainly not second in command (Joker is probably second, with Queen in command). On the other side, I'm already tired of Mona commenting on everything Joker does in his life.
The Social Links are driving me crazy with all their requirements. Can't even start several of them without rank 3 stats (and I'm only around June!). I remember the outcry when the trailers showed the beach trip. Rise's commercial was one thing, this is, um. Ryuji's crass attitude is not helping. Oh well, its not until mid to late game that links and gameplay get better, as usual for Persona. I do kind of wish Mementos and Palaces weren't separate so that I wouldn't have to waste two days grinding levels.
4531892 it's also for PS3. The only major difference is better loading times on the PS4.
4533155 Don't have that either.
Ok I'll agree Trujillo is super annoying with how reckless he is
And morgana can be very annoying....but I let it slide cause cat puns
I'm hopping to get one of those rare demons so I can make arsene into a viable persona for end game