Board 8 > Anagram Plays Persona 4 (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

- I like this little fourth wall breaking stuff where Mitsuo enters his name.
- Are, uh, early 90s adventure games that popular in Japan?
- "Does he mean killing people was just a game to him? He's on my enemies list!"
- Made it to floor 6, stopped for now. I'm running away a lot more than I used to, I'm afraid of being underleveled. Currently level 38.
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Anagram posted...

- Are, uh, early 90s adventure games that popular in Japan?

The entire thing is a big reference to 8/16-bit RPGs, mostly Dragon Quest and Shin Megami Tensei

Reg posted...

The entire thing is a big reference to 8/16-bit RPGs, mostly Dragon Quest and Shin Megami Tensei

I've played Dragon Quest 1 and it is nothing like this. No clue about SMT, though.
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King Moron dying is legit one of the most surprising plot twists to happen in the series. Not that that sets the bar high, but hey.
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- Continue up the dungeon, reach a door that makes me think a miniboss will be behind it. There is indeed a miniboss, but no cutscene with Mitsuo. The game's dodging of giving me information about him would have made me suspicious had I not known the villain is Adachi.
- At last we reach the top of the dungeon. Mitsuo is there with his shadow, which actually surprised me for some reason.
- He admits to killing the first two people, then went for a third because no one thought of him. The shadow says "I feel nothing," and Chie asks which one is the shadow. Yeah, one has yellow eyes and a blue aura of evil while the other doesn't, this is hard to determine.
- I was actually a bit surprised Mitsuo just admits to doing it, not really because I knew Adachi is the villain, but because it was just so obvious, and detective stories usually include at least one red herring. It's to the point where I question it anyway.
- Mitsuo's shadow says he's nothing, Mitsuo denies it, and the shadow turns into a giant flying baby. The baby summons a robot. I beat the robot, but the baby then wrecks me. I then look up on google what level to fight him at and learn 45 is the recommended minimum, and I'm only 40.

Weeeeeeeeelp time for some grinding.
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Level 40 means you should have access to plenty of persona with Mediarama and Recarm. Fuse those up.
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Golden has a special version of that music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjuormKijYw" data-time="
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Should I be bothering with raising everyone, or should I just focus on three or four?
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Just use your favorites, you'll never have to use the others.
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Yeah, you're never forced to use anyone, so you can do whatever you want.
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Thanks.

Spent two hours leveling, still only 43.
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- Grinded to 44, finally got tired and just went for it.
- Defeated Mitsuo over an extremely long, snuff soul-intensive fight. Should've used more sodas before the fight to save the snuff souls, but such is life.
- Mitsuo admits to being the killer. The shadow disappears in a way that doesn't look like the normal way they disappear--significant? Dunno.
- "Why did you do this? Answer in ten words or less!"
- Mitsuo continues to claim to be the killer, but it just doesn't jive with me. He implies his motivation is purely fame.
- Why would you model an animation for Kanji to hold Mitsuo up by the scruff of his neck, but not add the animation for Mitsuo's shirt to move during it?
- They call the police even though Mitsuo was never formally arrested and no one officially told them he was the suspect.
- Afterwards, they discuss how Greg didn't have some kind of big emotional moment and just gained his power outright. I remember this being mentioned before, too.
- Everyone agrees to have a party at Dojima's house despite it being extremely small. There, we learn all of the girls suck at cooking because Japan keeps thinking that's a good joke.
- Everyone agrees to go to the festival on 8/20 because that's when we'll discover Mitsuo isn't responsible or whatever.
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People are still enjoying god, right?
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Mitsuo's dungeon is where they start getting passable.
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Hey, I'm finding contradictory information about fishing for the Guardian. Some people say it's only available September and after, others say it's anytime. Does anyone know the answer to this?
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I'm almost sure it can be caught anytime... with conditions.

You need an upgraded Fishing Rod (Angler Rod?) which IIRC requires having a Huge Fish (that is the name of it) and showing it to the fisherman. Then you need to fish during the rain, it doesn't appear in other weather. (Day or night. I've seen some people say night works even without rain but to be safe I'd wait for rain)
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xp1337 posted...

I'm almost sure it can be caught anytime... with conditions.

You need an upgraded Fishing Rod (Angler Rod?) which IIRC requires having a Huge Fish (that is the name of it) and showing it to the fisherman. Then you need to fish during the rain, it doesn't appear in other weather. (Day or night. I've seen some people say night works even without rain but to be safe I'd wait for rain)

Thanks.
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- I've been playing this game for a million hours now and I only just realized how messy the extension cord situation is in Greg's room, that's so funny.
- "Tofu is incredible. I'm nothing like that."
- Dojima and Adachi come over to have a celebration. Somehow, we're literally in the middle of the dinner before Adachi says the word "celebration" and confuses Nanako, so I guess she thought we were all just happily eating together for no reason?
- Dojima and Adachi talk about how happy they are to have caught the murderer. I notice that the TV reporter doesn't mention the murderer's name--I happen to know this is a real thing in Japan where you can't say the name of an underage criminal on TV. I know this because I once read the Wikipedia article on Junko Furuta. If you haven't heard of her, don't look her up.
- I like how, just by chance, I do the Dojima rank 9 social link the night after we celebrated the murderer being caught, so Nanako gets to have two celebrations in a row.
- Yosuke asks if I'll work at Junes for a week. I say no, but the princess from Dragon Quest appears and says "But thou must." Five days are killed. At least the game doesn't make me watch through fives scenes of it.
- We go to the standard Persona festival where the girls dress up in kimonos and the boys ogle them, this happens every game.
- I hate to admit it, but the game got a laugh out of me when Teddie tricked the others into letting him go with all of the girls by himself.
- "An epic fail..." That reminds me of the real 2008, when I met my high school friend's new college friends who kept describing almost everything they saw as "epic." This was at the height of calling things epic and I still got annoyed at them.
- I apparently didn't meet the requirements for any festival dates. I don't understand why? I have Chie and Yukiko 8, Rise 6, and a bunch of others at various levels.
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You actually have to be in a romance with them at that point, I'm pretty sure, which means you were just one level short (potentially) for Chie and Yukiko.
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LeonhartFour posted...

You actually have to be in a romance with them at that point, I'm pretty sure, which means you were just one level short (potentially) for Chie and Yukiko.

Barf, thanks.
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Just another thing to look up on YouTube.
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Actually, the real reason is that in Vanilla P4 the Investigation Team girls are just flat out unavailable for that event. Teddie ruined everything. Only the other girls from school (so Ai and the Sun Link) are options. Not sure if the relationship has to be on Romance Route or not but I'd guess it has to be at least 5-6 at the least if that isn't a req.

In Golden, Chie and Yukiko are available but I think Leon is correct that you need to be in an active romance with them for them to call. Rise is always available IIRC because she hasn't been available as a link for that long by then (it is technically possible to get Rise in a romance by this point but you have to seriously plan around it, and it doesn't alter the scene anyway)
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Oh, I didn't realize that was something they changed from Vanilla. It's been forever since I've played the original.
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- "My husband kind of set me up. He only told me he had a child right before we got married." Girl, that was such a scum move, I have no idea how you could have married him after that.
- I know that Japanese idol culture is kind of weird from a Western perspective, but two NPCs just walked by talking about how they love how cute and genuine an idol is because she's in middle school.
- Didn't help Nanako with her homework. Sorry, kid, but I've got part-time jobs to do and books to read.
- Dojima social link beated.
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I was reading some stuff on TVTropes, so Persona has alternate dimensions, right? And everyone is from the same dimension except the PSP P3, and this exists just to justify the girl protagonist showing up in one of the spinoffs?
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Helping Nanako boosts your S. Links with her and with other Investigation Team people because they'll show up to assist her.
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LeonhartFour posted...

Helping Nanako boosts your S. Links with her and with other Investigation Team people because they'll show up to assist her.

That's good to know, but I didn't really need that anyway.
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Well, the bonus scenes you get are pretty fun, too.
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Do you need some kind of special bait for the Guardian fish? Because I can't figure out how I'd switch bait anyway.
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Just watched the trailer for Death Stranding, was like "who the hell is that voice actor," checked and realized it was Kanji.
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Yeah, that's Troy Baker.

Matt Mercer (a.k.a. the guy you get when you can't get Troy Baker) plays Kanji in all the spinoffs, but you honestly can't tell the difference most of the time.
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- Decided on the Rise relationship. "There's no turning back." It's like the game is trying to intimidate me.
- I like how the thing that made my knowledge jump to max was the Guide to Pests.
- Sorry, Yukiko. I know most boys would like to hang out with a hot girl on Sunday, but I've got a date with an old lady by the riverbank.
- I still haven't started Saki's brother's s-link. A kid runs up to him and me and says "Mr. Morooka said you're filling in for an absent health committee member, so you have to go, too." Jesus Christ, Persona now has ghosts who force you to join after-school clubs? That's an incredibly specific form of revenge for failing to protect someone from a murderer.
- "Hey Chie, I've got this disgusting slime with eyeballs with me, wanna hang out?"
- We go on the school trip. The first thing Yosuke notices is the size of the school. This would be more effective if we'd gotten more exterior shots of the full Inaba school, I'm just saying. I've played both games and never thought either school was noticeably larger!
- I don't know if rural Japanese to urban Japanese counts as a "cultural exchange." If so, I went on a cultural exchange when I visited my cousins in Omaha.
- We meet Chihiro from P3. I wonder how she reacted to Frank Svensson last year mysteriously dying in Aigis' lap? She was one of the like four girls I had a relationship with in that game, but at least she seems to be doing well.
- "Thousands die, and tens of thousands are born. That is the curse upon this country." Have I got good news for you!
- At a club: "Two years ago when I had a show here..." Rise performed at a night club when she was thirteen?
- I enjoy Yukiko's secret knowledge of drinking games and Naoto's attempts to manipulate the situation to gain more information. It's good characterization.
- "It's a fuuma bundou, the market's best-rated claw!"
- Guardian of the River beated.
- Courage rank 5 beated.
- Naoto then tells us that he knows the people who disappear are on TV first, that he knows Yukiko, Kanji, and Rise were kidnapped, and that we rescued them. I like how his detective work is all incredibly obvious, but is played up like he's a super genius. I'm not criticizing the part where the cops ignore evidence because they want to close the case, though, that I get, that makes sense.
- Naoto says "I know you guys are the only people who can rescue kidnapped people, and the kidnapped people were all on TV, and I was just on TV and have an interest in proving the killer is still at large, can you possibly guess what my plan is here, okay bye."
- That night, a blurry version of Naoto appears on the Midnight Channel. By the way, I wrote that sentence before it happened because it was just so obviously going to happen.
- The next night, Naoto appears on the channel in a labcoat in a laboratory, talking about how he'll experiment on himself to alter his body and walk a new path in life. I'm actually curious what that means? Anyway, I like how the narration says "That was definitely Naoto," like I needed to be told.
- There's an NPC named "Guy with a Backpack." That really makes him stand out in this game about high schoolers.
- Yukiko finally figures out how that Naoto got himself kidnapped on purpose, and that Mitsuo only killed the teacher and not anyone else. Yosuke's unfortunately gotten less clever as time has gone on.
- We go inside the TV world and discover that it's grown larger and that we need a hint on how to find Naoto. This is also the first time I've seen Rise's persona up close, I didn't realize it has a satellite for a face, that's incredible.
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- "I wonder where the signal for the Midnight channel is coming from. A TV needs a signal, or else it won't show anything. So, there needs to be a source for this information." Is this game seriously going to tell me later that there's an antenna for the magical show that only appears on TVs that are off?
- "They say that when a woman starts breast-feeding, her maternal instincts awaken. It's true, I saw it on television... There's nothing I can do. Fate has determined that we'll be forever distant."
- Got the info about Naoto, can go rescue him later now.
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Saiki's brother is one of the S. Links I remember most from the game.
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- I answered a question wrong on purpose to see what would happen, but then it turned out to be right. I guess I'm secretly a genius, let's just go with that.
- It always feels weird to be relying on personas that are like ten levels below you.
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KamikazePotato posted...

Saiki's brother is one of the S. Links I remember most from the game.

Honestly one of the best non-party links in P4 imo

It's a really good one, although it doesn't start getting great until the last few levels.

And yeah, Yosuke's drop in intelligence corresponds with Naoto becoming part of the conversation because Naoto can be the Sherlock and Yosuke can just be the Watson now.
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- Realized that I forgot to do the Mitsuo dungeon side quests. Go back and do them and kill the bonus boss, was surprisingly easy.
- Too lazy to continue right now, but I'd feel awkward just posting one line, so here's a filler line.
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- "Huh? Intruders? That means us, right?"
- This game made me look up "hablerie." The first google result that isn't to the SMT Wiki is to a GameFAQs post from 2009 asking what a hablerie is.
- Okay, Persona. I'm banning you from having backtracking in future dungeons. You better remember this.
- Some enemies ambushed me when they were nowhere near my back while I had an electric-weak persona equipped, and it was five enemies with ziodyne. I interpreted that game over as the game telling me to stop for today.
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Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. That's the worst it gets, thankfully.
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- Does every RPG on the planet have programming that ensures critical hits will happen on enemies that would die to a normal attack anyway? This is worst in Pokemon when you don't want it to happen.
- We reach the end of the dungeon and find Naoto calmly with his shadow. Naoto's Shadow acts like a child, then says that Naoto should accept that he's also childish. I have to say, it's really clever and subtle how the labcoat is so big on him that the sleeves go beyond his hands, that's a fantastic visual touch that no one draws attention to.
- I like how Naoto is basically unsurprised about this whole crazy TV world and doppelganger. Like I appreciate that he's a good enough detective that he probably figured out there was something supernatural going on, but he seems completely unperturbed by it other than finding his shadow to be annoying.
- Shadow Naoto starts mocking manliness, talking about how it's such a "cool, manly name." I guess that's lost if you speak Japanese. Is that the Japanese equivalent to Max Power? I hope so.
- Oh my gooooood Naoto is a girl who could have possibly predicted this
- Wait, Naoto's parents were famous detectives, right? I got the impression from her backstory that she wasn't pretending to be a boy until later. Did everyone just forget that her parents had a daughter and not a son? I guess in fairness, these games have never really shown the cops as a whole to be very clever.
- "You'll kick my ass, huh? Fine... Go ahead and try, you lizard-brained imbecile!" That is the most perfect representation of how a fifteen year-old trying to sound smart acts that I've ever seen, I have to give this all of the applause.
- "Save the discussion for later!" - Yosuke, after everyone has already finished talking.
- "Yukiko-senpai needs help!" "Yukiko-senpai needs help!" "Shouldn't someone heal Yukiko-senpai?" "Senpai, you're low on health!" "Senpai, shouldn't you heal?" "Oh no, Senpai!"
- Shadow Naoto beated.
- "Besides, the police department is a male-dominated workplace." "You don't know that!"
- Naoto is all "Girls can't be the ideal image of a detective" and Yukiko is like "you don't want to be a boy" and Naoto is like "What I should strive for... is to accept myself for who I really am..." I like P4's theme of accepting yourself for what you are, but I'm curious what a trans person would think of situation.
- Oh my god is that persona a sentai character in a tuxedo? I love it.
- That night, Dojima and Adachi are at the house. Both suspect that the REAL killer is still at large. Perhaps he might even by the seemingly unimportant side character with a unique portrait who keeps showing up in cutscenes and is in a perfect position to mess with police investigations.
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Anagram posted...

- Ever notice how everyone's personas are gender-appropriate? Just once, I'd like to see a girl with a boy persona.

I've been waiting two weeks to comment on this

congratulations your request has been granted
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LeonhartFour posted...

I've been waiting two weeks to comment on this

congratulations your request has been granted

I didn't even think of this, welp.
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Anagram posted...

- Naoto is all "Girls can't be the ideal image of a detective" and Yukiko is like "you don't want to be a boy" and Naoto is like "What I should strive for... is to accept myself for who I really am..." I like P4's theme of accepting yourself for what you are, but I'm curious what a trans person would think of situation

Japan has really rigid gender roles, so it makes more sense from that angle.
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Well, I don't think this is even an issue of gender identity in Naoto's case. She only pretends to be a guy so she doesn't get looked down on in a predominantly male profession.
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Anagram posted...

- At a club: "Two years ago when I had a show here..." Rise performed at a night club when she was thirteen?

apparently

That whole thing is a callback to the Full Moon Operation that took place at the club in P3 mainly. If you'll recall, the shadow there was absorbing the electricity, hence the power outages that Rise notes ruined the appearance.
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KamikazePotato posted...

Japan has really rigid gender roles, so it makes more sense from that angle.

I guess.

LeonhartFour posted...

Well, I don't think this is even an issue of gender identity in Naoto's case. She only pretends to be a guy so she doesn't get looked down on in a predominantly male profession.

I'm not sure, she seemed like she was arguing about it with her shadow. Not a big deal in any case, though.

xp1337 posted...

apparently

That whole thing is a callback to the Full Moon Operation that took place at the club in P3 mainly. If you'll recall, the shadow there was absorbing the electricity, hence the power outages that Rise notes ruined the appearance.

I totally forgot about that.
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I think they were arguing more about the concept of masculinity more than anything else.
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Anagram posted...

but I'm curious what a trans person would think of situation.

https://gamecola.net/2014/02/disregard-canon-acquire-representation-naoto-shirogane-is-a-transman/

http://www.mattiebrice.com/its-time-to-talk-about-it-atlus-naoto-and-transphobia/

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjpnam/atlus-we-havent-forgotten-your-mishandling-of-lgbtq-characters-catherine-full-body

(the answer is they are usually not fans in the slightest)
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I think Naoto's situation has some complexity to it... which Persona 4 is not equipped to explore, and honestly very, very few games would be, but it's Naoto's Social Link where things get problematic IMO. I've never been comfortable with how that goes on the romance route.
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