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Chapter 36: 5/23: Priority Number One

(Okay moron, you forgot that it was the one-year anniversary of the LP starting and felt compelled to put something out to commemorate it, especially because your update schedule has been noticeably more anemic than it used to be… but the new FFXIV patch also dropped today, so you need to get this shit done as fast as possible. Don’t worry, those rubes won’t notice as long as you make sure to replace this text)



(Gotta figure out a good riff on this scene where Fox gets his codename. Probably something with how they don’t even attempt to localize the “Abura-age” joke Skull makes?)



(This is just the bit of dialogue where Mona tells the team that we can only have four party members at a time because otherwise it wouldn’t be fair to the enemies I guess)



(Here’s Yusuke’s Trait, Scoundrel Eyes. Not as useful as the other party members’ Traits we have so far)




(These shots are just to establish movement through the Palace, not super necessary because most of it’s exactly the same as the original but it can help the flow of the update and prevent the reader from getting… disoriented? Not really the word I’m looking for, but you get it)



(Probably go back and capture a shot of the beginning of this battle, jumping straight to the Hold Up dialogue is kind of messy)



(This bit is here to show off the negotiation upgrade we just got from Tora’s Rank 2. Explain the best way to make money using this: knock down Shadow, preferably a strong one like this Shiki-Ouji, ask for money, ask for more money up to twice (because it will only give you money three times at most), then All-Out Attack to get all the negotiation money plus the experience and money you would normally get from defeating it. Very good way of getting money while we’re still desperate for it)



(Big painting room with all the lasers, not much to write about here)



(Make another JoJoke? You already compared his pose to JoJo’s a few updates ago, but maybe Photoshop the “menacing” onomatopoeia all over it, like you did in that joke for the first LP you ended up not actually using?) (Maybe don’t, though, the reason you cut that joke was because it didn’t really scan and wasn’t that funny in the first place)



(This scene is now voiced for some reason and this dude is played by Jalen K. Cassell, who also voices Kaneshiro. Maybe make a joke about that? I don’t know what possible joke you could derive from there, but that’s a problem for Future Me)



(Checked old LP, this fight used to be a Shiki-Ouji, but is now a Kurama Tengu with two Koppa Tengus. The Kurama Tengu can summon more Koppa Tengus and blocks Wind. Fucking wiki is not updated with its movelist though, so not a lot of info there. Saw the Koppa Tengus use Tarukaja on the big guy, who would spend its turn “gathering the power of wind,” which means it probably uses a big Wind attack after. It didn’t get the chance to in my footage though. The Koppas could also inflict Rage)



(When I was taking screenshots I think I had a mildly funny idea for a conversation about skill cards to put here? Maybe it was just an idea of an idea? Anyway, I do not remember what it was, figure something out)



(Dumbass, you took the screenshot on the wrong dialogue here. Just mention that we have 4 Lockpicks right now, it’s not worth going back for the shot where Mona says it)



(SORD)



(skipping past this scene where they need the password)




(skipping past this scene where they find out about the password being Madarame’s feet pics or whatever)



(this battle shows off a couple things you’ll need to explain)



(this enemy is weak to Bless and is also a Disaster Shadow, so you decided to see what happens if you use an instant-kill move on a Disaster Shadow)



(first attempt missed)



(Disaster Shadow countered, as they do)



(Joker gets inflicted with fear)



(But Detox procs thanks to Maruki! Instant cure!)



(So, try Hama again)



(In a result I should have seen coming, no explosion when it dies because technically it took 0 damage. Oops)



(Go back to the statue to learn the password. Make funny joke that it’s 1120, the same as Madarame’s age)



(Input password)



(Shit, you forgot to mention the locked chest blocked by a gate earlier, so now it’s gonna come out of nowhere when you mention going back for it now that the gates are down. You should probably get a shot of it before this)



(Bead chain good, full party heal)



(Every Frame A Paintin—no, stop, that’s not even anything. They discover they can go into the painting when Fox touches it, which he should really by all rights know better than to do)



(Can you think of any funny pop culture references where people go into paintings? Shit. Uhhh. Fuck. Deal with it later)





(Outta the paintings and through a vent to the next area)



(Here we get an award, which I believe we have not seen before in the LP. Just gives currency for buying stuff in the Thieves’ Den)



(Find a safe room here, but this is where the footage kind of goes off the rails, remember? You end up spending like… fifteen minutes going back through the Palace because you half-remembered some bullshit from the original LP or something that you need a Shiisaa for the next Strength fusion because you know it learns Frei and you currently need an Ame-no-Uzume with Frei, and Shiisaa are really annoying to get because they’re only weak to Psi, which you don’t have a source of, and Curse, so you spend a while trying to knock them down with your bullets before you remember that you can’t negotiate with a Shocked enemy before you realize Onmoraki knows Eiha and can easily knock them down, ugh) (Holy run-on sentence, Batman! You should probably clean that up) (Is “Holy (x), Batman” even how that meme/joke format works?)




(Anyway, then you go back to the Velvet Room and realize that Shiisaa does not fuse into Ame-no-Uzume and you just wasted your time because you misremembered the original second request from the vanilla game, which was for a Shiisaa with Frei (which was not a Persona obtainable from the Palace) Maybe don’t even bring this up? It’s a little embarrassing)



(But while you were here you decided to do a fusion with Inugami and Shiisaa to make Makami)




(No ranks in Temperance means no level up means no ability to show what skills we gave Makami, so just mention we gave it Pulinpa and Giant Slice)



(Back in the Palace now, we go to the big painting room)





(Are you really considering summarizing all the painting movement again? It’s all the same as in the original if anyone cares, don’t bother. The only interesting thing that can happen is exactly the same as it was in the original: running into the sea monster on the boat and getting kicked out and ambushed by Shadows)










(Anyway, that’s the painting room. It’s fine enough, just made a little tedious by the fact that I died immediately after finishing it and had to do it again.)



(Ame-no-Uzume has been added to the Palace but she’s now several levels lower than she was originally. Also, she is the Shadow that killed you with Magaru and Mazio spam to hit weaknesses, maybe bring that up?)



(Panther learning Dekaja)



(Oh, right. This annoyance. Make sure you bring up that you can hear the sound cues that come from proximity to a Will Seed room, leading the player to search their immediate surroundings for it, but it’s not here)



(Okay, to be honest, I’m not actually sure why I got this shot. It has nothing to do with anything as far as I can tell. It’s not related to the Will Seed. I’m sure I had a good reason for taking it, I just cannot remember what it is. I’m probably gonna cut this shot because of that but… man, that’s gonna eat at me all day now!)



(To find the Will Seed, we go further in)



(Gotta jump down to a lower level)




[Panther Sad] We have to do something with these shutters to go in.

(Unfortunately, the door is blocked off)



(This is the time to bring up how incredibly annoying it was to open the shutters on a first playthrough. Finding the grappling spot isn’t a huge deal because when you get into grapple range your hand glows)




(But when you get up to the next level, you have to notice another of these really inconspicuous devices on the wall and it sucks, I always ignore them)





(But eh, as long as you don’t give up and leave the area you’ll probably find that eventually)







(Okay, now we’re in the MC Escher mindfuck area, making good time, might get this draft done before lunch)




[Panther Sad] So, like, which way are we supposed to go? I didn’t see any other ways forward, did you?




[Fox] I see. So it was camoflaged. We may have been trapped here for eternity had you not noticed that.
[Morgana Happy] Ooh! Nice work, Skull! You did it!
[Skull Shocked] Uh, sure… You know I just got lucky, right?

(This bit with the peeling wall is new, you can see the walls with Third Eye like every other “puzzle” in this damn game)




(Now the painting matching. This was once tricky on the very first playthrough because I have a poor memory and hadn’t intimately memorized the Sayuri, but it’s trivial now. Also, even in the final area with like twelve fake paintings they never mix-and-match the details of the fakes. Like, there’s never one that’s both blue and missing the branch, or blue and with the hair behind her shoulder, it’s only ever got one mistake at once, so it’s not even that interesting)



(In the next area, a peeling wall)




(With a treasure chest behind it)



(The final area has another fake wall)






(Because Madarame cheats, the real Sayuri in the final area is hidden all by itself behind a fake wall. What a little shit.)




(Out of that area and into the hall with the Treasure, finally)




(Now we go to the control room)



(Spoiler alert: we cannot. But at least the lights can get shut off for five seconds)




(Beat these clowns and head over to the now-open shutter)




(Reminder to craft more Lockpicks, maybe even before we head into Mementos next)




(Gotta grapple up to a higher level here)



(Safe room up here)






(Grapple across)




[Here, we enter the room with the hook controls)



(But this entire time we’ve been hearing the sound cues for the last Will Seed door, which means we must have passed it somewhere, so we turn around)



(It turns out we missed something back by the safe room. I believe I passed this over by accident on my original run of this game as well, oops)



[Morgana Angry] I can feel a Seed past this door… It might be a pain to get our hands on it, though.

(As before, the final Will Seed is guarded)





[Security Guard Shadow] Know what? It doesn’t even matter—now that you’ve seen this place, you won’t be leaving alive!



(Not much of a challenging fight here despite itself. This thing uses Mapsio, Flash Bomb (to inflict Dizzy), and Brain Jack (to inflict Brainwash, which allows it to Technical with Mapsio). It also Nulls Physical and Resists Gun. However, it’s weak to both Wind and Nuke, so can I knock it down with 3/4 of the party because Panther has that Garu ring. That plus a lucky Shock off of Skull’s Zio means it doesn’t even get to act very much)











(An accessory that nullifies weaknesses is pretty good, but still not generally as useful as a bonus skill to me, so we won’t be making much use of this unfortunately)



(Back to the hook room)








(And from there, it’s just the party coming up with the frankly absurd plan to strap Mona to the hook to grab the Treasure. Is that all I wanna cover for now? I think it might be, I end up doing a bunch of fusion right after this, and that’s gonna be really tedious to cover along with the Strength rank up before we leave. I’ll get it next time I guess. But that’s enough for now! I can hear the Tower at Paradigm’s Breach calling me!)