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1[[quoteright:349:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_persona_2_cover.png]]
2[[caption-width-right:349:''[[ThematicThemeTune Let there be light in the dark night.]]''[[note]]On the left: [[PlayingWithFire Apollo]] and [[IneffectualLoner Tatsuya Suou]]. On the right: [[IntrepidReporter Maya Amano]] and [[AnIcePerson Artemis]][[/note]]]]
3
4->''"Once the star comes to a complete halt''\
5''The Maia Maiden's heart stops with it''\
6''What then remains is paradise on earth''\
7''Marking the end and a new beginning"''
8-->-- '''"The Oracle of Maia"''' [[note]](PSP translation)[[/note]], a brief description of the plot of ''Persona 2: Innocent Sin''
9
10''Persona 2'' is a duology of games released in 1999-2000 as an UrbanFantasy spinoff of the popular JRPG franchise ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei''. It is the second title in the ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'' spinoff series developed by Creator/{{Atlus}}, and takes place approximately three years after the first ''VideoGame/{{Persona|1}}''.
11
12''Innocent Sin'' (Tsumi) stars [[IneffectualLoner loner tough-guy]] Tatsuya Suou, a Japanese high school student from Sumaru City. A popular rumor going around the city states that if you dial your own cellphone number, a mysterious man named "Joker" will appear before you and grant you whatever you wish. When Tatsuya and his friends investigate, Joker appears and marks them for death, accusing them of committing a crime against him which they can't remember. As the Joker Charm runs out of control and rumors start to become reality, Tatsuya and his friends must uncover the mystery of "The Masked Circle" and stop Joker before it's too late.
13
14''Eternal Punishment'' (Batsu) stars intrepid {{pollyanna}} Maya Amano, a Japanese journalist from Sumaru City. A popular rumor going around the city states that if you dial your own cellphone number, a mysterious man named "JOKER" will appear before you and murder whoever you wish. When Maya and her friends investigate, JOKER appears and marks her for death, accusing her of committing a crime against him which she can't remember. As the Joker Curse runs out of control and rumors start to become reality, Maya and her friends must uncover the mystery of "The Other Side" and stop JOKER before it's too -- [[HistoryRepeats wait a second...]] [[WistfulAmnesia Haven't we done this before?]]
15
16''Persona 2'' straddles a fence between the previous title and sequels to follow. The grid-based battles are thrown out, along with the [[InUniverseGameClock moon phase]] calendar (which made a comeback in ''VideoGame/Persona3''). The Contact system, however, has been greatly overhauled: In addition to negotiating with demons in their own quirky style, selecting two or more characters[[labelnote:*]]even if they're KO'd (in ''Eternal Punishment''), though they obviously can't initiate. Instead, a character may say their dues or some form of insult on said fallen character.[[/labelnote]] will yield a new contact based on their relationship, which changes over time. Though mainly a source of comedy in ''2'', the concept of relationships affecting gameplay would take center stage with ''Persona 3'''s Social Links. Summoning works much the same way, with "Fusion Spells" enabling two or more Personas to unleash {{Combined Energy Attack}}s. Also new are "contracts": when you make an enemy happy, they make a guarantee that they won't hurt you, and may also fork over items to keep you alive.
17
18Though the [=PlayStation=] version of ''Innocent Sin'' [[NoExportForYou never left Japan]], ''Eternal Punishment'' was localized and released in North America in 2000. While it isn't necessary to play the first to understand the second, much of the fun of the second comes in spotting the changes between the two continuities. Atlus initially announced no plans in localizing ''Innocent Sin'' into English and later elaborated they ''had'' planned to release it, but were prevented from doing so; depending on who you ask, the game was either ChristmasRushed or canceled outright due to [[ThoseWackyNazis content]] [[NoSwastikas issues]]. A [[http://tsumi.wordpress.com/ fan translation]] of this version was released in 2008. Atlus later stated they were aware of the fan translation, but chose to not interfere with it.
19
20''Innocent Sin'' was [[UpdatedRerelease remade]] for the Platform/PlayStationPortable with widescreen support, new art, enhanced demon negotiations, and the option to pick between the original soundtrack and a remastered version. It also slightly censored the more overt Nazi imagery at the end of the game. This version of the game was released in North America in September of 2011 and in Europe in November 2011, published by Ghostlight. [[http://www.siliconera.com/2012/02/28/persona-2-eternal-punishment-coming-to-psp-with-new-scenario/ It was confirmed that Eternal Punishment would also be remade and was released in May 2012 with an extra scenario]], but alas, it was not released outside of Japan. Thankfully, the original [=PlayStation=] version was re-released around the same time [[http://us.playstation.com/games/persona-2-eternal-punishment-ps3-psp.html on PlayStation Network]], available in all regions. The original localization was later significantly polished by a fan group to be more consistent with current Atlus localization practices, including removing the Revelationsisms[[note]]while the original ''Eternal Punishment'' was '''far''' more faithful to the Japanese version than ''[[{{Macekre}} Revelations: Persona]]'' was, it was forced to retain {{Dub Name Change}}s and other altered terminology originating from ''Revelations'' for consistency's sake[[/note]] and altering ''Innocent Sin'' flashbacks to reflect the PSP script, and [[https://github.com/sayucchin/P2-EP-PSP/ ported to the PSP remake]] alongside a fan translation of the extra scenario. To avoid players having to play the Japanese version of ''Innocent Sin'' for the OldSaveBonus, this patch allows the player to choose their save from either the US or EU version, depending on the ROM's region or, in the case of hacked [=PSPs=] and PS Vitas with the official PS Store release installed, your PS Store region; the region choice is done through the options menu, and defaults to US.
21
22There's a tie-in manga called ''Persona 2: Tsumi to Batsu'', which was only released in Japan and in France/French-speaking countries and territories. An updated version has a gaiden story epilogue which ties the story in with the rest of the Persona verse.
23
24----
25!!Tropes:
26
27[[foldercontrol]]
28
29[[folder:#-G]]
30* NumberOneDime: Tatsuya's engraved cigarette lighter, and Jun's watch. They swapped them as children.
31* AbandonedHospital: Morimoto Sanitarium in ''Eternal Punishment'', which is where Tatsuya Sudou (note the additional "d") is being held. With a mobster sedan camped out in a cul-dac-sac, the team enters the hospital through the rear, where they find the place ransacked and dead bodies of Taiwanese hitmen sent to kill Sudou -- who in turn were killed by the demons he summoned. In ''Innocent Sin'', the Sanitarium is not mentioned at all; rather, there used to be a regular observatory at the top before being replaced by Caracol.
32* AbandonedLaboratory: Kandori's Science Lab. Unfortunately, it's still being used.
33* AbominationAccusationAttack: With Katsuya and a female in your party, it's possible to slander demons by accusing them of groping one of the ladies.
34* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: In Nanjo's story path, you have to traverse one of these to get to the laboratory where Kandori is hiding.
35* AcheyScars:
36** Maya has a bruise on her chest in ''Eternal Punishment'' that started hurting when she first met "Déjà Vu Boy". [[spoiler:If the player finished ''Innocent Sin'', it's obvious that the bruise comes from where Okamura delivered her fatal wound.]]
37** And in ''Innocent Sin'' Maya has a burn scar on her right arm because of [[spoiler:Tatsuya Sudou's arson aka the Alaya Shrine incident.]] It aches every time said event is mentioned or when her pyrophobia is acting up.
38* AdmiringThePoster: ExaggeratedTrope. The old janitor at Seven Sisters High has his room filled with posters, newspaper and magazine cutout, and even a 30-year-old calendar featuring an actress called "Saiyuri Yoshikawa". Every single picture has "the lips worn around the area", and Ulala notes that they're moist too. And then there's the box full of ropes and candles in the corner... "for emergencies, you hope".
39* AdultsAreUseless: Averted. Not only are the adults often the ''villains'', but the player party in ''Eternal Punishment'' consists of mostly adults. To this day, ''Eternal Punishment'' is the sole ''Persona'' game boasting a party of Joe Shmoes with 9-to-5 jobs as opposed to high school (and younger, such as elementary-aged Ken in ''{{VideoGame/Persona 3}}'') students. [[spoiler:And said adults are the ones who defeat Nyarlathotep in the end.]]
40* AirVentPassageway: There is one in SMILE Hirasaka connecting the women's restroom with the BossRoom.
41* AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield: The Great Father.
42* AllMythsAreTrue: This is even a gameplay mechanic: by spreading wild rumours, you can suddenly coerce bars into selling weapons under the table, or lingerie stores to carry bulletproof vests. It's the same gimmick as the dream version of P1's Mikago-Cho, except that it's rumours (not dreams) becoming a reality -- and the malls aren't arming for a zombie apocalypse. [[spoiler:This comes to bite you in the ass in ''Innocent Sin'''s ending. Have you ever heard of... TheLanceOfLonginus?]]
43* AllThereInTheManual: The game designers have published at least 75% of all that's known about the characters' backstories, personal habits, and just about any manner of things fans could possibly want to know ''outside'' of the game itself. It's pretty impressive.
44* AllYourColorsCombined: All five of the Ultimate Personas join to perform the ''Grand Cross'' fusion spell. In ''Eternal Punishment'' there is another attack of this kind called the ''Dragon Cross''.
45* AlmightyJanitor: Toku, the hobo who plods around Honmaru Park and the ramen shop in EP dispenses rumors. He's no different from the other rumormongers, but his sly grin and big vocabulary are meant to evoke this.
46* AlreadyMetEveryone: [[spoiler:The main party of ''Innocent Sin'', barring Yukino, all knew each other from the Alaya Shrine as kids. After a fire destroyed the original site, the remaining trio went their separate ways. The arsonist is later revealed to have been a young Tatsuya Sudou a.k.a. King Leo.]]
47* AlternateUniverse: ''Eternal Punishment'' takes place in one after the original was set on fire by [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]]. Maya remembers very little about events that transpired due to the [[spoiler:[[WistfullAmnesia everyone's memories being erased]]]], but she does have moments of Déjà Vu for her to base her actions on and manages to sniff out both Tatsuya and JOKER by herself. The second game follows an alternate timeline with some familiar events and faces, but things are just a little bit different this time around. There's a new cult, a different Joker, and Sudou's new goal is to cause enough chaos that people start to remember the apocalyptic universe ("the other side", as he elegantly puts it) and his earlier reign of terror, causing the bad reality to [[HellOnEarth manifest back into ours.]]
48* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Tatsuya has dedicated himself -- almost like a samurai -- to defending Maya, which is absolutely evident in ''Eternal Punishment''. As is [[spoiler:Jun]] in ''Innocent Sin'', who went to such lengths to protect her that he took up the mantle of Joker in order to avenge her [[spoiler:apparent death]]. In fact, when he and Tatsuya were children, they promised each other that they would always protect Maya together.
49** ''Tatsuya's Scenario'' takes this a step further by extending this trope to Shiori Miyashiro. Nyarlathotep mocks him about this.
50* AmnesiacDissonance:
51** Thanks to your [[NiceJobBreakingItHero efforts]] during the EX Dungeon, Tatsuya Sudou, who's been pretty damn respectable without his memory, gets it back and promptly goes back to his old self. [[ButThouMust Not that you actually had a choice.]]
52** Also implied to be the case with the Tatsuya that is native to the ''Eternal Punishment'' reality. He is friends with Anna, stated to frequently visit clubs and arcades and he is also described as "reckless" and "with a cocky grin ready to fight anyone who looks at him wrong" even in his driving license picture. The playable Tatsuya does not do any of these things due to his previous emotional trauma preventing him from interacting with other people.
53* AnatomyOfTheSoul:
54** The original Joker's stated goal is to revive Xibalba using the "Dream Energy" stolen from those who summon him. Eikichi witnesses this firsthand when his bandmates are zapped by Joker, reducing them to shells devoid of any willpower or aspirations. Over the course of the game, the threesome revert to shadow-like beings, then fade away entirely.
55** In ''Tatsuya's Scenario'', we have the Trapezohedrons, which are literal pieces of one's soul with each one defining an aspect of a person (such as knowledge or desire). [[spoiler:Your task is to [[GottaCatchThemAll collect all of them]] in order to save Shiori]].
56* AncientAstronauts: The main impetus behind ''Innocent Sin'' is a rumor that the Mayans were alien visitors from Maia, a star in the constellation Pleiades, which [[spoiler:(thanks to Nyarlathotep)]], becomes retroactively true. Subverted, of course, in that this is due to ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: After the ResetButton that triggers ''Eternal Punishment'''s plot, all supposed existence of Ancient Astronauts never existed.
57* AnotherSideAnotherStory: The new story called ''Tatsuya's Scenario'' in the PSP remake of ''Eternal Punishment'' focuses on Tatsuya's side of the story.
58* JustForFun/ApocalypseDayPlanner: Remarked on by Maya's coworkers during ''Eternal Punishment'''s prologue; the planets all aligned in the Grand Cross formation "this summer", but nothing happened. Those who've played the previous game remember things [[ApocalypseWow a]] [[DepopulationBomb little]] [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt differently]].
59-->'''Co-Worker''': All this fuss about Armageddon and Grand Cross, and nothing happened this summer... The more hype, the more people complain.
60* ApocalypticLog: In ''Innocent Sin'', the Abandoned Factory has several notes telling the story of how the factory became infested with demons due to one worker telling a scary story which spread as a rumour. Reading them all is neccessary to get two of the Legendary Weapons.
61** In ''Eternal Punishment'', the Bomb Shelter is littered with diary entries of a little girl named Sachiko. While she doesn't understand the situation she's in very well, it's obvious by her descriptions that the city is being bombarded and her father is a soldier fighting in an unspecified war. She's absolutely terrified of the whole thing. They also provide hints for the combination of her treasure room lock.
62* ApologeticAttacker: Some of Maya's battle quotes count as apologetic, such as "I'm sorry..." as a victory quote. Tatsuya and Jun also use this line. The Metal Trio in Eternal Punishment also apologise as they attack you.
63* ArabOilSheikh: In ''Eternal Punishment,'' you'll find Salam Ladeen sipping martinis in a hotel bar in Narumi (he'll switch to the less glamorous Jolly Roger Tavern once the spaceship appears). He's actually one of ''the'' most important [=NPCs=]; he offers super-rare Tarot in exchange for completely mapping out certain dungeons. It's worth the effort alone because he can give you Fool tarot cards, and the only other way you can get them (which is the only way you could get them entirely in ''Innocent Sin'') is by doing a [[GuideDangIt convoluted set of contact conversations with demons that have a very specific personality trait]].
64* ArbitrarySkepticism:
65** Despite the fact that he regularly fights demons with the help of an aspect of his psyche that manifests as a mythological figure, and despite all the crazy things that happen as the game goes on, Katsuya's reaction to any new strange thing still tends to be "that's impossible!" He drops this attitude shortly after Tatsuya joins.
66** Eikichi also falls under this trope as he expresses disbelief towards rumours becoming reality even though he has been a Persona user for a number of years. He gets over it after the first dungeon.
67* AscendedExtra: The party members of ''Eternal Punishment'' are all this... save for Maya and Tatsuya, who were already important.
68* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler:Planetary total extintion, at ''least'']].
69* ApocalypseHitler: So, someone decides to start a rumor that Adolf Hitler is still alive. Not a problem, right? Well, normally not. But what with this whole "rumors become reality" business... Long story short, ''Hitler boss fight!''
70* AttackOfTheTownFestival: Kasugayama is in the middle of a festival by the time you turn up looking for Yasuo.
71* AwesomeButImpractical: Depending on how you use them, the Ultimate Personas fall between this and DifficultButAwesome.
72** The ultimate Personas in ''Innocent Sin'' are practical because they all have diverse and numerous spells which work very well together (meaning lots of fusion spells to use), are easy to get in the game, and mutate regularly. The impracticality is factored in with the SP costs, which are massive - over 50 SP for each use, meaning that you can only get around four uses before running out of SP. That's double of what other Personas at that level cost. In addition, there are other Personas who can match the synergy of the five used (at the costs of some fusions). Which trope they fall into really depends on whether or not you're willing to shell out money for SP regeneration items.
73** The Ultimate Personas in ''Eternal Punishment'' are very good on their own (and much cheaper than those in ''Innocent Sin'') but they have next to no synergy, which puts a huge damper to fusion spells. This can be subverted by a clever player through the use of spell cards to give them additional skills.
74** The Legendary Weapons. The most expensive weapons and getting them requires a long series of sidequests. They do not even have the highest attack. However, what they DO have is the ability to use elemental attacks, thus making up for occasions when the characters do not have enough SP or want to take advantage of an elemental weakness. (Then again, with several late game enemies completely blocking either magic or physical, is this really a good idea?) Also, especially in Eternal Punishment; making a demon angry runs the risk of them spreading a rumor that your weapon is a POS, and you'd have to spread another counter rumor to get your weapon back up to snuff. Although, in Eternal Punishment, the ultimate forms of the weapons also improve your S.AT (spell strength) score by a whopping sixty points, making the aggravation potentially worth it.
75* BadGuyBar: Club Zodiac... though the rear of the club is many times bigger than the dance floor.
76* TheBadGuyWins: In ''Innocent Sin'', [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]] actually manages to [[spoiler:blow up the world, leaving only Sumaru City intact]]. While ''Eternal Punishment'' is a ResetButton, the ending implies that [[ParallelUniverse that universe still exists in some form.]]
77* BadassLongcoat:
78** The Masked Four are easily spotted by their long black trenchcoats, brightly-colored scarves, and oval masks. It does a good job of hiding their real identities, since the party speaks to them in and out of costume.
79** Hitler/The Fuhrer sports one, and gains a pair of [[SinisterShades aviator sunglasses]] in the PSP version.
80** There is a black bouncer in the game who also sports this. He leads a cult towards the end of the game.
81* BagOfSpilling: Used straight with most of the cast between the two games in the duology, but subverted with [[spoiler:Tatsuya Suou]]: he starts the game with his ultimate Persona from ''Innocent Sin.'' And, if you have save data from a finished version of ''Innocent Sin,'' he'll start ''Eternal Punishment'' at the level he was there.
82** It is implied at one point that the old cast still has their Personas, as a very shocked Baofu comments that he can sense Persona resonance out of the trio.
83** Notably, this trope also applies to Yukino, Kei, and Eriko, who - despite their heroics in the original Persona - have Personas that are appropriately [[{{Nerf}} nerfed]] so that they don't steamroll through the game. That said, unless there's a lot of grinding done before they join, they do join the party a tiny bit more powerful than the other heroes to reflect their expertise.
84* BaldOfEvil: There is a black bouncer in ''Innocent Sin'' who first appears guarding the secret lounge in Club Zodiac and then seen acting as the preacher of an ApocalypseCult.
85* BallroomBlitz: Kasugayama High's festival is revealed to be the work of Joker, herding the dancers into the gymnasium to drain them.
86* BavarianFireDrill: Maya's clever trick of lighting a cigarette in the women's bathroom at [-SMILE-] Mall, setting off the fire alarm. It works so well, she does it again in the second game.
87* BeautyContest: The "Miss Sevens" Pageant. Oft-referenced, not least of which by Lisa (noted to have won last year), but not actually seen in-game.
88* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor:
89** The thrust of this particular ''Persona''. Spurred on by rumours, the various [=NPCs=] throughout town start dialing the Joker to fulfill their deepest wishes. Cue the chaos.
90** The businessman eating in Gatten Sushi hopes for a promotion; He becomes the head of his company thanks to Joker, whereas in the alternate ''Eternal Punishment'' universe, JOKER murders his boss, [[KlingonPromotion promoting him by default]]. In both games, the businessman is jubilant at his good fortune. However, the price is the eventual loss of his will (transformed into a Shadow in ''Innocent Sin'', brainwashed by the NWO in ''Eternal Punishment''), preventing him from fulfilling any of his dreams ever again. A similar scenario plays out with the other [=NPCs=].
91** This works from a gameplay standpoint, too. Some rumors have a 50-50 chance effect, which can either help or hinder your quest. For example, spreading a rumor about Parabellum hiring a bodyguard might result in the Bartender selling a powerful new gun... or he may just charge more for his old wares, using the bodyguard as an intimidation tactic. This is easily circumvented through [[{{save scumming}} reloading saves]].
92* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: Spotlighted in the anime trailer. A perp is chased up to a rooftop by Katsuya, whereupon he shows himself to be [[DemonicPossession possessed]] by the Joker. The man [[ResistTheBeast pleads with Katsuya to help him]], but is quickly re-taken by the Joker personality, who hurls his body off the building with a crunch.
93* BigBrotherInstinct: Katsuya, as he actually has a little brother he will ''completely rework his life for.''
94* BigDamnFireExit: The Sky Museum's TimedMission. Whoever designed the placement of its staircases should be sued.
95* BigNo: Tatsuya at the end of ''Innocent Sin''. He's got good reasons, too. In the Japanese version it's a wordless scream.
96** A much more humorous version in the drama CD.
97--->'''Tatsuya (to a bare-faced Eikichi)''': You look a lot like your dad.\
98'''Eikichi''': OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
99* BittersweetEnding: Both ''Innocent Sin'' ([[spoiler:the world is destroyed, the main cast decides to hit the ResetButton and forget about each other, but with a glimmer of hope for the future]]) and ''Eternal Punishment'' ([[spoiler:Nyarlathotep is defeated, but Tatsuya returns to the Other Side and leaves his friends behind]]).
100* BlackKnight: The Longinus 13 are a modern day equivalent of this. Also, robots. On top of being part of the WesternZodiac recurring theme, they may be based on Heinrich Himmler and his "roundtable" of 12 lieutenants.
101* TheBlank:
102** In ''Innocent Sin'', [[spoiler:Shadow Maya]]'s character portrait is exactly the same, but her ''character sprite'' has no eyes (the only facial feature visible on the sprites) to make her effectively faceless when she shows up. It's the first of several signs that something is very wrong with her, though it's surprisingly easy to miss at first but for a subtle feeling of wrongness about her appearance. The rest of the Shadow Selves also have their sprites altered the same way.
103** In ''Eternal Punishment'', everyone possessed by the Joker literally loses all their facial features except for [[SlasherSmile that grin]] and their skin becomes completely white.
104* BleepDammit: Invoked in the American version of ''Eternal Punishment'', where Ulala swears like a drunken sailor, and Baofu occasionally swears, too. However; they intentionally only censor a couple letters...so you can tell what they're saying.
105-->'''Baofu''': Who the f##k are you?\
106'''Ulala''': "Don't underestimate me you *bleep*ing bastards!"
107* BokeAndTsukkomiRoutine:
108** Maya and Yukino's Contact combination in ''Innocent Sin'', with Maya playing the former and Yukino as the latter.
109** In Jolly Roger there's a duo of an ordinary man and a businessman arguing over the events of the game, with the first one panicking over all the supernatural stuff and what will happen to him, and the businessman being a sceptic and angrily yelling at the other to come to his senses. Ironically, it's the panicking guy who's right about everything.
110* BonusDungeon:
111** ''IS'':
112*** The Abandoned Factory, where enemies from previous dungeons can be fought again. Different areas unlock depending on how far you're in the game, and several sidequests take place there, like the hunt for the legendary weapons.
113*** The PSP port adds the Climax Theater, which features warped versions of St. Hermilin High School and Karukozaka High School as dungeons.
114** ''EP'' has several.
115*** The equivalent of the Abandoned Factory is Kasugayama High School and the bomb shelter underneath, which was a storyline dungeon in IS.
116*** Later in the game, the Giga Macho music store and Mu Continent (both of which were also storyline dungeons in ''IS'') open up when you spread a rumor about rare demons lurking there.
117*** Finally, there is the EX Dungeon, available via NewGamePlus.
118*** The PSP remake of the game adds Kadasu Mandala in the list, as part of ''Tatsuya's Scenario''.
119* BookEnds:
120** The beginning and ending of ''Innocent Sin'' have Tatsuya, Lisa and Eikichi appearing at the same place they were first introduced. At both times, Tatsuya is trying to fix his motorcycle and has a conversation with Ms. Saeko regarding his plans after graduation.
121** The beginning of ''Eternal Punishment'' has Tatsuya [[spoiler:reunited with Maya in the new universe. The ending of ''Eternal Punishment'' has Maya reunited with Tatsuya in the new universe, though her reaction is different.]] Also, the beginning of ''Innocent Sin'' has Tatsuya either confident or unsure of what it is he wants to do with his life. The end of ''Eternal Punishment'' reveals what he wants to do.
122* BossCorridor:
123** The Clock Tower entrance.
124** Since Persona can 'sense' the presence of their kin, the game is kind enough to alert you when a boss is near. This cancels the possibility of waltzing straight into a boss encounter unprepared. When you approach a boss' doorway in ''Innocent Sin'', Tatsuya (and other characters) can hear their Persona speaking to them. In ''Eternal Punishment'', it's replaced with the sound of someone's heartbeat.
125* BraggingRightsReward: The OneHitKill Fusion, Armageddon, pwns literally everything -- even the final boss (but not [[spoiler:Philemon]], though; he repels it). Trouble is, you need to summon both Lucifer and Satan to cast it, and can obtain only ''one'' per NewGamePlus. Which basically boils down to (you guessed it) HundredPercentCompletion. The only situtation which would ''possibly'' call for Armageddon would be the OptionalBoss fight versus [[spoiler:Philemon]] -- who purposely deflects that spell.
126* BreakTheCutie: Every single character hits this in both games at least twice (most of the end in ''Innocent Sin'' is Jun demonstrating this, and if you make the wrong choice in Caracol, Yukino's the second-best example), but Lisa in ''Eternal Punishment'' is likely the most powerful, drastic example. In ''Innocent Sin'', she's spunky, happy, able to kick ass, and is almost comically over-the-top in her pursuit of Tatsuya. [[spoiler:If you wake her up in ''Eternal Punishment'', however, she starts sobbing uncontrollably against Tatsuya's shoulders, asking him to take her along so she can help to make up for what she forgot. What possibly puts this above the other break-the-cutie moments in both games is that she promised not to let her feelings get in the way. She says that she won't bother Tatsuya and the others again, which, if you know Lisa's character arc in the last game is just... absolutely heartbreaking. This depression continues, too, at the end of the game (if you continue that route). She sobs on the shrine steps, and Eikichi (if you don't wake him) and Jun both approach her, trying to cheer her up because it's just so painful.]]
127-->[[spoiler:'''Lisa:''' I know you're troubled with a lot of things... I won't bother you... But... You have to take me with you! Don't leave me...!]]
128* BreakingTheFourthWall:
129** During demon negotiation, you may get asked if video games are any good. The options are "Yes", "No" and "I've never played one". Choose the third and...
130--->'''Demon:''' Liar! You're playing a video game right now!
131** In Mu Casino in ''Eternal Punishment'', the rewards of your victory depend on how fast you can push the X button. Push it fast enough and the girl will ask you if you're using Auto-fire.
132* BritainIsOnlyLondon: Hence the clothing store sign.
133* BrokenBridge: After handing the sweepstakes magazines over to the friendly NPC who will fill them out and mail them in for you, you have to go kill some time in a dungeon before any prizes will arrive.
134* BuildLikeAnEgyptian: The Taurus Shrine.
135* BurgerFool: [-PEACE-] Burger is back, this time employing a cursed cashier who flexes her muscles in greeting. (Long story.)
136* BurnScarsBurningPowers: King Leo, who has a Persona with fire skills and is a known serial arsonist, has a burn scar on the left side of his face which cost him his eye. [[spoiler:Tatsuya did that with his own fire-based Persona ten years prior in response King Leo trying to kill him.]]
137* BuryYourGays: The only way to reveal that [[spoiler:Yukino is bisexual, and may have romantic feelings for Anna]] is to pick the wrong dialog option. Later, [[spoiler:Anna dies and Yukino suffers complete ego death.]]
138* ButThouMust: There are a few notable occasions where your actions and responses affect the plot (e.g. whether or not [[spoiler:Anna Yoshizaka]] dies in ''Innocent Sin'' or you can mutate Maia into Maia Custom in ''Eternal Punishment'') but on the whole, Thou Must.
139* CallBack:
140** Lisa's ultimate weapons (when the right rumor is spread) is the Shinsaa Banketsu Sho, the same strongest gloves Reiji Kido could obtain in Persona 1. Fittingly enough; he's the guy who gives them to you.
141** Yukino ''is'' this trope. Almost half her in-game dialogue is her referencing people and situations in her original game.
142** There are a few returning store chains from ''VideoGame/Persona1'' such as Peace Dinner and Rosa Candina.
143** Depending on which order you played the games. For example, being a North American gamer prior to either [[FanTranslation 2008]] or [[RemadeForTheExport 2011]] and thus [[NoExportForYou having never played the first game]]. Several instances in ''Eternal Punishment'' can become either this or FutureShadowing.
144*** The Oracle of Maya and the "Nyarl..." inscription in Tatsuya Sudou's [[RoomFullOfCrazy cell]].
145*** The JOKER calls Anna Yoshizaka "Lady" and later tells Jun to become their leader again, refering to the Masked Circle.
146*** During the sky museum, instead of the demons telling you rumours, they reveal that they once received orders from Jun.
147*** After the museum burns, a police officer reveals that he saw it happening in a dream and wonder if it was prophetic, but then he takes it back because if that were the case, then the police station would have also burned.
148*** Ulala asking Maya if she and Tatsuya had ever been on wanted lists.
149*** A few [=NPCs=] mention Xibalba and the "In'Lachekh".
150* CallingCard: Maya is handed a note reading "[-yOu'rE nEXt --JOKER-]" at the start of EP.
151* CallForward:
152** The victims of Joker's attacks enter a state similar to [[VideoGame/Persona3 Apathy Syndrome]].
153** In Nanjo's route in ''Eternal Punishment'', some of [[spoiler:Kandori's]] research papers mention the [[VideoGame/Persona3 creation of artificial Persona users]].
154** In Greek Mythology, Apollo [[PassingTheTorch passed down]] his lyre to [[VideoGame/Persona3 Orpheus]]. Guess who's Tatsuya's Ultimate Persona?
155** [[spoiler:Yukino's fate should her Shadow self commit suicide]] is a telltale case of a [[VideoGame/Persona5 mental shutdown]].
156** The ending of ''Innocent Sin'' is pretty much a makeshift [[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne Conception]].
157** ''Eternal Punishment'''s Kimon Tonku formation trap is seen again in ''VideoGame/RaidouKuzunohaVsKingAbaddon''.
158* TheCameo: In ''Tatsuya's Scenario'', [[spoiler:[[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Randolph Carter]]]] of all people makes an appearance as an ally.
159* CanonWelding: While it was only implied in the original releases, ''Tatsuya's Scenario'' confirms that the events of the games take place in the same universe as the ''Literature/CthulhuMythos''. That's solidly cemented with the above mentioned [[TheCameo Cameo]], as well as mentions to the Dreamlands and the Cult of Cthulhu, among other things.
160* CapeBusters: The Longinus 13 are the Himmelsfeuer Marionetten-jaeger (Heavenly Fire "Marionette-Hunters"), with "Marionette" being Nazi shorthand for Personas. This means, in short, that their job is to hunt down Persona users. One stab from their spears will temporarily lock up that character's magic, making the battle much more of a chore.
161* CartographySidequest: Salam, a QuestGiver who hands over Tarot in exchange for maps.
162* CasinoPark: At the start, Mu Continent is just an innocuous arcade. It becomes a [[MinigameZone casino offering slot machines, a roulette wheel, and video poker]] after you spread a rumor, and there's an optional dungeon attached.
163* CastOfSnowflakes: The games feature a pretty sizable cast and each is intricately and uniquely designed making them easily recognizable, even minor characters and NPC's have their own distinct design quirks.
164* CasualHighDrop:
165** How everyone escapes the burning blimp in both games.
166** Downplayed example: in ''Tatsuya's Scenario'' Kandori jumps a floor apparently without having to even crouch to absorb the impact.
167* CatsAreMagic: A LOT of them.
168** The random encounter Nekomata.
169** And speaking of which, the lucky cat statue at Kuzunoha detective agency is a front for the Nekomata hidden in the bathroom.
170** Katsuya's Persona Helios is an anthropomorphic cat.
171** Wang Long Chizuru's pet cat is actually a Shikigami in disguise.
172** Lieutenant-General Zula is a talking cat who guides the party through Kadasu Mandala.
173* CausalityMechanic: A rare example that does not involve time travel. The [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve rumor curse]] is abused by both the heroes and villains to spread rumours about the past in order to get desirable outcomes in the present - such as convincing people that a shop owner was a former spy to be able to buy guns from her, or that there are mystic ruins under the city from an ancient civilization to set up cults and rituals. People's very memories and pasts change in accordance to the rumours, making it just as effective as time travel.
174* CentralTheme:
175** The duology tackles regret as a central theme; ''Eternal Punishment'' examines regret from the adult perspective, with many of the members either failing at finding something to do, stuck in the past, regretting the choices they made to this point, or simply stuck in stasis, unable to move on. However, ''Eternal Punishment'', despite how heavy a story it usually is, also states optimistic messages about life's regrets in that it may indeed not be too late to find your way, or that even if you don't get to do what you want to do, you're not a failure, and you can keep trying to find something that works for you.
176** Another major theme is the relationship between memory and identity, which is especially prominent in ''Innocent Sin''.
177* ChangingOfTheGuard:
178** Maya Amano, it's your turn to shine.
179** What's interesting is that everyone from ''Eternal Punishment'' assists Tatsuya in some capacity in ''Innocent Sin'' (well, barring [[AdultsAreUseless Katsuya]]), and vice-versa. Not only that, some of them reappear [[spoiler:as bosses]].
180* ChekhovsGun: TheLanceOfLonginus at first seems to be used simply as a way to introduce a new status-effect, then it's used to kill [[spoiler:Maya, and its historical relevance is used as the explanation for why she couldn't be healed.]]
181* ChekhovsGunman: The first four playable good guys of ''Eternal Punishment'' all count (save Maya, as she was already important). However, special mention goes to Baofu, who we first see in ''Innocent Sin'' as a drunken lout who gives the young Tatsuya and Jun a lecture in a flashback, and whom you barely can recognize even if you played ''Eternal Punishment'', as he is missing his [[MakingASpectacleOfYourself l33t Hacker Shadez]] at the time.
182** As for non party members, there is Tatsuzou Sudou and [[spoiler:Kiyotada Sumaru]] who are first mentioned in a easily missable sign in Honmaru Park, Noriko who only appears in two scenes in ''Innocent Sin'' but [[spoiler:kickstarts the plot by killing the principal and becomes a boss]] in ''Eternal Punishment'' and Kandori, who is merely mentioned once or twice in ''Innocent Sin''
183* ChildrenAreInnocent: Hence the title of the first game. [[spoiler:When Tatsuya, Jun, Eikichi and Lisa are children, they befriended an older girl who was like an older sister to them. When Big Sis was about to move to another town, the kids locked her in the shrine in hopes that she would stay. Unfortunately, Tatsuya Sudou attacked the shrine that night and Big Sis was thought to be dead. Unbeknowsnt to the kids, Big Sis turns out to be Maya]].
184* ChromeChampion:
185** Metal Daddy and Metal Mom, [[spoiler:eyeless metal replicas of Eikichi and Jun's father and mother, respectively, brought to life by their negative emotions. They look and talk like the genuine article, scaring the pants off of Eikichi, who lives in constant fear of Kankichi whooping his ass! Blowing up the robot replica of his father]] grants Eikichi a degree of inner peace. UFOS -- quelling family unrest since 1999.
186** In ''Eternal Punishment'', they've been replaced by robot versions of [[spoiler:Eikichi, Lisa, and Jun]] to further torment Tatsuya. They wield the same Ultimate Personas, too, making this a retroactive MirrorBoss and quite possibly the toughest boss battle of either game.
187* CityOfAdventure: Sumaru City. It's a lot bigger than Mikage-Cho--boasting a sanitarium, casino, television studio, and a glitzy waterfront--and evidently it's a major port: The stores are run by an eclectic group of merchants (a Sheik, a British tailor, a French legionnaire cum waiter, an Americophile doctor, an Italian grifter, a gypsy, etc.). Tatsuya/Maya also get to explore terrain outside of the city limits.
188* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: The rumor curse. The assorted members of the NWO actually do clap during the ritual.
189** This has all sorts of funky effects on the city. Holistic healing now suddenly has ''tangible'' results, i.e., chiropractors and hippie crystal therapy can cure poison and broken bones instantly.
190** Not only is it tangible, it is ''retroactive'', meaning that if a rumor has spread, it does not simply become true; rather, it always has been true. Thus, when you spread the rumor that the ramen shop owner is an ex-KGB agent who sells weapons under the table, her entire life is rewritten to fall in line with the rumor. [[spoiler:Scale is irrelevant, too. Once enough people believe that Mayans were aliens and the Grand Cross will summon an ancient temple, well... you can do the math.]]
191* ClassReunion:[[invoked]] Pretty much ''every'' [[NominalImportance nominal character]] from the first ''Persona'' reunites for this one. Even [[BackFromTheDead the dead ones]]. The only ones who don't make it back are Ayase/Alana, Masao/Mark and Tad.
192* ClockTower: The steeple of Seven Sisters' High School.
193* ClusterBleepBomb: Ulala drops one in the U.S. version of ''Eternal Punishment''.
194* CoincidentalBroadcast: Showing the spread of the Joker's influence in the city, creating a feedback loop of paranoia.
195* ColorCodedForYourConvenience:
196** The Masked Four. Even incognito, their 'normal' attire is the same color (usually). The [[MacGuffin crystal skulls]] they carry around are color coded, too.
197** Not to mention their corresponding Zodiac Shrines. Everything Scorpio is blue, everything Taurus is yellow, everything Leo is red, and everything Aquarius is green, representative of the element each sign is associated with (water, earth, fire, and wind respectively).
198** Students at Seven Sisters High all wear colored ties/bows that correspond to their grade. First-year students wear green ties, second-year students (i.e. Lisa) wear orange, and seniors (Tatsuya) are blue.
199** And in ''Innocent Sin'', [[http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=130096 one Let's Player]] noticed that [[http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=18082461&postcount=124 (go to the Bonus Information) the info boxes for new characters differed between genders]]. Red text= female, blue text= male, yellow text= unknown gender.
200* CombinationAttack: Fusion Spells, where multiple party members combine spells to form a powerful attack.
201* ConsoleCameo: In ''Eternal Punishment'' you can go to Maya's apartment where she has a Platform/PlayStation hooked up to her TV.
202* ConspiracyTheorist: A pair of them: Akinari Kashihara and Maya Okamura, both History teachers at Seven Sisters High School. The former was just a hobbyist, a benign man who stumbled onto something he didn't fully comprehend. His partner got ahold of his manuscript and transformed it into something legitimately monstrous.
203* ContinuityCameo: Various characters from previous games make an appearance here, like most of the characters from ''Persona'', and Tamaki from ''If...''. It's also heavily implied that [[spoiler:Detective Todoroki is actually [[VideoGame/DevilSummoner Kyoji Kuzunoha]].]]
204* ContinuityNod: The PSP version of ''Innocent Sin'' adds a series of new side quests tied to a movie theater. The first two available take you to St. Hermelin (the school from the original ''VideoGame/{{Persona|1}}'') and Karukozaka High School (from the series' Spiritual Predecessor and branching point of the continuity it takes place in, ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIf'').
205* ContrivedCoincidence: Many residents of Mikage-Cho have moved to Sumaru City in between games, with Hanya and Saeko being co-workers again.
206* CordonBleughChef: The Shiraishi Ramen lady [[{{Exploited|Trope}} chose it as a password]], since the item on the menu is so bloody awful that nobody orders it unless they're really shopping for guns. In the sequel, her menu is almost exclusively made up of such dishes.
207** It happens again to Maya, who is forced to choke down squid pasta (her most hated food) by Garcon Soejima in exchange for his wares.
208* CosmicChessGame: This is alluded to in Philemon's lair: The checkered floor resembles a chess board, with the party members as pieces.
209* CosmicHorrorReveal: [[spoiler:The Fuhrer turns out to be Nyarlathotep in disguise]].
210* CrashIntoHello: The ending of ''Innocent Sin'' and the beginning of ''Eternal Punishment''. Tatsuya running into Maya, even picking up Maya's IconicItem. Which stirs up feelings of Déjà Vu in Maya...
211* CreatorCameo:
212** "Tad" is a self-insertion by Scenario designer Satomi Tadashi, who previously cameoed in the first ''Persona''.
213** Graphic Designer Soejima Shigenori appears as "Garcon Soejima", a French waiter/arms dealer at Claire de Lune.
214** The manager of the Seedy CD music store is Tasaki Toshiko, who composed ''Persona 2'''s music.
215** The owner of the Ramen Shiraishi restaurant is modeled after Megumi Shiraishi, one of the illustrators, art overseers and colorist for some of Kaneko's art.
216** Lastly, the Demon Artist is modeled on ''Megami Tensei'' series artist Kazuma Kaneko (pre-haircut).
217* CrucifiedHeroShot: Before the final boss battle, [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]] summons the ghosts of [[spoiler:Jun's parents]], who hang suspended in the air from laser crucifixes.
218* CutscenePowerToTheMax: At one point, the cast along with a bunch of elementary school children jump from a flying blimp to the ocean and everyone escapes unscathed.
219* DamageSpongeBoss: Was Sugawara is the worst variant imaginable. Not only it has an absolutely ridiculous HP pool, it regenerates more than 700 HP at the end of each turn with no way to stop its recovery, its NighInvulnerable against physical attacks, and keeps spamming War Cry to ensure that your party can use nothing ''but'' physical attacks. In the end, once you weaken him enough, the party throws it in a BottomlessPit, and even then Katsuya doubts that it's dead.
220* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Innocent Sin'' is dark, even by ''[=MegaTen=]'' standards. [[spoiler:In the ''only'' ending, the heroes lose without really having accomplished much of anything, the world is destroyed, one of their number dies, and the only way they can squeak out anything resembling a happy ending is cutting a deal with Philemon that undoes everything that happened, both good and ill. In fact, the plot of ''Eternal Punishment'' is kickstarted when ''Innocent Sin's'' protagonist fails to forget what really happened, giving Nyarlathotep an opening to enact his EvilPlan once more.]]
221* DayOfTheJackboot: The Nazis take over the city (along with the rest of Japan?) without much fuss. Without any police, they only meet resistance from the Masked Four, the St. Hermelin grads, Principal Hanya(!) and some Sōhei monks camped out beside the Joker's temple. Their primary targets are the crystal skulls and Xibalba, which means that although tanks and droids are patrolling the streets, they aren't bothering the local businesses much--so [[GameplayAndStorySegregation you can still do your shopping]] unmolested.
222* TheDayOfReckoning:
223** The raising of the Mayan spaceship Xibalba, followed by the destruction of Earth. According to the Oracle of Maia, only the chosen few will survive, safe aboard the ship.
224** In ''Eternal Punishment'', the prophecy varies a little bit. The Wang Long, fabled dragons that inhabit the planet's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line ley lines]], will be called forth following a massive discharge of negative energy known as Kegare (reaped from the various JOKER victims).
225* DeadAllAlong: Two characters in ''Innocent Sin'' and one in ''Eternal Punishment'' appear despite having definitively died until rumors were spread turn out never to have revived: [[spoiler:Akinari Kashihara and Adolf Hitler (IS) as well as Takahisa Kandori (EP). The former two are simply disguises used by Nyarlathotep while the third is the real deal, but still a pawn.]]
226* DeathCryEcho: All enemies go out with this.
227* DeathMountain: Mt. Katatsumuri in ''Innocent Sin'', and Mt. Mifune in the subsequent game.
228* DeliberatelyMonochrome:
229** At Mt. Iwato, the flashbacks to previous ''Persona'' games are [[FlashbackEffects shown in sepia]].
230** The TV studio turns black & white while under the effect of Chiruzu's [[ColourCodedTimestop time freeze]].
231* DemonicPossession: The method by which [[spoiler:JOKER]] continues his spree after he's killed. This also happens to those the NWO are attempting to give [[spoiler:artificial Personas]].
232* DemonKingNobunaga:
233** There are monsters/Persona based on Nobunaga called "Demon King."
234** Kiyotada Sumaru fits this role in a more general sense; he's a feudal warlord who once ruled the city during the Period Of The Warring States, but was assassinated by his own retainers. His malice lingers on as a mummy but, like the Fuhrer, he's just a sock puppet for larger evil. The rumor that Sumaru's become a font of occult power is true as long as the NWO ''believes'' it is true; supposedly this is why their most skeptical member, the Police Chief, is the only one who can't hear him speak.
235* DemotedToExtra: Eikichi, Lisa, and Jun suffer from this in ''Eternal Punishment''. They still play a role, although it is much more minor then before. The same happens to all the villains of the previous game except for Tatsuya Sudou.
236* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Twice. [[spoiler:Not just Nyarlathotep, but Philemon as well, in the EX Dungeon. Though it's likely just temporary...[[LongBusTrip maybe]]]]. You get to literally punch [[spoiler:Cthulhu]] out in ''Tatsuya's Scenario'', [[spoiler:but he simply disappears after the fight]].
237* DieOrFly: How the main characters unlock their latent Persona powers.
238* DirtyCop: Some of the police officers in the Konan Police Department ([[spoiler:especially Captain Shimizu and most of the [=SAT=] operatives]]) are in league with the [=NWO=].
239* DisappearedDad:
240** A common affliction in ''Innocent Sin''. Both Tatsuya and his brother are estranged from their father, who was [[TurnInYourBadge kicked out of the police force]] on charges of corruption.
241** Both Maya and Jun lost their fathers when they were children; The former was a war correspondent who was killed in action, inspiring Maya to pursue a journalism career. Jun's dad met a mysterious (though no less grisly) demise when he tumbled into the gears of Seven Sisters' clock tower.
242** Father problems are so prevalent in ''Innocent Sin'' that [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]]'s second form in the final battle of that game is a monstrous amalgamation of all five protagonist's fathers, headed by [[spoiler:Jun's, as Kashihara was one of Nyarlathotep's two main disguises]].
243* DisasterDominoes: The plot to Innocent Sin, as stated below, but preventing these is [[spoiler:Tatsuya's ultimate goal in Eternal Punishment. If any of the four friends remember everything that happened, Philemon's magic will wear off, and the world will be in ruin again...oh, and since everybody will remember what happened; Maya's gonna die from that wound again since it was from the spear that pierced Christ.]]
244* DiscOneFinalDungeon: Caracol and the Undersea Ruins, respectively. You are introduced to a [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]]-wielding boss at the end of both.
245* DiscOneNuke: The Low-End Breaker Fusion Spell, which instantly kills whichever enemy has the lowest level. The only thing stopping it from being a full-blown GameBreaker is its inability to kill bosses (though rumour demons are fair game).
246* TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed: Averted, one of the side NPC's at the chiropractor specifically wonders if he can be cured of his Alzheimer's.
247* DoingInTheWizard: Played with. While regular demons and the rumour curse are all plainly supernatural, the demons who were born from rumours all turn out to be mundane stuff that was misinterpreted and exaggerated by eyewitness.
248* DoorToBefore: There's a portal in [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]]'s realm which leads back to the city. (Actually, to be more precise, the ''whole metropolis'' is sucked into it by at that point, but you get the idea.) This ties back into [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]]'s arrogance/weird sense of sportsmanship.
249* DoubleEntendre: In these games and ''Persona 1'', the [[SomethingElseAlsoRises Tower]] arcana consistently has Bad affinity with female party members (meaning they either can't invoke it or get penalized with higher SP cost if they try to). Wonder why that is.
250** Then there is [[spoiler:Anna]], who has the Tower as her main Arcana.
251* DualBoss:
252** ''Innocent Sin'':
253*** The fight against Ixquic and Belphegor. Ixquic is noticeably different than her demon companion, as she is weak to Light and Sword attack, has lower damage output and lower HP, but she becomes a real pain when coupled with Belphegor's multiple resistances and poison-inducing attacks.
254*** If you make the wrong choices, you'll end up having to fight [[spoiler:Shadow Yukino and Lady Scorpio]] at once. The right choices avert this fight entirely. The first is a Fire/Lightning/Nuclear hard-hitter, while the second is a Water user who deals ailments and heals.
255** ''Eternal Punishment'':
256*** Right upon entering the science laboratory, the squad has to fight against two Red Berets.
257*** The fights against the Shadow Selves have them team up in twos against you. Shadow Katsuya teams up with Shadow Ulala and Shadow Baofu teams up with Shadow Maya.
258*** In ''Tatsuya's Scenario'' in ''EP'''s PSP remake, the very first boss is a duo of Byakhees.
259* DudeShesALesbian: A male random [=NPC=] in ''Eternal Punishment'' comments on how cute Noriko is, only to be told by his friend that "she only has eyes for Anna".
260* DugTooDeep: The bomb shelter.
261* DysfunctionJunction: The cast is one big mess. Although Tatsuya and co.'s issues are rather different from ''Eternal Punishment''[='s=] adult issues.
262* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Not as drastically as ''{{VideoGame/Persona|1}}'', as many aspects of this game would be used again in later games, drastically different as they are. That being said, there are still some odd kinks:
263** This game is the only ''Persona'' game that lacks a moon phase/weather phase system of any kind. ''1'' and ''3'' had moon phases (albeit in accelerated form in ''1'') and ''4'' and ''5'' had the weather affect gameplay instead.
264** Both this game and ''1'' allowed you to stack your buffs indefinitely, which also holds true for ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI'', ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII,'' and other older spinoffs. However, having buffs target your whole party required performing a fusion spell that required two party members to perform. ''1'' had them target everyone by default, while ''3'' onward had single and multi-target variations.
265** Fusion spells arguably act as the predecessor of the All-Out Attack, except there are multiple spells with myriads of effects. This is the only game across the ''entire franchise'' to have water magic.
266** This is the only game with no additional party members. You get up to five total; there's an automatic change in your fifth slot 2/3rds of the way through ''Innocent Sin'' (Yukino to [[spoiler:Jun]]), while ''Eternal Punishment'' allows you to pick one of two (Kei or Eriko) for your fifth slot initially, and then ''they'' leave once Tatsuya decides to join you.
267** This is the only main series game to build off the plot of the previous game and have its cast return in major roles. ''Persona 3'' onward would only have Igor and Tanaka as recurring characters, with Tanaka being a bit character in ''Persona 4'' and ''Persona 5''.
268* EarnYourHappyEnding: A major theme in both games, to the extent that it's Maya's mantra in ''Innocent Sin''.
269* EasingIntoTheAdventure:
270** In both games, the PlayerCharacter can't continue until you've talked to certain [=NPCs=]. ''Innocent Sin'' opens with Tatsuya staring down bullies, getting lectured by his teacher, and visiting Eikichi's garage band.
271** In ''Eternal Punishment'', Maya can't leave the office until you've talked to everybody. She spends the rest of the prologue interviewing teachers at Seven Sisters about the JOKER killings.
272** Averted in regards to the ''Persona'' series at large, as instead of the plot slowly building up over the course of a few months (''3'', ''4'', and ''5'') or leaving you with an open window for exploration (1), you end up fighting demons and chasing the villains in less than one gameplay hour.
273* EldritchLocation: Philemon and [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]]'s domains.
274** The EX Dungeon is more like a surrealist movie given how disjointed everything in it is.
275** Kadasu Mandala in ''Tatsuya's Scenario''. Bonus Points for being inhabited by a large number of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s.
276* ElementalPowers: Each Persona specializes in one to two elemental attacks, generally. This strictly applies to the cast's starting and ultimate Personae. The FinalBoss of ''Innocent Sin,'' [[spoiler:the Great Father, reflects each character's elemental preference with their own attacks.]]:
277** PlayingWithFire: Both Suou brothers and Yukino.
278** MakingASplash: Eikichi. Also Maya (Maia Prime/Cutom as well as the start of EP), Lisa (Venus) and Eriko (Gabriel).
279** DishingOutDirt: Lisa, Ulala (Callisto), Baofu (Prometheus if you mutate him) and Nanjo (Aizen Myouou).
280** BlowYouAway: Jun, Baofu (Odysseus), Eriko (Nike) and Ulala (Asteria).
281** AnIcePerson: Maya and Eriko (Gabriel).
282** LightEmUp: Everyone in ''Innocent Sin'' (Maya from the beginning, the others once they awaken their Ultimate Personas), Kei, Eriko and Katsuya (if you mutate Hyperion).
283** CastingAShadow: Eikichi and Yukino (Durga).
284** ShockAndAwe: Yukino, Katsuya (if you mutate Helios), Baofu (Prometheus) and Nanjo (Yamaoka).
285** AtomicSuperpower: Tatsuya (Apollo), Katsuya (Hyperion) and Yukino.
286* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: This was the stated goal of the Masquerade in the original: purging the Earth of sin and lifting mankind up toward becoming a new, enlightened race. The plan went sour when Nazis showed up, the finks. In the sequel, Tatsuya sets out to prevent this by retracing his steps and performing the opposite action whenever possible.
287* EndOfTheWorldSpecial: [[spoiler:The conclusion to ''Innocent Sin'', and impetus to the following game]].
288* EnemyWithout: The Shadow Sides. Rather than emerging directly from the heroes, they seem to have been engineered by [[spoiler:Nyarlathrotep]] himself from the innate darkness of every human, from which he pools his resources...
289* EnvironmentalSymbolism:
290** The city's infrastructure is shaped like a giant yin-yang.
291** Scorpio's lair, the Zodiac Club, is bathed in blue lights.
292* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Tatsuya. Also, King Leo a.k.a. Tatsuya Sudou refers to the Joker, [[spoiler:Jun Kurosu]], as having the beauty of a goddess.
293* EverybodyHatesHades: Averted in that he's Eikichi's Ultimate Persona. He also [[MindScrew talks like a eunuch for some reason]]. (As opposed to his English VA, who sounds like an "evil Patrick Stewart", according to one [=YouTube=] comment.)
294** The Demon Demeter REALLY hates Hades but she has a pretty good reason for that.
295* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Various rumormongers and merchants throughout the city. There are, in fact, two characters named Barkeep and Bartender.
296* EveryoneIsRelated: The main characters of ''Innocent Sin'' (with the exception of Yukino) were introduced each other as [[spoiler:children, long before their eventual meeting in the game]].
297* EvilIsNotAToy: If you use the Joker Charm in ''Innocent Sin'' but don't have a wish (or refuse to tell it) then Joker turns you into a mindless zombie. In ''Eternal Punishment'', using the Joker Curse will [[spoiler:transform you into a Joker]].
298* EvilTowerOfOminousness: Sumaru Castle, after it rises out of the earth atop that...metal, Jenga block...thing.
299* EvilVersusEvil: Nazis vs. the Masked Circle. We get to witness the Joker's personal falling-out with Der Führer.
300* EvolvingAttack: Personas have a random chance of "Mutation" following a battle, which can do anything from raising it's stats, to unlocking a new power, to evolving into a brand new Poké-- erm, Persona altogether.
301* ExpositionFairy: Your first random encounter is interrupted by a low-level [[TheGoomba goomba]], Blob, who cheerfully explains the basics of demon contact.
302* EyesAlwaysShut: The unenthusiastic clerk at the W.Slash internet café. Also, the perfumer who runs Kaori's fragrance shop.
303* EyePop: Less exaggerated than most but still present on the characters sprites during shocking or OhCrap moments.
304* {{Facepalm}}: As TeamMom, Maya has plenty of reasons to employ this. Yukino's version is even goofier, complete with SweatDrop.
305* FacialHorror: In ''Innocent Sin'', the Seven Sisters' school emblem is cursed, disfiguring anyone who wears it. It's not explicitly shown in-game, but the anime trailer contains the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7Gk-onicEc full face-melting results]].
306* FairCop: Japan's answer to David Caruso, Katsuya Suou. In ''Persona 3'', the news channel interviews a young man in his twenties (Tatsuya) training to be a cop like his brother. Shiori Miyashiro also falls under this.
307* FakeDifficulty: In ''Innocent Sin'', the "theater" mode of bonus dungeons/scenarios does not allow you to save.
308* FantasyKitchenSink: The Persona/enemy lineup consists of everything from the [[Myth/GreekMythology Greek pantheon]] to [[Myth/NorseMythology Norse myth]] to Shaka Zulu. Perennial series favorite UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk also say hi.
309** Not to mention the countless references in Mayan and Chinese mythology.
310* FatalFlaw: The ultimate weapons in Eternal Punishment can be made more powerful or change their properties based on rumors. Sadly, if you piss off a demon during negotiations, they can spread a rumor after the battle to sap the strength out of it.
311* FearIsTheAppropriateResponse: "Grab your asses and run!", "We'll wait for backup!", "You were lucky this time!", "I don't have time for you.", "[[FromACertainPointOfView This is an honorable retreat!]]"
312* FieryCoverUp: In ''Eternal Punishment'', the Sanitarium was torched to cover up for Sudou killing the triads in it. ''That'' was then handled with a GasLeakCoverUp.
313* FieryLion: Used liberally in ''Innocent Sin'' through association of the zodiac sign Leo with fire.
314** TheHero Tatsuya Suou has the zodiac sign of Leo, a lion design on his belt buckle and his Personae are specialized on the fire element. In addition, his Ultimate Persona is Apollo, which is also associated with lions.
315** HisFoil Tatsuya Sudou is called "King Leo" InUniverse and also has fire abilities. He's also an AxCrazy arsonist.
316** The "Leo Mask" type enemies can only use fire magic.
317** The Leo Temple is a LethalLavaLand which hosts the Crystal Skull of Fire.
318* FightWoosh: Summoning Personas.
319* FinalBoss:
320** In ''Innocent Sin'', the Fuhrer confronts the party at the end of the final dungeon and fights them. After his defeat, [[spoiler:he reveals that both he and Kashihara are fakes being played by the same guy. the Fuhrer turns into Kashihara and becomes a monster made of the party's fathers, with Kashihara at the head. Notably, it's only after the Great Father is beaten when it's revealed that the mastermind is Nyarlathotep]].
321** In ''Eternal Punishment'', [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]] makes his appearance after the fall of the New World Order and has the party go through one last dungeon, complete with Shadows of all the party members save Tatsuya. [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]] takes on the appearance of ''Innocent Sin'' Tatsuya and fights the party with his main and true forms before a definitive defeat.
322* FinalBossNewDimension: Monad Mandala.
323* FireForgedFriends:
324** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''Innocent Sin'', as it turns out that [[spoiler:the party members were all childhood friends with trauma-induced amnesia]].
325** Played straight in ''Eternal Punishment''.
326* FlatEarthAtheist: Rarely, negotiations with demons or gods can involve asking the supernatural entity what they think of religion. And it is possible for them to reply that they are atheists, and think the idea of demons and gods is absurd.
327* FloatingContinent: [[spoiler:Sumaru City]].
328* FlunkyBoss: ''Eternal Punishment'' LOVES this trope.
329** JOKER Tatsuya Sudou starts the fight by summoning two Minotaurs and two Shaxes, which are there to deal you even ''more'' damage and cause ailments.
330** JOKER [[spoiler:Noriko]] is flanked by three Mafia hitmen. While they don't have any real skills, they have a great damage output, unusually high HP for their type of enemy, and the boss keeps applying buffs on them to make them even harder to take down. It's only after you eliminate them that the boss starts fighting you for real.
331** [[spoiler:Demonized Sugimoto]] is flanked by two Red Berets, which are human mooks in the same dungeon.
332** JOKER [[spoiler:Ginji]] summons four Shoggoths at the start of the fight. They keep spamming a SuicideAttack that damages your party and deals ailments, while the main boss keeps reviving them.
333** [[spoiler:Captain Shimazu]] is flanked by four soldiers. They're arguably more dangerous than him.
334** [[spoiler:Kandori]] is flanked by four {{Mini Mecha}}s. Keep in mind that earlier in the game you fight a ''single one of them'' as a boss. And they're not as much trouble as the main guy.
335** For an example from ''Innocent Sin'', the last fight against the Order of the Longinus Spear features their ultimate and most powerful mech flanked by three regular ones.
336* ForDoomTheBellTolls: The BGM while confronting a member of the Masked Circle.
337* FortuneTeller: The Sumaru Genie.
338* ForgottenFirstMeeting: [[spoiler:Thanks to RepressedMemories, no one of the "Masked Circle" remembers each other. Note that all the LoveInterests for Tatsuya are from the group.]]
339* ForeignCultureFetish: Lisa's parents both boarder on this. Her mother literally renamed herself Akiko and spends all her time wearing a kimono at home, her father is no better, practicing akido, and eschews everything remotely Western (early in the game, Kasugayama High hosts a masquerade ball. Mention this to him and he finds it ill-fitting, mentioning his preference for ''enka'' music.), and both of them try to push the YamatoNadeshiko image onto Lisa, who wants none of it. Gets taken further up when one discovers that her father's job, in a point of irony, involves international trading, and it's implied that he himself can speak English whereas he never taught it to Lisa at all.
340* FourIsDeath:
341** The Masked Four and their crystal skulls.
342** King Leo's job is to raise the four pillars of fire, mentioned in the prophecy as "the Flames of Atonement." This is an allegory for the Zodiac Shrines, ancient temples that secretly lie under the shopping districts of Hirasaka, Yumezaki, Aoba and Kounan.
343* FramingTheGuiltyParty: When escorting Makimura, a con man, if you take the party on the roof of Kasugayama High, Katsuya and Baofu consider killing him and putting the blame on JOKER.
344* FreudianExcuse:
345** Jun Kurosu got a raw deal in life.
346** It's not quite fair to just hit Jun with that, as the ''entire'' ''Innocent Sin'' cast falls into this trope though Jun takes the cake with his parental issues. They ''all'' at least have some problem or other with their fathers. In fact, [[spoiler:the final boss of the game, Great Father, is a composite of all the characters' fathers.]]
347* FromBadToWorse: Thought you could handle ''one'' Joker? Try [[spoiler:a whole city of them.]]
348* GagNose:
349** Tony, the laid-back foreign exchange student from Italy who sells trinkets to pay for tuition. You can spread a rumor that he's a [[BlackMarket fence]] for the [[TheMafia Sicilian Mafia]], resulting in -- what else? -- Tony becoming an illegal smuggler. He doesn't seem to mind, though.
350** And also, y'know....[[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/P3-Igor_5470.jpg him]].
351* GameplayAndStoryIntegration:
352** When Ulala gets possessed by the JOKER in ''Eternal Punishment'', she punches Maya and forces her to start the fight with some HP taken off.
353** In ''Eternal Punishment'', the flashback scenes from ''Innocent Sin'' have Tatsuya talking; whereas Maya is silent... because in ''Eternal Punishment'', ''Maya'' is the SilentProtagonist.
354** And in ''Innocent Sin'', during the fight with Shadow Maya, everyone except for one character will be at low HP because of an attack used on them multiple times before fighting.
355** Also, in ''Innocent Sin'', during the fight with Sugimoto, Eikichi can't hurt him at all with anything because of the curse's effects unless he partners up in a fusion spell with someone.
356** In ''Innocent Sin'', Yukino gives up her Persona ability to have Jun reawaken his [[spoiler:after Nyarlathotep strips him of his Persona.]] Because of this, Jun can use Durga, Yukino's ultimate persona.
357** In the end of ''Innocent Sin'', everyone gets their pasts rewritten at the end so that that the adventure never happened, manifesting in ''Eternal Punishment'' as BagOfSpilling. Tatsuya retained his memory, however, so he starts off at Level 50 with his Ultimate Persona.
358** In ''Eternal Punishment'', Kasugayama High and the Bomb Shelter is a grinding dungeon, with really low level demons on school grounds and areas that unlock the more you level up and progress through the story beneath. So one of the monks of a local temple sends his son there to practice exorcising demons; starting with the weak ones and working his way from there.
359* GasLeakCoverup: The "torched" sanitarium in ''Eternal Punishment''.
360* GasMaskMooks: The Last Battalion.
361* GayOption: [[spoiler:Jun Kurosu.]]
362* GenreBusting: It's an RPG UrbanFantasy about saving the world and facing your fears and with psychological elements and it's a horror game like the other [=MegaTens=]. And IS has one part with a DatingSim element to boot, along with LGBT content.
363* GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul: The NWO followers, all of whom dialed JOKER to fulfill their selfish desires, are little more than recruitment posters: spouting party rhetoric, fascist arm outstretched, and constantly topping it off with Maya's stolen catchphrase ("LET'S THINK POSITIVE!").
364* TheGhost: Tatsuya and Katsuya's father in the PSX versions. To put it in context, everyone else's dad pops up in ''Innocent Sin'' (Maya's father is posthumously seen in a flashback), but not this guy. He technically appears during [[spoiler:the final boss battle (as one of the Great Father's appendages)]]; It's tricky to tell which one he's supposed to be, though, even in Kazuma Kaneko's concept art, though it is possible to take a guess by applying process of elimination. However, in ''Eternal Punishment'''s PSP remake, he appears in the new scenario.
365* {{Ghostapo}}: According to legend, Hitler is chilling in Antarctica with his elite forces.
366* GodAndSatanAreBothJerks: At the conclusion of ''Innocent Sin'', you discover that [[spoiler:Philemon]] helped orchestrate the events of the series up to this point to test whether he or [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]] represent the more powerful aspect of humanity. Events that involved the destruction of Mikage-cho in the original ''Persona'', [[spoiler:the deaths of countless people (including Maya), and an EarthShatteringKaboom]]. The resulting dialog box gives you the option of '''punching him''' for what he's put everyone through.
367* TheGodsMustBeLazy: Philemon seems to embody this trope. [[spoiler:He was basically trying to prove that [[SecretTestOfCharacter humanity could achieve a perfect existence]], so giving humans the power of Persona was the most he could do.]] Yet this doesn't explain why [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep gets to make the MoralEventHorizon his bitch]].
368* GoingThroughTheMotions: Characters have only a few stock poses (fold arms, fist pump, [[ShrugTake Gallic shrug]]), but you're going to see every one they've got in the course of a conversation. However, they do have some other animations for cutscenes that are created in the game engine.
369* GoodGuyBar: Parabellum gradually turns into one over the course of Maya's investigation. Baofu reveals himself by spinning on his stool, then convinces her to burn the effigy which keeps JOKER away, effectively starting the adventure. Later, as parts of the city keep getting blocked off or destroyed (Kei's penthouse winds up at the bottom of the sea), the party continues to rendezvous here. The barkeep is firmly on your side, as Baofu used him as a sort of test drive for the rumor curse.
370* GottaCatchThemAll:
371** In ''Innocent Sin'', Hanya seeds the school with wall clocks, each displaying the cursed Seven's Sisters emblems. Hanya taunts the party through the school intercom system, and once they're all smashed, he races to the school's clock tower to defend the final, giant emblem.
372** To prevent the heroes from interfering with her TV broadcast, Chiruzu arranges Bagua gates throughout the studio, a particularly lethal form of Feng Shui: it traps the party in a reverse dimension of black & white. Brown, now an inexplicably successful TV host, helps out by scouting out the gates in the real world and transmitting them through his dressing room mirror.
373** In ''Tatsuya's Scenario'', you need to find the eleven Trapezohedrons.
374** A meta example: finding all the rumor demons, all the Persona demons, all the rare items and weapons etc.
375* GratuitousEnglish:
376** ''"Let's Positive Thinking!"'', Ellen, some of Eikichi's battle quotes. Ellen usually gets it right, though. Eikichi, on the other hand...
377* GraveMarkingScene: At the end of the ''Eternal Punishment'', [[spoiler:Baofu and Ulala visit the grave of Miki, Baofu's old partner/lover who was murdered. Baofu makes his peace, while Ulala promises Miki that she'll look over him]].
378* GuestStarPartyMember:
379** Yukino sticks with the party up until Caracol. Then she either resigns to go help rehabilitate Anna, [[spoiler:or enters into a catatonic state after witnessing the back-to-back murders of Anna and Fujii]].
380** Maya also has the option of recruiting either Eriko or Kei to accompany her as far as the Undersea Ruins. Kei was a plot-central character in the first ''Persona'' game, wheras Eriko only briefly joined the party in the opening mission at the hospital (along with the butch, shotgun-toting Yukino of yesteryear!). The player had the option of recruiting her again in the SEBEC/Snow Queen chapters. Both have grown up considerably.
381* GuideDangIt:
382** The Ancestral Personas. In ''Eternal Punishment'', they form the basis for a game-spanning {{Sidequest}}. Even meeting the requirements isn't enough, since you still need a FOOL card to summon the last Persona, and could [[RandomlyDrops scour the entire game]] without uncovering even ''one''. All this to [[OneHitKill insta-kill]] a boss which isn't even difficult to begin with.
383** Just ''getting'' a FOOL card is a chore, as it requires you to use a contact that elicits an eager response with demons who have a Fool personality, and then answer it's questions to swing back between an anger and an eager response three times in a row, and even then, it's a matter of luck on whether it asks the full series of question that will allow you to get the card at all. It takes an emulator and save-states just to make that a colossal pain in the ass.
384** Hastur is an über-powerful, one-of-a-kind Persona whose card you can collect early in the game ([[AwesomeButImpractical Not that it'll do much good]], as you need to be at a ''very'' high level to summon it), for ''free''. The catch? Doing so requires talking to a specific NPC and imputing "[[SpeakOfTheDevil HASTURCOMEFORTH]]" into a text prompt. Supposedly, a demon somewhere shares this information if you Contact it, but [[NeedleInAStackOfNeedles nobody has any clue which one]]; it appears in no [=FAQs=] or guides.
385** The Undersea Ruins treasure room. To reach the [[InexplicableTreasureChests chests]], you must Contact the RandomEncounter Aeshma for help. Naturally, Aeshma is often difficult to pin down, and she won't unlock the room until you've Contacted her a dozen times or more. So get cracking, monkey.
386*** One final way to twist the knife; you can also find and talk to her...only to give you the rumor of a fusion spell ingredient rather than what you want to know.
387** Bonus contacts and conversations in Eternal Punishment such as 100 stories, songs of a baseball fan, flamenco de la passion, etc. Only available by speaking to your party members at a specific time and place while on the world map or in a dungeon (for 100 stories). Missed the timing to grab it? New Game+.
388** Figuring out how to get Alice in Eternal Punishment. First, you need a Karma Ring, which means that you either got lucky in the sweepstakes or you returned a Junnosuke Kuroda persona (4 FOOL Cards). Then, you run around the 8th area in the Bomb Shelter. Unfortunately for you, this time around, the Estoma trick is highly ill-advised. The reason why is because unlike other Persona Demons, you need to make a contract (lvl 80, btw) with her (something you've never been able to do before with Persona demons). THEN, you need to meet her again and then the second time around, you get the Champion material card. This presumes you don't run into Dark Alice, a monster three highly damaging spells that just wants you dead. Also a bit of an AwesomeYetImpractical; because when you get her, her skillset is VERY poorly lacking despite being Strong against Everything.
389** In the EX Dungeon of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, exists a powerful Hanged Man Persona named Azazel. He's nasty and packs an amazing sword technique. How do you get him? You need three additional Hanged Man Arcana persona to initiate a persona talk with him: Shax, Barbados, and Adramelech. Each of them must initiate a persona talk with him. The only potential clue you get is that as Azazel is a demon of hell, you use three members each having roles in Hell's hierarchy to get him to join you. That's if you're able to last long enough in the EX dungeon (which is tough as nails, btw) to even meet him.
390* GunPorn: Not so much in the main games -- though they make a strong point of averting {{AKA47}} -- but in ''Tatsuya's Scenario'' there's a long segment of Shiori describing the combination of the [=G33=] handgun with the .357 SIG bullets.
391[[/folder]]
392
393[[folder:H-N]]
394* HairstyleInertia: [[spoiler:The original "Masked Circle." Averted with Maya in order to mislead players.]]
395* HatePlague: How the JOKER curse works in ''Eternal Punishment''. While at first it was an one-man MurderInc, after his death, a rumour was spread that anyone who called for his services would turn into a JOKER themselves, followed by a second rumour that anyone with a hint of sin would meet the same fate.
396* HealingBoss:
397** The very first boss you fight is a trio of EarlyBirdCameo {{Mook}}s, of which one can heal its teammates. The boss is meant to teach you how to strategize and use fusion spells, as the only way not to have the fight draw out (excluding grinding yourself silly) is to [[CombinationAttack use a fusion spell]] on the [[ShootTheMedicFirst healer]].
398** One of the members of [[WolfpackBoss "The Metal Trio"]] can heal itself or any of its allies at any moment, though the value is not very high.
399** Was Sugawara recovers over 700 HP at the end of each turn with absolutely no way to stop his recovery, which is a problem because he's a DamageSponge and he has ways to stop you from using attacks that can top that number.
400** Shadow Maya uses an Evil counterpart of Maya's Persona, which comes with Diarama, the mid-tier healing skill.
401** In the PSP-exclusive "Tatsuya Scenario", [[spoiler:Takahisa Kandori]] can recover his health too, which can quickly turn into a huge issue because he is a DuelBoss and the only equipped Persona simply cannot to that much damage. Pray he won't spam it because YOU don't have healing for that fight.
402* HealingSpring: Lampshaded and [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed]]. The proprietor of said healing spring, Trish, is an extortionist fairy who hangs around dungeons, profiting from your pain. Her inflated prices are [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts on-scale with the amount of healing required]] (Contrast this with the flat-rate healers in town).
403* HeroicMime: Played With. In canon, Maya and Tatsuya both speak in both games, but the protagonist's speech (whichever one that is) isn't shown. In the Nyarlathotep flashback scene in ''Eternal Punishment'''s Mt. Iwato, Maya says "........." and Tatsuya speaks, whereas in ''Innocent Sin'', Maya would have spoken, and Tatsuya wouldn't.
404* HolyHandGrenade: TheLanceOfLonginus. [[TouchOfDeath Try not to get pricked by it]], okay?
405* HistoryRepeats: Much of ''Eternal Punishment'' is a re-imagining of events in ''Innocent Sin''. This is partly because [[spoiler:Tatsuya's memories of the Other Side are affecting the current reality.]]
406* HumanoidAbomination:
407** [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]] whenever he assumes human form. The Shadow Sides qualify, as well.
408** The Nazis are never seen without their gas masks, and are covered from head to toe in black uniforms. Given their origin (a rumor) and the fact that the Fuhrer [[spoiler:turns out to be another of Nyarlathotep's alter-egos]], it's strongly implied that they're all just manifestations.
409** In Eternal Punishment [[spoiler:Kandori]] seems to be filling this role. Part and parcel of his role is to simply give Tatsuya a glorified calling card.
410* IconicItem: Boy howdy. Tatsuya Suou and Jun Kurosu have the two most prominent ones [[spoiler:(Tatsuya's lighter was originally Jun's father's, and Jun's watch was originally ''Tatsuya's'' father's; they switched items in a display of friendship)]], but Maya also has Mr. Bunbun. Flowers, too, seem to represent Jun, as the opening video for ''Innocent Sin'' demonstrates.
411** Frankly, lots of characters in this crazy duology have special items. Katsuya's glasses, Yukino's camera [[spoiler:or at least the one she got from her crush]], and Philemon's mask count, just to name a few extras.
412* IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: In Maya mythology, Xibalba is roughly translated as "Place of fear" and represents the Mayan underworld.
413* IKnowKungFaux: Eikichi is terrified of his conservative dad, especially since Kankichi claims to knows 18 forms of martial arts, "including [[DanceBattler capoeira!]]"
414* ImCryingButIDontKnowWhy: When the gang meets Maya in ''Innocent Sin'', they start crying, seemingly for no reason. (See WistfulAmnesia below for the whole thing and why.)
415* ImpossiblyCoolClothes: Moreso than in most other [=MegaTen=] games. Maya's party in particular is nicely coiffed.
416* ImprobableWeaponUser: Jun uses flowers to attack, Baofu throws coins, and Eikichi uses machine guns disguised as guitar cases.
417* InMediasRes: To people familiar with other games of the franchise, it can sure seem like we're starting in the middle of things in ''Innocent Sin''; how come there's no super-extended scene of actually being granted Personas and everyone just seems to have 'em already? [[spoiler:Turns out this is a ''very important'' plot point, and had people not pushed certain events out of their minds this whole mess would never have happened.]]
418** America had this worse for a while since ''Innocent Sin'' was only released in Japan, making ''Eternal Punishment'' harder to follow. Fortunately ''Innocent Sin'' was finally released on the PSP in the U.S.
419*** Debatable. One of the plot points of Eternal Punishment is finding out who Déjà Vu boy is; and that mystery, while crucial to the characters is lost on the player IF they played Innocent Sin. Fortunately for Americans, the Mt.Iwato flashback scenes do give the player enough of a gist to understand the plot of the past game.
420* InfallibleBabble: Completely and utterly subverted.
421* InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves: Each catastrophe in these games can be traced back to a individual's anxieties and desires. When [[spoiler:earth blows up at the end, Nyarlathotep]] crows that it was our biggest wish fulfillment of all.
422* InSpiteOfANail: Actually, life in ''Eternal Punishment'' isn't all that different, to Baofu's chagrin. Miyabi's not fat, and Jun's home life is pretty good.
423* InevitableWaterfall: When traveling along the Silver River, Lisa starts to get bored with how long it takes. Eikichi get's fed up snaps at her that maybe a [[TemptingFate waterfall suddenly popping up like in the movies]] would make her happy. Cue the sound of crashing water.
424* InexplicablyIdenticalIndividuals:
425** The Satomi sisters.
426** Rosa Candida is run by twin sisters with matching haircuts. One is a PaletteSwap of the other, which is more than can be said of the Satomis.
427* InnBetweenTheWorlds: Trish's Fountain and the Velvet Room.
428* InstantAwesomeJustAddMecha: The "Longinus 13", so named for the Knights of the Round Table as well as the gigantic spears they carry around. The Tenchu Army in ''Eternal Punishment'' have their own mecha squadron (the X-series), as well.
429* TheInternetIsForPorn: Using the Contact option in battle, demons will occasionally ask the player what the internet is for. OBVIOUSLY, one of the options -- no matter who is being asked -- is to say that it's for porn. It's always funny.
430* IntrepidMerchant: Narumi is built on the peninsula, and gets [[spoiler:obliterated when Sumaru City rises]]. One rumor later, though, and all of the merchants/rumormongers magically relocate.
431* IronicEcho: Maya's catchphrase ("LET'S BE POSITIVE!") becomes the slogan of the New World Order.
432* ItemCrafting: Crafting stuff at Padparcha isn't the easiest thing in the world to do. Most of the materials are either won at the casino or returning multiple Rank 8 persona to get the items. However, the pros significantly outweigh the cons. Take the Hihi-Irokane armor in Eternal Punishment for example. 67 defense, 50 special defense and a hell of a boost to evasion make the armor well worth hours at the casino.
433* ItsAlwaysSpring: Reading between the lines in ''Innocent Sin'' reveals that the game begins in late October/early November of 1998, and ends on August 11th, 1999 [[note]]A few students at the start of the game mention the upcoming Culture Festival, which traditionally takes place on November 3rd. The game ends after the Grand Cross, which is a real astronomical event with a known date[[/note]]. And yet, nobody even mentions the changing of seasons, or even a day/night cycle.
434* KillTheCutie: [[spoiler:Maya.]]
435* KnowledgeBroker: Various "Rumormongers" who are scattered in each city district. They fork over rumors for free, so unless you [[SelfImposedChallenge want a rough time of it]], you'd better take time to talk with them.
436* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Used in [[spoiler:the ending of]] ''Innocent Sin'' [[spoiler:to create a timeline where the world isn't screwed.]]. Hell, ''Eternal Punishment'' is a {{Deconstruction}} of what happens when [[spoiler:you decide you'd rather subvert the trope and risk having the world end ''again'', on top of none of your friends not remembering you or your adventures]].
437* LastDayOfNormalcy:
438** ''Innocent Sin'': While it was obvious from the beginning that something was ''off'' and has been that way for a while now, the intro starts fairly normal -- Tatsuya is looking for his teacher so they can get this "post-graduation advice meeting" out of the way. Then he gets news that a classmate has been kidnapped (it turned out to be innocent, it was some guys from another school trying to recruit him in their rock band)... And that is when the Joker shows up and tries to kill everyone.
439** ''Eternal Punishment'' starts in a very similar vein, following Maya at her work as a reporter for a teen magazine, but then while she's interviewing the students a serial killer appears and kills the Principal. Then he sets his sights on ''her''. Long story short, she never turned in those interviews at her work.
440* LastKiss:
441** In ''Innocent Sin'', this is how [[spoiler:Lisa says her goodbye to Tatsuya]].
442** In ''Eternal Punishment'' if you say the right thing to [[spoiler:Tatsuya on a DialogueTree, he will give Maya a kiss before returning to the Other Side.]] Though he states that their souls are connected and that they can meet again.
443* LastNameBasis: Even after 40+ hours of gameplay, Officer Suou still insists on addressing Maya as "Ms. Amano". This just adds to his overall adorkability.
444** Maya's editor, Mizuno, is a less-friendly example as she constantly barks "''''Amano!''''" in place of her name.
445** In the Japanese version, Eikichi calls Tatsuya "Suou" up until the events of Mt. Iwato. Yukino does the same.
446* LetNoCrisisGoToWaste: Immediately following JOKER's defeat, an NWO agent appears on television to spread a rumor that anyone who performs the Joker Curse will [[spoiler:become a JOKER themselves]].
447* LethalLavaLand: The Leo Shrine.
448* LettingTheAirOutOfTheBand: During the blimp sequence in ''Innocent Sin'', the music swells and becomes grand and heroic only to suddenly peter out as a part of the blimp explodes and sends it plummeting towards the ocean.
449* LevelDrain: The "Prophecy" spell, which resets a Persona's rank to 1. Given that a Persona's spells and stats come mostly from gaining ranks, and going from rank 1 to rank 8 often takes several hours of grinding, this can be pretty inconvenient.
450* LevitatingLotusPosition: Shakya (aka Budha), a hidden Persona in the Abandoned Factory (''Innocent Sin'' Area 3) and Aoba Park/Bomb Shelter (area 2 in ''Eternal Punishment''). Also, Virocana (Area 7, ''Eternal Punishment'').
451* LimitedWardrobe: Three years between games, and Saeko Smith and Principal Harding still haven't changed out of their outfits.
452* LoadBearingBoss: Defeating Chizuru/[[spoiler:Kandori]], upon which the Undersea Ruins collapse.
453* LoveTriangle: Definitely in ''Innocent Sin'', though it's more of a love square, between Tatsuya, Lisa, Maya, and Jun, who all want Tatsuya, according to their demon contact descriptions, and you can pick any of those three as your lover. Arguable in ''Eternal Punishment'' between [[SiblingTriangle Maya and the Suou brothers]]. It's clear that they both have special feelings for her, but the situation is made complicated by WordOfGod statements that Tatsuya does not see Maya as an eligible woman. Maya's feelings are left up to the player.
454* MadeOfEvil: "Kegare" is basically the essence of sin, hatred and malice, and in ''Eternal Punishment'', Jokers are full of it. The New World Order starts draining people of their Kegare for their latest nefarious scheme.
455* MadeOfIndestructium: Even though everyone's cell phones have taken a dip in the ocean at least once and went through numerous other hazards, they are always usable immedietely afterwards.
456* MadScientistLaboratory: [[spoiler:Kandori's]] science lab.
457* MalevolentMaskedMen: The Masked Circle.
458* ManaBurn: The FinalBoss has a trick that switches to damaging your SP rather than your HP, forcing you to be very careful with the spells.
459* {{Mayincatec}}: Those Mayans sure get around. Did you know that ancient Mayans built giant underground flying machines in Japan? [[spoiler:(No? Well, they retroactively did thanks to the power of rumors.)]]
460* TheMaze: Like in the original ''Persona'', a good deal of the dungeons are mazelike, but only one of them is enchanted to be so: Kasugayama High's bomb shelter.
461** Claiming that Club Zodiac contains a "secret backroom" has a backfire effect which triples the dungeon in size (with acid floor panels to boot). A dragon's hoard of chests spawn in return.
462* MeetTheNewBoss: The NWO and Kiyotada Sumaru fill the marquee left behind by the Third Reich and their Fuhrer. This is deliberate.
463* MergingTheBranches: Yukino was one of the tertiary characters of ''Persona 1'' -- although she left the party early on, unless you pursued the ''Snow Queen Quest'' that was {{Macekre}}d out of the PSX US version. While retrieving the ''Phoenix Ranger Featherman R'' masks from Mt. Iwato, Yukino mentions "another sad story about masks", hinting that the events of the quest, despite running contrary to the main quest involving Kandori's company (and [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]]), actually happened.
464* MindControlMusic: The Satomi Tadashi pharmacy jingle, designed to brainwash the customers and take over the world. And it's actually working on a few people, most notably Nanjo.
465* MinigameZone: Mu Continent, the arcade turned into a casino. It can fetch you some really rare items.
466* MirrorMatch:
467** The Shadow Sides of both games. They wield [[PaletteSwap "Reverse"]] versions of your characters' Ultimate Personas. This makes for some amusing pre-battle banter, with the Reverse Persona declaring their plans to [[KillAndReplace usurp their counterpart]], and the real one telling them where to stick it. However, if you defeat them while equipped with their ultimate Personas, then they get a power boost and some weaknesses removed.
468** The fight against the Bolontinku towards the end of ''Innocent Sin''. The have the exact same moves and elemental resistances as your party, complete with corrupted versions of your signature attacks.
469** A retroactive example in ''Eternal Punishment'' is the [[spoiler:Metal Trio]]. [[ThatOneBoss Now you know why ''Innocent Sin'' felt easy.]]
470* MissingChild:
471** The backstory for [[spoiler:The Masked Circle, aka Innocent Sin's protagonists]] is full of this. [[spoiler:One day, the children don't come home on time. Then it turns out they were attacked by a serial arsonist.]] It gets worse from there.
472** Katsuya gets hit with this when his younger brother Tatsuya doesn't come home for days. No one knows where he is, and it becomes clear that he's involved with something big and keeps on refusing help. It's pretty clear that he's involved with something bad that he's trying to shoulder on his own. And when he finally tells Katsuya what's going on, he starts with, "I'm not your little brother." [[spoiler:Tatsuya remembered the timeline of ''Innocent Sin'', where he couldn't save the world. By hitting the ResetButton, the world of ''Eternal Punishment'' was created. The price was the memories of the real Masked Circle being friends, and one of them remembering the old timeline would shake the foundations of the new timeline. Tatsuya couldn't let his friends go, and remembered them when it would destroy the world. The whole time, he was trying to prevent the end of the world, knowing that it was his fault. He couldn't tell anyone without risking the timelines merging again.]]
473* ModularEpilogue: In ''Eternal Punishment'', [[spoiler:the final scene with the ''Innocent Sin'' party is altered depending on whether or not Eikichi and/or Lisa had their memories of That Side returned]].
474* MonsterInTheIce: Combined with HumanPopsicle and SealedEvilInACan, there is [[spoiler:a group of evil aliens frozen beneath Xibalba. Upon entering the room, Maya Okamura unfreezes them and they immediately attack your party.]]
475* MouthfulOfPi: At the start of ''Innocent Sin'', one of Tatsuya's schoolmates is shown being chastised by his teacher for "cheating". The student claims Joker granted his wish to become super-smart, and proves it by reciting the first 100 digits of Pi from memory! The teacher is unimpressed. (Japan, everybody.)
476* MurderDotCom: JOKER's curse is the touch tone version.
477* MythologyGag: The game starts a few days before the Culture Festival, which is traditionally held on November 3rd. Meaning it probably began in October, like in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI''.
478* NeckLift: Tatsuya is first introduced to Joker via this greeting.
479* NeckSnap: Makoto's (Eriko's stalker) fate after the second fight. [[spoiler:He survives it though, which tips off Katsuya that there is more to this guy than there should be.]]
480* {{Nerf}}: A few broken things from ''Innocent Sin'' got nerfed in ''Eternal Punishment'':
481** The Low-End Breaker Fusion Spell (Zanma+any Holy spell) instantly kills the lowest-leveled enemy in ''IS'', making it a cheap way to get rid of Rumor Demons and unique encounters. In ''EP'', it now kills the lowest-leveled unit regardless of side, meaning that most of the time you end up killing your own characters with it.
482** Summon Spirits in ''IS'' could fuse with any elemental spell to create pretty powerful Fusion Spells. In ''EP'', Summon Spirits can now only do this with Rumor Spells, meaning you have to equip specific Personae to use them, and beforehand you have to spread the rumor that the spell exists, and a separate rumor that it can fuse with Summon Spirits.
483** In ''IS'', Lucifer and Satan can perform the ultimate Fusion Spell Armageddon which instantly obliterates even the final boss (even if it's a bit of a BraggingRightsReward). In ''EP'', this can't be done on your first playthrough as Satan is exclusive to Elly's route and Lucifer is exclusive to Nanjo's route, so you have to wait until your second playthrough or later to get both.
484* NiceJobBreakingItHero:
485** The driving force behind the plot of ''Eternal Punishment'' turns out to be [[spoiler:due to Tatsuya Suou's retaining his memories.]]
486** ''Eternal Punishment'' plays things similarly with the heroes ending up essentially [[spoiler:advertising the villain organization by "leaking" information. ]]
487* NoobCave: Seven Sisters High School and its accompanying Clock Tower in both games.
488* NoSwastikas:
489** In the PSP remake of ''Innocent Sin'', Hitler is given a trenchcoat and sunglasses and is simply called "Führer" when he shows up (Even if it's obvious it's still him).
490** The swastikas in cutscenes are also changed to Iron Crosses.
491** This is especially funny since, in the original's battle with Hitler, '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS_4RvPvTS0 the whole damn battlefield]]''' is covered in swastikas.
492* NonElemental: Almighty attacks are non elemental magic, which is elemental since some demons and Personas are weak or strong to all type of magics when it's not all type of attacks. Even a few opponents are specifically immune to Almighty attacks, like Dark Alice and the Big Bad first form. That being said, there are a few attacks with no element at all like Another Dimension or Death Roulette. Most of them are instakill attacks.
493* NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow: Makoto Kuwahara, The [[ChainsawGood chainsaw]]-wielding LoonyFan who stalks Eriko inside the TV Studio. [[{{OffscreenTeleportation}} Oddly enough, he's a persistent bugger who]] [[{{TooKinkyToTorture}} screams for more the more damage is done to him.]]
494* NostalgiaLevel:
495** Mt. Iwato in ''Eternal Punishment'' is littered with flashbacks to both the ''Innocent Sin'' and the original ''VideoGame/{{Persona|1}}''.
496** If Eriko's in your party, the latter's SilentProtagonist (or an apparition of him, at least) will be haunting the TV Studio.
497** The two sidequests in the PSP remake of ''Innocent Sin'' take place in [[VideoGame/{{Persona|1}} St. Hermelin High]] and [[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIf Karukozaka High]] respectively.
498* NotAGame:
499--> '''[[NotHimself Maya]]:''' "Life's not like a video game. You can't just press the ResetButton. The sins you committed will never disappear."
500** [[spoiler:[[{{Foreshadowing}} Humorously enough]], that's exactly what happens at the end of ''Innocent Sin''.]]
501** Eikichi also wonders aloud at being stuck in a game (the time-worn cliche of schoolkids saving the world ForGreatJustice) if you talk to him in the shrines.
502---> '''Eikichi:''' "This ain't a video game, you know. We're nearly into the 21st century here. Why are we high schoolers fighting to save the world?"
503** [[spoiler:And then played straight in ''Eternal Punishment.'' Doing things over did not allow Tatsuya to escape the ''Eternal Punishment'' of his ''Innocent Sin;'' he has lost his friends and he will never be able to change that.]]
504* NotSoPhonyPsychic: Sumaru Genie is infamous for her bogus readings. A rumor will fix that. Actually, we learn she was originally just an intersex clubgoer before rumors transmogrified her into some sort of ''Prince of Persia'' character.
505[[/folder]]
506
507[[folder:O-Z]]
508* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Yukino is normally the TeamMom of the ''Innocent Sin'' party [[spoiler:before she leaves her powers to Jun, and she's got the calm mannerisms to match it. However, when a Nazi dares to speak ill of the recently deceased Fuji, she absolutely [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=127&v=usDRVXMZjTQ&feature=youtu.be loses it.]] (Special props go to her voice actress in the PSP version, who really steals the scene).]]
509-->'''Yukki:''' [[spoiler:"The hell did you just say...? [[SuddenlyShouting YOU PIECE OF SHIT!!!"]]]]
510* ObviouslyEvil: In ''Innocent Sin'', [[spoiler:Shadow Maya]] briefly takes [[spoiler:the real Maya's]] place. And makes approximately no effort to pretend not to be an evil duplicate. Besides acting nothing like the real person, [[spoiler:she has [[RedEyesTakeWarning red eyes]] in her portraits and ''[[EyelessFace no eyes]]'' in her sprites, can't negotiate with demons, and in the PSP version breaks out the portraits meant for TheReveal if hit with a status effect]].
511* TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness: Another parody. The New World Order, as often happens in this city, started out life as a nonentity: A loose consortium of developers who owned the excavation site where Sumaru's mummy was found. Believing it to be a cursed idol, the group formed an elite circle which attracted a number of power players in Japan's political sphere until, finally, they had "the power to move this country."
512* {{Ondo}}: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlLK6vUiSN8 Here it is]].
513* OneDegreeOfSeparation: ''The entire named cast''. All of them gave some sort of connection, from past friendships to ruined relationships to business to ''murder attempts''.
514* OneHitKill: Hama and Mudo are back in this game, fulfilling their instant death roles. New to this game are the odds of Nazi Soldiers killing your allies in one hit too. Any enemy with Aimed Shot can perform this as well. Same goes for [[spoiler:Shadow Katsuya's Vice Shot]]. Finally, there is a number of Fusion Spells that can inflict this.
515* OneLinerEcho: In both games, right before facing off with the final boss.
516* OneManArmy: Quite a few examples in ''Eternal Punishment'':
517** Tatsuya spends two thirds of the game wrecking the Tenchu army (including their mechs, at least two Bosses and a gigantic military vessel) all by himself. The whole thing is further elaborated in his scenario in the PSP remake, where the player finds out exactly what he's been fighting. Lampshaded by the main cast several times:
518--->'''Baofu:''' He has way more experience than you guys, and some guts... Heck, we'd be in his way.
519** Baofu himself killed 25 mafia hitmen prior to the events of the game, and halfway through he successfully storms their main headquarters all by himself. Right up until he runs to the MiniMecha, that is.
520** Deconstructed by Katsuya, who attempts to do this against the {{Corrupt Cop}}s, up until he comes face to face with the special units. The party reaches him in time to help him, but after the fight he admits that this was reckless of him and he wouldn't have been able to win by himself.
521* OneSteveLimit: Averted. Tatsuya Suou reads ''a lot'' like Tatsuya Sudou, which one NPC early into ''Innocent Sin'' will point out ([[DevelopersForesight though only if the player didn't change Suou's name of course]]). Likewise, Maya Amano shares the same name as Maya Okamura. Both of this factor into the plot, albeit in different ways.
522* OneTimeDungeon: Most of the dungeons are these. When you try to reenter, a member of your party will bark at you to stop goofing off, or explain that they don't need to go there. In any case, most of them get destroyed anyway (either by Sudou during his reign of terror, or Zodiac Shrines that sprout in their place). The Narumi ward is lost forever after [[spoiler:the city rises]] from the sea, as it was a later addition.
523* OnlyTheLeadsGetADownerEnding: The ''Persona 2'' duology ends with the heroes having saved the world in the ''Eternal Punishment'' timeline [[spoiler:after the heroes of the ''Innocent Sin'' world failed to do so, but Tatsuya has to return to the doomed ''Innocent Sin'' timeline to prevent a repeat of said bad ending.]]
524* OpenSecret: ''Everyone'' knows that Club Zodiac is a front for the Taiwanese Mafia, to the point that some [=NPCs=] are wondering why the police has never investigated the place. Some of the high-school patrons even admit that they know who really owns the place but don't care as long as they get to dance.
525* OurDragonsAreDifferent: Joka/The Wang Long.
526* OutOfClothesExperience: Tatsuya, Maya, and Lisa in the PSP ''Innocent Sin''[='s=] opening video.
527* PaperThinDisguise: [[spoiler:Shadow Maya in one of the dungeons in ''Innocent Sin''. Despite obviously putting no effort into imitating Maya, this fools even Yukino, who has been working with Maya for longer then the game.]]
528* PartyInMyPocket: Mostly. Party members do appear as [[{{NPC}} NPCs]] in dungeon "rooms", but everywhere else it's just the main character running around.
529* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: To buy weapons at the ramen shop, Eikichi "orders" the password, "Banana Ramen". Unfortunately for Eikichi, he then [[EatThat has to eat it]].
530* PermanentlyMissableContent: During the bomb riddle arc in ''Innocent Sin'', if you fail to go to the correct place then whatever place is targeted will blow up and will not lead to a NonstandardGameOver, locking you out of both the dungeon and any bosses it had and forcing the player to live with having failed to save any of those in the buildings.
531* PillarOfLight: Sumaru Castle fires one through its roof, opening a SwirlyEnergyThingy which swallows the city whole.
532* {{Pirate}}: The barkeeper of the Jolly Roger seafood joint. He simply will not shut up about the sea.
533* PlayerHeadquarters: Kuzunoha Detective Agency, Nate's Penthouse, and later Baofu's Lair.
534* PoliceAreUseless: A single police precinct for an entire metropolis, eh?
535** Tatsuya's brother is a Sergeant in the Konan ward, and even HE is an obstinate jerk who ignores all evidence of a growing cult in Sumaru.
536--->"If you're charged with wasting police resources, [[ScareEmStraight being my brother won't help you!]]"
537** Enforced in ''Eternal Punishment''. The {{Conspiracy}} intentionally leaves the more honorable officers short-handed and obstructs the investigations.
538* PokemonSpeak: Aside from their contact response, the "Maskist" enemies communicate using only the word "kamen" (Japanese for "mask") in exactly this fashion.
539* ThePowerOfRock:
540** Eikichi and Ulala in their respective games. Both of them SummonBackupDancers as part of their Contact options: Eikichi bursting into an [[DreadfulMusician off-key rendition]] of "Luv Beam" with Tatsuya on electric guitar and Jun on synth; Ulala performs the [[TorosYFlamenco Flamenco]], with Katsuya & Tatsuya on guitar.
541** In the Karukozaka High sidequest of ''Innocent Sin'' 's PSP remake, Eikichi and a demon summoner named Wayland perform a rock concert to stop an archangel from destroying the world. It MakesSenseInContext.
542* PreAsskickingOneLiner: "Whoop-ass time!", "Don't underestimate ''me'', you [[SoundEffectBleep *bleep!*]] bastard!", "I feel sorry for you.", "[[ReadingYourRights You're all under arrest!]]", "Fools, begone!", etc.
543* PrecisionFStrike: Baofu in Eriko's route, upon seeing the Stalker for the first time.
544--> '''Baofu''': Who the f**k are you?
545** The fan translation of ''Innocent Sin'' is full of this.
546** Tatsuya's narration in his scenario has a point in which he's ranting about how much he hates [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]]. It's the only time in the game when he curses.
547* PredatorPreyFriendship: You develop this with the same demons that are trying to eat you. Non-gameplay example, Ulala looks at a fish in the Gatten Sushi, and eventually names it Joe, telling it of their adventures when they're in the shop.
548* ProlongedPrologue: Though not as long as later entries in the series, ''Innocent Sin'' takes a considerable amount of time to get going. Upon start, the player is forced to walk around their high school talking to [=NPCs=] looking for one specific [=NPC=], travel to another location to watch a lengthy cutscene where the third party member is introduced and the protagonists have their first incident with Joker, travel to the diner, go to the detective agency and learn how the rumor spreading mechanic works, return to the diner to get their first weapons, and then finally get back to the high school where the game started, which serves as the first dungeon. All told, it's about 30-45 minutes from starting the game to the first time the player is given actual control in combat encounters.
549* ProlongedVideoGameSequel: In both the original versions and the PSP remakes, the second part of the [[OneGameForThePriceOfTwo duology]] ''Eternal Punishment'' is much longer than its predecessor, ''Innocent Sin''. ''Eternal Punishment'' has two alternative storylines halfway through the game (meaning that you must play both in different playthroughs to get the full picture), three extra optional dungeons, a BonusDungeon that is only available in NewGamePlus, and in the PSP remake, a huge segment that runs parallel to the normal game. The whole thing means that you can pour over 100 hours into ''Eternal Punishment'', while ''Innocent Sin'' takes around 50 to finish.
550* PromotedToPlayable: The party in ''Eternal Punishment'' consists mostly of [=NPCs=] from ''Innocent Sin'', plus Maya and Tatsuya.
551* ProphecyTwist: The Oracle of Maya has a [[IncrediblyLamePun killer]] twist.
552* PropheticNames: Two characters named "Maya", an important being in Hinduism and shared with many plot points in the game.
553* ThePsychoRangers:
554** Joker deploys evil clones of your party members after the Nazis invade. They were given full form thanks to a rumor about the group of five that set fire to the Museum.
555** This is wryly suggested in the Masked Four's origin story, since they're essentially [[spoiler:stand-ins for the original Masked Circle--Jun's old friends]]. It was [[{{Foreshadowing}} foreshadowed]] by the obvious connections to Tatsuya's party. Though there are multiple ways of interpreting it:
556### Leo/Sudou's and Suou's names are almost identical (though spelled differently in Japanese), and both are Fire elementals with an affinity for the Leo sign on the Zodiac and the Sun arcana.
557### Aquarius/[[spoiler:Junko]] is of the Aquarius zodiac sign, and has a very similar name to [[spoiler:Jun, whom she functions as a "mother figure" to, quite like Maya, though more literally in her case.]] Alternatively, she is a fair approximation of how Lisa might end up: a former Miss Sevens now [[GloryDays stuck in the past]], discarding her trophy husband once the novelty wore off.
558### Scorpio/[[spoiler:Anna]] shares her zodiac sign with Eikichi, as well as their names being spelled almost identically in Japanese (吉栄=Yoshizaka; 栄吉=Eikichi). In addition to being a schoolgirl like Lisa, she's the BrokenBird of the outfit, an introvert whose painful past is used for villainous ends ([[spoiler:Jun]]).
559### Taurus/[[spoiler:Ginji]] shares his zodiac sign with Lisa, and their names both have silver/gin (silver in Japanese) in them. He's also a failed musician with bad pick-up lines, and so can be seen as an older Eikichi.
560* PublicDomainCanonWelding: The UpdatedRerelease of ''Eternal Punishment'' reveals that it's not just Creator/HPLovecraft's {{Eldritch Abomination}}s that are in fact real (which they are, considering [[spoiler:the BigBad for this game and the previous ones is none other than Nyarlathotep]], but the Franchise/CthulhuMythos happened. The extra scenario features mentions of the Dreamlands, a cameo from Randolph Carter (a recurring protagonist in Lovecraft's work), an opportunity to [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu to actually punch Cthulhu]], and more. However, later games in the series do not use these elements at all, except for a rare ShoutOut.
561* PuttingOnTheReich: The NWO salute ("LET'S THINK POSITIVE!") is a sieg heil, mirroring the Nazis on The Other Side.
562* PyrrhicVictory: The ending of ''Innocent Sin''. Well done! You beat [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]]...and he's laughing all the way to the bank: [[spoiler:Maya's dead, your planet's stripped down to the very bedrock, and the only way to reverse it is to sacrifice your memories. And then, there's the added insult of him [[WonTheWarLostThePeace being left free to engineer Earth's destruction all over again, which he eventually does]]]]... Of course this means all they did during the game was for [[ShootTheShaggyDog no reason at all]] and it's pretty much just a big Game Over, please reload your latest save (which was over 10 years ago).
563* QueerEstablishingMoment:
564** If you pick the bad choices before Caracol, in a later cutscene Yukino, who is crushing pretty hard on her male boss, is revealed to be bisexual. [[spoiler:[[WhatYouAreInTheDark Her Shadow]] kisses Anna and then [[BuryYourGays they both jump off the bridge]].]]
565** While there were subtle hints shown earlier, the cutscene after you complete the Taurus Temple reveals that Jun is gay and [[TheHero Tatsuya]] is bisexual. Tatsuya is asked to pick which of his friends he's interested on, and Jun is the GayOption. If you choose that, Lisa is stunned and feels quite awkward to find out he swings that way. This has an effect in gameplay, as Jun and Tatsuya get a joint contact, and the Tatsuya/Lisa joint contact is lost for the rest of the game. No, the two options do not function the same way.
566* QuintessentialBritishGentleman: The [-LONDON-] clothing salesman.
567* QuirkyMinibossSquad: Ixquic and Belphegor. The former is a cosplayer girl convinced she is a reincarnated warrior who practices her incredibly corny BadassBoast, Belphegor treats her as seriously as a servant would do to a queen, and they fight you in the women's restroom of all places.
568* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Both games, but particularly ''Eternal Punishment''. Ordinarily, these people wouldn't be seen within ten miles of each other.
569* RareCandy: Along with a handful of regular items to restore HP et al with, there are a variety of restaurants you can visit to buy things like ice cream, sushi, burgers, coffee, and ramen, all of which increase stats.
570* RealityBleed:
571** What started this whole mess.
572** With the "rumors become reality" effect going around, ''everyone'' capable of spreading rumors becomes this. Both the good guys ''and'' the bad guys utilize this in story and in gameplay (in ''Eternal Punishment'', for example, if you piss off a demon while equipped with an ultimate weapon, they will spread a rumor that greatly weakens it). Later in the games, Lisa (IS) and Ulala (EP) laments not being able to tell what's real anymore. PlayedForLaughs in side material, namely the anthology manga.
573* RealityWritingBook: A non-book example. Rumors become true if enough people hear about them ([[spoiler:this is due to a demon dicking with humanity]]). No writing needed, just word of mouth. Mostly this results in UrbanLegends becoming true, but the player characters themselves take advantage of it.
574* RealTrailerFakeMovie: On the second disc of ''Eternal Punishment'' there is a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7Gk-onicEc trailer]] for an anime of the games which never happened.
575* RecurringLocation: Alaya Shrine.
576* RecurringRiff: The melody of certain tracks reappears in various forms through the duologys soundtrack. The most notable are "Maya's Theme", "Reminiscence" and "Knights of the Holy Lance".
577* RedArmbandOfLeadership: The Nazis -- and their other-world equivalent, the New World Order -- both sport these.
578* RedEyesTakeWarning: The metal knockoffs you encounter inside Xibalba/Ameno Torifune. Also the Shadow Selves.
579* RedHerring: [[spoiler:The crystal skulls are made out to be key to the Masked Circles plans, yet in the end it is revealed that they are little more than pretty trinkets. The real threat was the Spear of Destiny, the rumors themselves and the populace's belief in them]].
580* RefugeInAudacity:
581** Some of the Contact options: why is Tatsuya making motorcycle noises at that demon?
582** How was Atlus able to get away with putting Hitler in the PSP remake? [[http://www.dualshockers.com/2011/05/21/persona-2-innocent-sin-psp-has-sunglasses-hitler/ By putting sunglasses on him]]. Also doubles as RuleOfCool, as you get to [[spoiler:fight said sunglasses Hitler!]]
583* RegeneratingMana: Walking around restores SP. This is turned off in ''Eterna; Punishment'''s PSP Hard Mode.
584* ReplacementGoldfish: The Masked Four are fashioned [[spoiler:after the group that Jun played with as a child]].
585* ReplayMode: The UpdatedRerelease gives you the option to watch the cutscenes through the title screen. Unfortunately, this is only for the cinematic ones, and the striking majority of cutscenes in the game (including most of the plot-significant ones) are rendered with the in-game graphics.
586* RetGone: Getting turned into a shadow-person by Joker causes most people to forget they ever existed, while they stand in one spot, eternally drowning in self-pity for not being able to pursue their dreams.
587* {{Retconjuration}}: The ending to IS. The simplest way to make everything right is for [[spoiler:the original Masked Circle to never meet each other]].
588* RippleEffectProofMemory:
589** [[spoiler:Other Side Tatsuya]] in ''Eternal Punishment''.
590** The Time Castle guy, the Time Count, in ''Eternal Punishment'' is aware of it when you use a rumor to make his shop sell and duplicate spell cards. [[spoiler:Actually, he's Nyarlathotep, chilling with you, selling you the stuff you need, invites you to relax... and talk a bit about your next moves...]]
591* RouteBoss:
592** In ''Innocent Sin'', right before Caracol you can either leave Yukino behind or force her to come with you. If you take her with you, when you reach the observation bridge you have to fight three Longinus Spear mechs. However, if you leave her behind, you find [[spoiler:Shadow Yukino and Lady Scorpio]] fighting them, and you have to fight ''them'' once they're done.
593** In ''Eternal Punishment'', one third through the game you are asked to spread a rumor that the person investigating the New World Order is either a man or a woman. Spreading the rumour it's a woman results in Eriko's route, which takes you through the Sumaru TV station, and results in boss fights against her Stalker ([[spoiler:actually a Shikigami]]), Wang Long Chizuru's puppet, and in the Underwater Ruins, Wang Long Chizuru herself. However, if you spread the rumor it's a man, you go to Nanjo's route, and the game takes you through the sewers and the secret laboratory, where you fight several Red Berret Mini-bosses, and [[spoiler:Demonized Sugimoto]]. The Underwater Ruins boss is also replaced with [[spoiler:Takahisa Kandori and four X-2 mechs]].
594* RunningGag:
595** In ''Innocent Sin'', all the playable characters except Yukino and Jun have a habit to *staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare* on various occasions. This is how Maya first reacts to meeting Tatsuya, Eikichi's idea of flirting, how Lisa gets her Legendary Weapon. This is also the only contact option that Tatsuya keeps in ''Eternal Punishment''.
596** There is also a secondary running gag about how Eikichi is incapable of winning any sort of bet.
597* RunningOverThePlot: In ''EP'', Anna Yoshizaka is the victim of a hit-and-run that resulted in her CareerEndingInjury. The suspect is murdered by JOKER, which triggers the events of the game as it's the investigation behind the murder that brings ''EP'''s party together, and induces a boss fight with the one who ordered it.
598* SchoolNewspaperNewsHound: Chika "Chikarin" Ueda is a reporter for Sevens' school newspaper. She operates out of Peace Diner as a rumormonger. In the American version of ''Eternal Punishment'', Chikarin makes a habit of saying [[{{Catchphrase}} "Roger-dodger!"]].
599* SchoolSettingSimulation: In both games, Seven Sisters High and Kasugayama High are dungeons. Seven Sisters is the opening dungeon in both games, while Kasugayama is connected to a BlackoutBasement. In the UpdatedRerelease of ''Innocent Sin'', the two quest dungeons that are added are St. Hermellin High and Karukozaka High, both warped by magic.
600* SealedEvilInACan: The aliens sleeping onboard Xibalba are explicitly recorded as being {{evil counterpart}}s to another alien clan which they wiped out eons ago.
601* SequelLogoInRuins: ''Eternal Punishment'''s logo has cracked letters to represent its darker nature compared to ''1'' and its prequel ''Innocent Sin''.
602* SerialEscalation: The story starts with some kids investigating a rumor about some guy with magic powers, and culminates into the infamous final boss fight [[spoiler:against the Fuhrer]]. All in the span of less than a week.
603** The Grand Cross and prior to that the Perseides turned into Leonids actually happened in real life, so it is possible to calculate the exact timeframe of the game.
604* SerialKillerBaiting: In ''Eternal Punishment'', "Tatsuya's Scenario," police officer Shiori Miyashiro [[spoiler:calls the JOKER and asks him to kill her, in hopes that she'll be able to arrest him and connect him to a cold case of murders that was also committed by him]]. Luckily for her, she told Anna about the plan, who in turn calls Tatsuya, and he manages to save her.
605* SeriesOddball: ''Eternal Punishment'' is the only Persona game (and one of the only Megaten games in general) to feature a main cast of adults rather than highschoolers.
606* SheIsAllGrownUp: Applies to the entire ''Innocent Sin'' cast, most notably Lisa -- who was often teased about her looks as a child, and grows up to be the most envied girl in Seven Sisters -- and Eikichi, who starts out as a pudgy, shy loser. This also applies to Maya, whose appearance has changed so drastically that [[spoiler:no one from the party recognizes her.]]
607* ShipLevel: The cruise ship ''Nichirin-maru'', which also happens to be the SupervillainLair of the NWO. Their conference room is briefly glimpsed in the prologue.
608* ShownTheirWork: More or less. Japanese tradition mentions the existence of ''kotodama'' (言霊) a concept in which words have impact on reality; by repeating often words such as "crisis" and "depression", for instance, one becomes a target for the feelings those words convey; relate this to the rumor-based alterations to reality. It's even mentioned in ''Eternal Punishment'' that Kandori and Lord Sumaru were brought back by the power of the Kotodama.
609** The whole writing actually has this to ridiculous degrees, that it becomes GeniusBonus. Everything from Greek mythology to Mayan cosmology to obscure German poetry to Feng Sui and Japanese superstitions is all tied together in a big mass of foreshadowing.
610* SignatureMove: ''Everyone'' appears to have a signature attack in this game, combined with CallingYourAttacks.
611** The playable characters:
612*** Tatsuya/Apollo: ''Nova Kaiser'' ("Cyther" in ''Eternal Punishment'' PSX, "Sizer" in the fan translation)
613*** Eikichi/Hades: ''Bloody Honeymoon''
614*** Lisa/Venus: ''Foamy Lover''
615*** Maya/Artemis: ''Crescent Mirror''. She also has ''Omni Dimension'' with Maia.
616*** Jun/Chronos: ''Cross Fortune''
617*** Yukino/Durga: ''Thunder Inferno''
618*** Ulala/Asteria: ''Twinkle Nebula''
619*** Katsuya/Hyperion: ''Justice Shot''
620*** Baofu/Prometheus: ''Wiseman Snap''
621*** Nanjo/Yamaoka: ''Guardian Hammer''
622*** Eriko/Gabriel: ''Release Jail'' (actually a mistranslation, it's apparently supposed to be ''Release Veil'')
623** Evil counterparts:
624*** ''Dark Nova Kaiser'' for Shadow Tatsuya and the fire Maian alien.
625*** ''Bloody Divorce'' for Shadow Eikichi, water alien and [[spoiler:Metal Eikichi]].
626*** ''Dark Foamy Lover'' for Shadow Lisa. Renamed into ''Lover of Shadow'' for the earth alien and [[spoiler:Metal Lisa]].
627*** Shadow Maya has ''Dark Dimension'' in ''Innocent Sin'' and ''Eclipse Mirror'' in ''Eternal Punishment''. The later is also used by the ice alien.
628*** ''Terror Fortune'' by the wind alien and [[spoiler:Metal Jun]].
629*** Shadow Yukino: ''Dark Thunder Inferno''
630*** Shadow Ulala: ''Dark Nebula''
631*** Shadow Katsuya: ''Vice Shot''
632*** Shadow Baofu: ''Bastard Snap''
633** Other villains:
634*** Principal Hanya: ''Dark Young Legend''
635*** Prince Taurus: ''Dark Mamagnara''
636*** King Leo: ''Dark Fiery Fury''
637*** Lady Scorpio: ''Dark Malaquadyne''
638*** Joker: among his many unique moves is ''Unseasonable Bloom''. Unique in that it treats Nerve as an actual damage type rather than a type of ailment and it's the first of his attacks that you see.
639*** ''Old Maid'' by anyone possessed by the JOKER.
640*** ''Longinus Spear'' by the Order of the Holy Lance. Renamed ''Muramasa Sword'' in the sequel.
641*** ''Wheel of Time'', ''Unperishable Black'' and ''[[spoiler:Crawling Chaos]]'' by [[spoiler:Kandori and Nyarlathotep]].
642*** ''Master of 18'' by [[spoiler:the Great Father]].
643*** ''Prophecy'' by Kudan.
644* SmokingIsCool: Baofu celebrates his kills by lighting up. The Shiraishi Ramen Lady also has a cigarette dangling from her mouth. The Demon Painter is also smoking all the time.
645* SoundEffectBleep: Ulala's rather... spirited speech. The bleeping is a bit inconsistent, though. It seems to pick up a good deal whenever it's a part of a voiced cutscene or a battle quote (main offender being the scene with the crazy stalker with a chainsaw in the television studio), but text-only scenes get away with only some minor SymbolSwearing.
646* SpritePolygonMix: All the character, Persona and enemy sprites are animated from various angles, but all the environments are rendered in 3D. They blend together surprisingly well, mainly because they have the same pixel count.
647* StatusInflictionAttack: The infamous [[ThatOneAttack Terror Fortune]], on top of its massive damage, can inflict ''every'' status effect in the game.
648* StormingTheCastle: Done literally with Sumaru Castle.
649* StoryReset: Technically with both games. [[spoiler:With ''Innocent Sin'' where you play one protagonist and get the BadEnding and ''Eternal Punishment'' where you play the other protagonist and get the GoodEnding.]]
650* StupidJetpackHitler: Somehow, the Nazis got ahold of [[SpiderTank Spider Tanks]], HumongousMecha, and a [[ShinyLookingSpaceships Shiny Looking Spaceship]] the size of Rhode Island. This is only [[spoiler:because of In Lak'ech, which was likely full of bogus conspiracies]], but spread like wildfire in an already-paranoid town like Sumaru City.
651* SupernaturalGoldEyes: [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]]. Averted by the Shadow Selves; unlike the following games, these ones have RedEyesTakeWarning.
652* SupernaturalSealing: Magic Seal inflicts Mute on an enemy/enemies, preventing them from using Persona skills.
653* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
654** In ''Innocent Sin'', many students wished for Joker to make them smarter or get better grades. One student is detained for cheating.
655** In ''Eternal Punishment'', if you try to eat food at certain restaurants that serve liquor, they won't serve Tatsuya because he's a minor.
656* StylishProtectionGear: The sisters at Rosa Candina advertise their armor as such; not that you actually get to see it since the sprites never change.
657* SubliminalSeduction: The Satomi Tadashi pharmacy jingle. As a returning character, Kei Nanjo is the one who's been most exposed to the song and is greatly unnerved by it. There is also an [=NPC=] who is incapable of leaving the pharmacy because of this.
658* SuicideAttack: Yet another dick move by some of the Nazi troops. There are also a few zombies and minor enemies that use them.
659* SummonMagic: The Personas.
660* SurferDude: The Aki Dude at Bikini Line. "Am I cool or what?♥"
661* SuperCellReception: Somehow the characters can use their phones in places such as the Velvet Room or the Zodiac Shrines (it is lampshaded by Maya in the latter case). It gets to ridiculous degrees in ''Eternal Punishment'', because the currently [[spoiler:flying]] Sumaru City still has an internet connection with the rest of the world, in an era with no [=WiFi=].
662* TakeItToTheBridge: The decisive moment with Lady Scorpio and Shadow Yukino takes place on a stone bridge inside Caracol.
663* TakeMyHand: In ''Innocent Sin'''s Sky Museum, either Maya or Tatsuya will plummet from a ledge, only to be caught and hoisted back up by whoever didn't fall.
664* TakenOffTheCase: In ''Eternal Punishment'', Katsuya Suou is removed from the JOKER serial killings case by his superior after delivering a report that included that JOKER was a demon summoner. He continues working on the case on his own with the support of the party, even after threatening to have [[TurnInYourBadge his badge removed]]. It turned out to be quite a good call since said superiors [[spoiler:were part of an ApocalypseCult type of [[TheConspiracy Conspiracy]] and among other crimes, they were covering up for the murders]].
665* TalkToTheFist: Jun [[spoiler:aka Joker from the alternate reality]] interrupts JOKER's diatribe by shoving him into an open pit filled with fire. Oh irony, you are delicious.
666* TarotMotifs: Continued from the previous game, tarot symbolism is everywhere.
667* TempleOfDoom: Caracol.
668* TerminallyIllCriminal: ''Eternal Punishment'' features General Sugawara, a member of the new world order and commander of the Tenchu army who performs immoral experiments on humans in order to create {{Magitech}} / OrganicTechnology mechas for military purposes. The reason he does this is that he is dying from an unspecified malady, and the leader of NWO Tatsuzou Sudou has promised to make him immortal. He keeps that promise... by [[AndIMustScream turning him into an unkillable monster]] with BodyHorror in spades.
669* ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself: Some party members have to complete some personal quest without assistance from Tatsuya and company in order to unlock more powerful versions of their Persona.
670** Subverted at one point in ''Eternal Punishment''. [[spoiler:Maya has to stop Baofu from killing his reverse Persona because that restores the memory of one of Tatsuya's friends.]]
671* ThoseWackyNazis: Who gets resurrected alongside Hitler in ''Innocent Sin''.
672* TimeyWimeyBall: In UpdatedReRelease of ''Eternal Punishment'', certain demons and gods from Kadath Mandala often make comments which suggest they have existed long before the real world, somehow. It is not made clear if this means [[PlaceBeyondTime the Sea of Souls and its contents exist outside the flow of time itself]] akin to AkashicRecords, or if the fact [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve humans believed demons had existed so long ago]] (for one, [[TheMaker creation deities]] would logically exist prior to the world) gave demons [[TimeDissonance distortions in their cognitive perceptions of time]], such as the backward telescoping effect ([[NewerThanTheyThink perceiving events as occurring even further back in time than they really do]]). In other words, this trope is either played straight or subverted [[AmbiguousSituation depending on interpretation]].
673* TokenMinority:
674** The Caucasian Lisa Silverman from ''Innocent Sin,'' raised in Japan her entire life by her Japanophile parents. She's the only non-Japanese playable character in the series to date, discounting non-human characters like [[RobotGirl robot girls]] [[{{VideoGame/Persona 3}} Aigis]] and [[VideoGame/Persona4Arena Labrys]] (and both were created in a Japanese lab), and the [[spoiler:sentient Shadow]] [[{{VideoGame/Persona 4}} Teddie]] (and his ''own'' Persona is lifted from Japanese myths). Even [[{{VideoGame/Persona 5}} Ann Takamaki]], despite looking Caucasian, is still 3/4-Japanese, 1/4-American. Sumaru City in general also has a large array of foreigners, which the original game and its sequels mostly lack.
675** In ''Eternal Punishment'', Baofu is introduced as a man of Taiwanese descent, [[spoiler:but it turns out that he's Japanese, which Katsuya reveals after asking Nanjo to research his background.]]
676* TheTokyoFireball: Inverted -- the city [[spoiler:transforms into a flying machine]] while the rest of the world burns. This is destined to happen in both realities. Sumaru City isn't ''quite'' let off the hook, however; in ''Innocent Sin'', large parts of the infrastructure have been crushed by the Shrines, while in ''Eternal Punishment'', we have a legion of serial killers wrecking havoc. In both cases, only half the city gets to fly and they still have demons and hostile military forces to deal with.
677* TomeOfEldritchLore: "In-Lak'ech", a [[GreatBigBookOfEverything great big book]] of [[ConspiracyTheorist conspiracy theories]] ranging from Hitler's [[MysteriousAntarctica secret base in Antarctica]] to hibernating genocidal aliens. Naturally, releasing this book in a place like Sumaru City is...[[WhoWouldBeStupidEnough not a good idea]].
678* ToServeMan: The [[HumanPopsicle cryogenically frozen]] [[HumanoidAliens aliens]] inside Xibalba have been asleep a long time, and you look like breakfast.
679* TrainStationGoodbye: Inverted with [[spoiler:Tatsuya and Maya in the ending of ''Innocent Sin'', though the rest of the party is present as well. It's not a goodbye, but a greeting -- only Maya does not remember who he is]].
680* TheTriadsAndTheTongs: The Taiwanese mafia is prominent in ''Eternal Punishment''. The foreign minister is paying them to kidnap people turned into JOKERS.
681* TwoShotsFromBehindTheBar: Parebellum. ([[PunnyName Geddit?]])
682* TheUnintelligible: Zig-zagged with the negotiation system to some degree. Certain demons (in ''Eternal Punishment'', it's the demons that talk about the cosmos or Yog-Sothoth) will talk about absolutely random things with the player having to give random responses that may or may not piss off the demon. However, in the terms of basic negotiation, what worked once is almost always going to work again when used repeatedly.
683** Also zig-zagged with a type of enemies that speak utter gibberish during the negotiations. Some are worth great laughs though!
684* ThereAreNoTherapists: There actually '''is''' a therapy clinic in both games that goes for a very cheap price and is so wonderfully effective that it's enough to [[TraumaInn heal physical wounds of any degree just by]] talking to the therapist, who is coincidentally [[TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes the previous game's final boss]]! (She got better.) Needless to say, it does nothing for the gigantic buttload of issues faced by every member of the cast in either game. Just heals their wounds, yup.
685* UltimateBlacksmith: Padparacha, an upscale jeweler which also happens to accept commissions for weapons. They require both raw materials and astronomical sums for the project. Like the other merchants from Narumi, the store moves about a bit.
686* UndergroundLevel: Oddly, Mt. Iwato is closer to this.
687* UnderwaterRuins: The Undersea Ruins.
688* UnexpectedGameplayChange: Steering a hovercraft down the Amano River. It's a bit of a breather and not really difficult; you still fight random encounters and occasionally pick a direction to turn, similar to ''VideoGame/{{Final Fantasy VI}}'''s Serpent Trench.
689* TheUnintelligible: The Cthulhu mythos monsters in either games. It's humorous though to see the dialogue that stems from them.
690* UnreliableNarrator: In ''Innocent Sin'', Katsuya acts more strict, as it's told from Tatsuya's point of view. However; he doesn't ''quite'' act the same in ''Eternal Punishment'', [[SympatheticPOV where the story is told from Maya's point of view]]. Then again, in ''Eternal Punishment'' Tatsuya is absent for most of it, so it's normal that Katsuya is acting differently.
691* UpdatedRerelease and VideoGameRemake: With a few changes, including a cleaned up battle system, redrawn portraits, and a new Climax Theater mode for ''Innocent Sin''.
692* UnbuiltTrope: ''Innocent Sin'' debuted with many of the ideas that became synonymous with the series, but it also showed just how damning it would be for a group of mentally vulnerable and immature teenagers to be put in a fight against society, cosmic entities, and themselves [[spoiler:with their only achievement being turning an already bad situation even worse, dancing to the tune of one of the participants of a CosmicChessGame all the way to the end]].
693* UnwittingPawn: The Masquerade cult is a representation of their master's long reach; among [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]]'s many names is "God of a Thousand Faces", and his fourth and final boss form is covered in white Shy Guy masks, making his connection to them clear. Likewise, the various [=JOKER=]s spawned by the New World Order are just sporting a variant of the white mask.
694* VaryingTacticsBoss: ''[=P2=]'' mixes this trope with LegacyBossBattle; between ''Innocent Sin'', ''Eternal Punishment'', and the prequel ''VideoGame/Persona1'', several bosses completely change tactics.
695** Tatsuya Sudou keeps his [[PlayingWithFire Fire affinity]] in both games. However, he plays differently each time.
696*** In ''IS'', he's a straightforward fire user who fights alone against your party.
697*** In ''EP'', he suddenly becomes a FlunkyBoss with minions that deal damage and ailments, while he comes with a new Persona (which also deals ailments), and ''[[ThatOneAttack Old Maid]]'' to turn your party against each other.
698*** In ''Tatsuya's Scenario'' from the UpdatedRerelease of ''EP'', he's fought as a DuelBoss and MirrorBoss rolled into one (the player character is also a fire user). This time, he's dubbed as "Drunk Tatsuya Sudou", and while he still deals ailments, he lacks ''Old Maid'' (it's useless against one person alone) and has a copy of your character's SignatureMove.
699** [[spoiler:Ginji Sasaki]] is an [[DishingOutDirt Earth user]] in both games and he can heal... and that's where the similarity ends. In ''IS'', he's fought alone, deals ailments and has a hand-canon of a gun. In ''EP'', he loses the gun, becomes a FlunkyBoss, and takes advantage of his minions' SuicideAttack to damage your party and deal ailments, while he keeps reviving them. And he ''also'' has ''Old Maid''.
700** [[spoiler:Shadow Maya]].
701*** In ''IS'', she is fought alone, and she starts the fight by dealing unblockable damage to the whole party (except for [[spoiler:the real Maya]], who joins the fight right afterwards). She is using [[spoiler:Reverse Maia]], which means [[MakingASplash Water]] and [[AnIcePerson Ice]] attacks, two different OneHitKill attacks that she loves to spam, and Poisons.
702*** In ''EP'', she becomes a DualBoss teaming up with [[spoiler:Shadow Baofu]], and uses [[spoiler:Reverse Artemis]] instead. She's now weak to all physicals but deflects all magic, ditches the one-hit-kill moves and previous ailments for dealing a ton of damage and [[AnIcePerson freezing]], and she can heal too. And of course, you have to worry about her partner too, who is a very nasty customer himself.
703** [[spoiler:Takahisa Kandori]] sure knows how to mix things up.
704*** In ''Persona 1'', he has fought alone, has a WeaksauceWeakness to guns, a fire attack, a darkness attack, a couple of sword attacks, and a trick that prevents you from healing. He then enters a second phase when he gets taken over by his own Persona... but there's a further explanation for that below.
705*** In ''EP'', he is a completely different story. He got rid of all his weaknesses and previous moves, and now he's fought as a FlunkyBoss. He ditches his sword attacks for ranged ones, teams up with the WolfPackBoss that you fought just before him (four AntiMagic {{Mini Mecha}}s), resists ''everything'', has several new attacks including a few that are only shared by the FinalBoss (in ''this'' game), and can heal himself.
706*** In ''Tatsuya's Scenario'', he is fought as a DuelBoss. Dubbed "Playful [[spoiler:Takahisa Kandori]]" (meaning that he's screwing with you), he now reflects Nuclear, rendering half your moves useless, while still resisting everything else, and he has some ''other'' moves that he shares with the FinalBoss, which are designed to keep you from using your skills.
707** The BigBad [[spoiler:Nyarlathotep]] is said to have a thousand faces for a reason. Each time he's fought, he doesn't have a single move in common with the previous ones.
708*** Technically, the first time he is fought is in ''Persona 1'', when he possesses [[spoiler:Kandori]] above for phase 2 of the fight. He keeps the weaknesses of phase 1, but now he looks like a hipster Bhuda except it's BodyHorror and loses all his previous skills. Now he's dealing powerful LightEmUp attacks, as well as ailments.
709*** He pulls this stunt again in ''IS'' with [[spoiler:Joker]], but this time he ditches the ailments and goes for persistent damage that you cannot defend against. And he has no weaknesses, unlike above.
710*** The first time you fight him for real, he's the FinalBoss of ''IS''. In phase 1, he's disguised as [[spoiler:Adolf Hitler]] and has several German and Christian-themed attacks that protect him, seal away abilities and deal ailments. In phase 2, he's a WolfPackBoss of the CognizantLimbs kind: his five different parts all have separate skills, elemental affinities and HP pools. He also deals ailments targeted to specific party members, and can damage your SP instead of HP.
711*** In ''EP'', he comes back as the Final Boss, and this time ditches the weird disguises. In phase 1, depending on player choices, he gets several attacks that ''will'' half your HP and/or instantly kill you whether you want it or not, and even has a move that deals twice the damage if you're defending. In phase 2, he starts dealing ailments, still deals enormous damage, and has an ability that ''negates all healing, buffs and shields''. Have fun.
712*** Subverted in ''Tatsuya's Scenario'', where he's fought as the final boss. While you have a party this time - unlike the other fights from that scenario listed here - and he comes at you with another form, he's a mix of phase 1 and 2 above. The difference is that this time, he reflects Armageddon, so you can't one-shot him on NewGamePlus.
713* VerbalTic:
714** The cashier at [-PEACE-] Burger speaks in an antiquated style of Japanese, a condition caused by a unkind rumor. The effect is [[LostInTranslation sadly lost]] in the English localization for ''Eternal Punishment''; there, they say she "talks like a ninja" but this doesn't really come across in text.
715** Both the fan and official translations of ''Innocent Sin'' retains the effect far better by giving her speech a Shakespeare-ish dialogue range, which give the impression she is trying overly hard to be formal, which, given the limitations of the English language, is a fair analogue to the original.
716* TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: Xibalba in ''Innocent Sin'', Monad Mandala in ''Eternal Punishment''.
717* VictoryQuote: Even the protagonists have them, and fully voiced at that.
718--> '''Tatsuya''': Bad luck, running into ''me''.
719* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: You can kill Principal Hanya by spreading a rumor.
720** VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: If you kill him, it becomes harder to get an ultimate weapon at the end of the game.
721* WantedPoster: The Konan PD was a board filled with these. In ''Innocent Sin'', Tatsuya comments that one of them looks familiar, even though we don't see the picture ourselves. It's heavily implied to be Sudou.
722* WarmupBoss: Principal Hanya in ''Innocent Sin''.
723** At the start of ''Eternal Punishment'', the JOKER fetches a [[WolfpackBoss pack of high-level randoms]] on you, in the same location but without the clock-smashing quest.
724* WeDidntStartTheFuhrer: Hitler in ''Innocent Sin''. He has the ''Lance of Longinus'', for crying out loud!
725* WeaponSpecialization
726** CoolSword: Both Tatsuya and Nanjo fight with two-handed swords. Eriko, an accomplished fencer, wields a rapier.
727** GoodOldFisticuffs: Lisa and Ulala.
728** GatlingGood: Eikichi's concealed [[SenselessViolins guitar case machine gun]].
729** {{Handguns}}: Maya's [[GunsAkimbo dual pink Handguns]]. Katsuya brandishes a police-issue pistol.
730** ImprobableWeaponUser: Yukino [[DangerouslyCloseShave lobs razors]], a clue to her [[ReformedCriminal reformed punk]] past in the original ''Persona''. Best example: Jun Kurosu fights with ''flowers''.
731*** The other good example is Baofu, who throws coins at people.
732*** More improbable: There's a scene with Baofu flipping coins at a guy with two machine guns, and HE gets the better of him.
733* WearingAFlagOnYourHead: Chiropractor Tomi got his medical degree in the states and returned with a passion for all things U.S.A. It's not even humanly possible to be wearing more flag apparel than Dr. T. is.
734* WellDoneSonGuy: All over the place in ''Innocent Sin''. Not only does ''every'' main character not named Tatsuya have daddy issues, but [[spoiler:the FinalBoss is literally a [[CompositeCharacter giant composite]] of everyone's fathers.]]
735* WesternZodiac: Used extensively in various ways, more so in ''Innocent Sin.'' When [[spoiler:Sumaru gets ejected into the sky]], four locations are destroyed and replaced with four Zodiac shrines: Aquarius, Scorpio, Taurus, and Leo. To take the symbolism further, these four signs are all the Fixed (constant) quality signs, four of the five protagonists (Maya being the exception -- she's a Cancer, which is a Cardinal water sign) have these four as their astrological signs ([[spoiler:Aquarius for Jun, Scorpio for Eikichi, Taurus for Lisa, and Leo for Tatsuya]]), and you fight their respective Shadows within ([[spoiler:Jun is an exception; instead you fight a platoon of Longinus mechs instead.]])!
736* WhamEpisode: Mt. Iwato in both games, which offers a lot of plot twists.
737* WhamLine: The games, in general, are ''filled'' with these because the writers pulled absolutely no punches. Every plot twist great and small can hit like a shot to the gut. Even if you see them coming, especially ''because'' they build up perfectly logically from what's gone on before, they are vicious and perfect. They're two of Atlus's most tightly plotted games.
738* WhenThePlanetsAlign: The ultimate HarbingerOfImpendingDoom in ''Innocent Sin''.
739* WhenThingsSpinScienceHappens: The giant rings surrounding [[spoiler:Sumaru City]] when it takes flight.
740* WhereItAllBegan: Rengedai in general, as each of the key locations, are strategically placed there. Both games start out at Seven Sisters, and the [[spoiler:Narurato Stone in the courtyard]] is a portal to Xibalba. In ''Eternal Punishment'', Sumaru Castle erupts from a park much like the previous game's shrines did. And, of course, Alaya Shrine and Mt. Iwato are the Masked Four's old haunts. (The former hides a portal to Monad Mandala.)
741* WhiteMaskOfDoom: Joker, the Masked Four, the rank and file in the Masked Circle, and (in ''Eternal Punishment''), anyone who becomes possessed by [[spoiler:JOKER]].
742* WindIsGreen: As per series standards. In ''Innocent Sin,'' the Crystal Skull of Wind is also green, and the Aquarius temple that holds it is green as well (despite the title, Aquarius is generally associated with wind).
743* WistfulAmnesia: [[spoiler:In the [[NoobCave Beginning Dungeon]] of ''Innocent Sin'', the gang cry in presence of Maya; their unconscious memories of her triggered the event. Also, what Jun, Eikichi and Lisa experience in the ending of ''Eternal Punishment'']].
744* WolfpackBoss:
745** ''Innocent Sin'':
746*** To climb Mt. Katatsumuri, the party has to break through a Nazi blockade, resulting in this.
747*** Most of the fights against the Longinus Spear mechs. They face you in groups of three, and each mech has different elemental affinities.
748*** The Bolontiku fight, as they're functioning as a MirrorBoss against your party. It's a five vs. five match.
749*** The FinalBoss technically plays like this. While it's one entity, it has five different... ''parts'' that each has its own turn, skills, affinities and HP pool.
750** ''Eternal Punishment'':
751*** The very first boss in the game is a gang of an Empusa and two Apeps.
752*** At the end of Nichirinmaru, the squad has to fight three robots of the X-series. It would have been four, but fortunately Tatsuya was there to take care of that one.
753*** Wang Long Chizuru invokes this in her fights via SelfDuplication. Unfortunately for her, it plays more like a FlunkyBoss since the clones are not perfect and [[PuzzleBoss there's a trick to eliminating them all at once]].
754*** The [[ThatOneBoss/{{Atlus}} infamous]] Metal Trio is a fight against [[spoiler:golden statues of Lisa, Eikichi and Jun from the previous game.]]
755* YouAreNumberSix: Fuhrer's personal guard, the Longinus 13, which in German translates to "Eins," "Zwei," "Drei," etc.
756* YouCantThwartStageOne: [[spoiler:The Joker/NWO manage to unearth their spaceship and release the SealedEvilInACan]].
757** You Can't Thwart Stage Two, either. (see entry for "The Bad Guy Wins").
758* ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld: The (supposedly) model blimp on the roof of the Sky Museum. The cutscene where it takes flight is a pivotal moment in both stories.
759* ZodiacMotifs: The game runs on WesternZodiac symbolism, but it's most prominent with the [[ApocalypseCult Masked Circle]]. The four highest executives -- other than their leader Joker -- are called King Leo, Queen Aquarius, Lady Scorpio and Prince Taurus. Other than Queen Aquarius who is TheUnfought, they all have ElementalPowers based on their Zodiac signs -- for example, King Leo has fire powers. Later it's revealed that [[spoiler:Joker specifically created this team as counterparts to the protagonists, who they themselves belong to those four Zodiac signs and have the same elemental powers, as they are his old friend group (he himself is Aquarius). In addition, these four are the fixed Zodiac signs, which comes into play to fulfill the Prophecy of Maya]].
760[[/folder]]
761
762----
763-->''[[ThematicThemeTune I can't heal\
764if I keep on running away\
765from my own fate...]]''

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