July 26
I finished Hermit Rank 8 today. The quest is fairly simple and only takes three days, but you also need to have fed the cat first (a quest from the guy outside the bookstore). Talk to the guy on the first day, show him to the cat you fed, then bring him a Red Goldfish on the second day and talk to him again on the third.
Evening
The Midnight Channel comes on again, and this time, it's a clear image. A strange boy taunts you to come and find him if you think he's responsible.
Yosuke calls, and wonders who the boy is, since he's never been on TV before. Teddie asks to talk to you, and after seeing the Midnight Channel for the first time, realizes that it isn't being filmed by anyone- rather, it's a product of the victims' suppressed emotions, resonating with the other side and being picked up on TV. He expresses trust in you, and as a result, you get up to Rank 3 in his Social Link- a lot of Teddie's rank-ups come at seemingly random times.
July 27
Rise searches for the boy, but since she doesn't even know who he is, it's hard to start. Your Fool Social Link goes up another level.
Talk to Dojima, and after complaining about you sticking your nose into things again, he'll wonder aloud about where Adachi went. That's all you can do today, but it isn't immediately obvious- you'll only find out if you talk with Yukiko, who notes that you probably won't find him today.
I did the second-to-last Hermit quest today, which is by far the easiest. Simply talk to the woman in Samegawa Flood Plain, look in the sign at the base of the stairs at the riverbank, go back to the woman, check the bushes near the shrine in the northern part of the shopping district and go back to the woman again. By doing so, I was able to get Hermit Rank 9.
Evening
I worked at the hospital again.
July 28
Go talk with Adachi, and he'll tell you where the boy used to work. Go to Souzai Daigaku, and you'll hear about Mitsuo's classmate, but again, he's not there.
Evening
I was able to go up a rank in the social link this time.
Devil Rank 5
As you clean, you hear sounds of a commotion from outside. Sayoko comes in, and reveals a bit of her past. She was involved with a doctor at a previous hospital, but found out that he had a wife, and was forced to quit. Apparently, something happened, because the other woman tracked Sayoko down and attacked her, while the other nurses watched. Sayoko's more annoyed than anything else about it, but she's also starting to question why she's even a nurse. You can choose a few options to help her, but it's hard to get points here, since she's initially unwilling to hear what you have to say. She is appreciative in the end, though, and leaves, hoping that the "bitch" is gone.
July 29 Only one step remains if you did everything right. Talk to the student with a book bag, and he'll show you Mitsuo's photo. Apparently, he's only available on certain days of the week, but this shouldn't be that much of a problem if you did all the steps correctly, as it only means the investigation takes three days rather than two.
Go inside the TV world, and suddenly, the boy seems familiar. Chie recognizes him as the one who asked Yukiko out, and wonders if he kidnapped her to get back at her. Rise remembers him coming to the shop and badmouthing bikers to her, prompting her to ignore him, which makes Kanji wonder if he'd been identified as a biker because of his being on the special report. Chie also suggests that since Mitsuo thought that women who cheated on their husbands should be executed, he'd want to kill them himself. Convinced that Mitsuo's the killer, the party then heads to his dungeon, modeled after an old-school RPG.
For the moment, though, I went back to the Marukyu striptease, getting some disapproving reactions from my party.
- OPTIONAL BOSS: Momentary ChildParty: Yu(35). Yosuke(35), Chie(35), Yukiko(35), Rise(35)Personas: Ganga (45)
This boss isn't so hard. It follows a simple pattern of increasing its attack and Crit rate, before attacking someone with Assault Dive. By debuffing the boss, I can ensure that it doesn't get an instant kill, and by using Ice skills on it, I can ensure that it's knocked down and takes more damage. The boss gets more dangerous near the end, as it starts spamming Herculean Strike.
You get a Strega Claw for Teddie, and I decided to go back to the castle.
- OPTIONAL BOSS: Contrarian KingParty: Yu(35). Yosuke(35), Chie(35), Yukiko(35), Rise(35)Personas: Ganga (45)
Unfortunately, the Suzaku Feather, my prize for winning, despite offering a good amount of SP to Yukiko, has too low of an attack to really be viable.
I then entered Void Quest. Having recently become able to fuse Taotie, I started using it despite it being lower level than Ganga, because it had Megido, which was quite useful against Golden Hands. By the time I reached Level 37, I fused Taotie and Ganga to make Parvati.
On the third floor, Mitsuo claims that he "defeated" Mayumi, much to Rise's horror(although there's something funny about declaring that he's "so on (her) enemies list!"), and repeats the same claim for Saki on the next floor, although he doesn't refer to either by name. The third floor also features various teleporters, but gets a lot easier with the map.
The seventh floor has a maze that turns the camera around when you step on an intersection. If you keep heading straight, or use the map, you won't get lost. Reaching the exit isn't that hard, but before you do, you must find an object on the floor. To get there, though, you must face a mini-boss.
SUB-BOSS: Killing Hand
- Party: Yu(38), Yosuke(38), Chie(38) Yukiko(38), Rise(38)Personas: Parvati (42)
This boss usually is fairly easy for me, but I had a bit more trouble here, possibly due to being underleveled. The boss summons Almighty Hands, which primarily heal the boss. Like with most encounters that feature minions, your job is to kill the minions as quickly as possible so that you have more time to focus on the boss. Of course, this gets harder on Very Hard mode, and when the Killing Hand isn't summoning minions, it can do a lot of damage with Deathbound.
By the eighth floor, Mitsuo admits to killing King Moron (this time, not saying "defeat"), and by the ninth, he seemingly goes completely insane. The next floor is the Endgame, and in order to get through the door, you need the Orb of Darkness.
You find Mitsuo arguing with his Shadow, claiming to have killed all three victims. Since he threatens to kill the party, it's clear that he can't be reasoned with, which is a shame, since his Shadow is one of two candidates for the hardest storyline boss in the game.
- BOSS: Shadow MitsuoParty': Yu(45), Yosuke(45), Chie(45), Yukiko(45), Rise (45)Personas: Kushnieda (47)
I tried the boss at Level 39, but had trouble chipping away at his defenses while keeping pace with his attacks, and Yu died when the boss got a critical hit and followed up with a Megidola. I tried again at 40 after gaining some levels with Parvati, and took the boss down to 25%, but he almost immediately restored his shell, and soon did a double attack on Yu, killing him in spite of Yu being at full health. A few attempts and levels worth of grinding later, I was able to win.
In the first part of the battle, when you're taking down the outer shell, Shadow Mitsuo uses one of three attacks 1)A sword attack that does a significant amount of damage, 2)A bomb that does a bit less damage but inflicts Exhaustion, and (after restoring his outer shell) 3)a Gigadyne spell that hits everyone. To make matters worse, he acts twice per turn, something that no boss or enemy had done before.
Once you take off his health, you get an All-Out Attack on Shadow Mitsuo himself, but he switches gears. He initially uses an attack, then casts an elemental Wall on himself, after which he uses multi-target elemental spells of that element. This can be surprisingly problematic, given that 1)You'll have to defend against it with characters that have that elemental weakness(for example, if he uses Red Wall, Chie must defend), 2)Characters who use that element will have less success attacking him (under the previous example, that means Yukiko and Yu, since Yu's strongest attacks are Fire-based), and to a lesser extent, 3)If you repel that element, it does little good.
Eventually, Shadow Mitsuo will use three commands- Whisper, Chant and Prayer- to rebuild his outer armor. The bad news is that once he does so, you'll have to kill the outer shell again, this time while dealing with Gigadyne. The good news is that he usually doesn't use both turns on it, and if you inflict enough damage, the process will halt, and he'll be open to an All-Out Attack.
Unfortunately, when you reach certain milestones of his health (I think about 75%, 50% and 25%), he uses one or two of those commands in a row, and almost always recovers his shell before long, making you fight the outer shell again.
When Shadow Mitsuo's rebuilding his defenses, he'll also change his strategy, and use Foul Breath to increase ailment susceptibility before following up with Evil Touch (Fear on one person) and Evil Smile (Fear on everyone). You must remove it IMMEDIATELY, or else he will use Ghastly Wail, which is a One-Hit Kill on anyone with Fear. If the entire party gets Fear, that results in an unavoidable Total Party Kill- small wonder he's so notoriously difficult.
All in all, this is one boss in which your ability to deal and take damage is very important, and doing as much as you can will help shorten the battle so that you don't fall prey to his attacks.
After the battle, Mitsuo comes to, and continues to deny his Shadow, which fades away. After gloating about that, he collapses, and the party takes him to the real world. Once there, he scoffs at your attempts to question him, and continues ranting about how he killed/kidnapped people who made him mad. Kanji, furious, seems to be about to beat Mitsuo up or worse, but instead, he declares that Mitsuo won't be allowed to die until he fully understands what he's done and pays for it. Kanji then turns to Yosuke, who's in a Heroic B.S.O.D. over Saki being killed by a lowlife like Mitsuo, and demands that he get to his senses and call the police. Chie, evidently troubled by Yosuke's state, softly says his name.
Chie's depressed after the arrest, saying that she's appalled by the idea of Mitsuo killing just to draw attention. Yosuke, who's still a bit down, reassures her that he knows where she's coming from. Rise decides to leave the rest to the police, and Teddie's confident that his world will go back to normal, allowing him to score with the chicks. Yukiko gets annoyed at the constant mentions of "scoring," and when Kanji tries to find out what happened with her, she reminds him that just as he wants to keep "the sauna incident secret," she wants to do the same with hers. Rise complains about not getting to see anyone else's secret, and Yosuke notices that only he, you and Teddie saw everyone's. Yosuke also points out that you didn't need to face your Shadow, and you briefly question why. The gang decides to celebrate, but since the Amagi Inn is full, they decide to go over, since Dojima will be out (this still happens even if Dojima's home.
You call Nanako to set things up, and Nanako, while initially saying anything's fine, decides on an omelet with fried rice. The girls split up to get their ingredients, and Yosuke knows it's not a good sign. He then asks what kind of omelet you plan to make, while offering to get ingredients for you. Of the our choices, apparently "Asian American, soy flavored," is the best, but since none of the guides I saw are willing to defeat Mitsuo again to test it out, neither am I.
The girls get back, and Rise, despite having as "out there" a taste in ingredients as Chie and Yukiko smugly taunts the other girls about the horrible food they made at the camping trip. Chie gets irritated and tells her to gloat while she can (oddly enough, using "-san" rather than "-chan" on Rise at this point), while Yukiko calmly says she'll "crush (Rise) in one strike" with her "angry" portrait. Kanji walks up, having nonchalantly picked up some alcohol, and sheepishly puts it back when Yukiko notices. Meanwhile, Teddie helps himself to the samples, much to Yosuke's chagrin.
While everyone's cooking, Teddie sits down at the table with Nanako, and says that since you and Yosuke solved the case and kept your promise, he'll probably have to go back to his world. Nanako, however, makes him make a promise of his own to come back and play. You can remind him of that promise, and convince him to stay, resulting in the Star Social Link reaching Rank 4.
Afterward, you and the girls serve up your omelets.
- The good news is that Yukiko's doesn't taste too bad, but the bad news is that it doesn't taste like anything at all, leading Kanji to have trouble describing it. Yukiko's offended that he doesn't taste anything, but is glad when Nanako says she likes it.
- Chie's omelet tastes horrible, according to Teddie and even Yukiko, while Yosuke declares it a huge improvement over the curry. Nanako, however, says its good.
- Rise's omelet is extremely spicy, and causes Yukiko to pass out after one bite, ("Sure enough, one strike," as Yosuke puts it), causing Rise to complain about the others being mean and cry Crocodile Tears. Nanako's still willing to praise it, though, although it's clear that because Nanako dislikes spicy foods, she has a bit more trouble this time.
- Finally, yours is up. As far as I know, it's declared the best (not surprising, given the competition), and you get relationship points with Nanako based on your choice.
After the competition ends, the guys complain about not getting enough to eat, while the girls point out that they should have eaten more of the omelets. You then discuss the upcoming festival in the shopping district, and plan to attend.
