Persona 2: Eternal Punishment

Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (ペルソナ2 罰 Perusona Tsū: Batsu^?) is a role-playing video game developed by Atlus, and chronologically the third installment in the Persona series, a subseries of the Megami Tensei franchise. It was originally published in 2000 by Atlus in Japan and North America for the PlayStation. The game was later remade by Atlus for the PlayStation Portable. This version, released in Japan in 2012, did not receive an overseas release. In response to this, the original version was released on PlayStation Network in 2013.

Eternal Punishment takes place in the fictional Japanese city of Sumaru, and is a direct sequel to Persona 2: Innocent Sin. Taking place a year after Innocent Sin, the game follows reporter Maya Amamo as she investigates the Joker Curse, a malign phenomenon where people's wishes and rumors are coming true and causing chaos. During her investigations, she and others who join her gain the ability to summon Personas, personified aspects of their personalities. The gameplay features turn-based battle gameplay, where characters use their Personas in battle against demons, and a separate Rumor system, where rumors spread around the city can influence events in the characters' favor.

Halfway through the production of Innocent Sin, writer Tadashi Satomi felt that a fresh point of view was needed in addition to Tatsuya, laying the groundwork for Eternal Punishment. The original producer (Kouji Odaka), character designer (Kazuma Kaneko) and composers (Toshiko Tasaki, Kenichi Tsuchiya and Masaki Kurokawa) returned alongside Satomi. The second game began development after Innocent Sin was completed, and while it reused most of the assets from Innocent Sin, the gameplay and Rumor system were improved upon. The game's theme song, "Change Your Way", was written by English singer-songwriter Elisha La'Verne based on the game's premise. Reception of the game in Japan and the west has generally been positive.

Contents

• 1 Gameplay
• 2 Synopsis
  • 2.1 Setting and characters
  • 2.2 Plot
   

1 . Gameplay

  

Persona 2: Eternal Punishment is a role-playing game where the player takes control of a group of characters exploring the fictional city of Sumaru. The camera follows the party from an adjustable angled overhead perspective. The city in general is navigated using an overworld map. A key element to the story and gameplay is the Rumor system: after the characters hear a rumor, they can spread that rumor around the city using certain characters, and those rumors can grant the characters special items or other positive or negative effects.

Battles consist of both story-related boss fights and random encounters with standard enemies. Battles are turn-based, with the player characters and enemies moving around a small battle arena to perform actions. Once the player has laid out their strategy in the battle menu, the characters perform their assigned actions until the battle ends with victory for one side or the player pauses the action to change strategies. Instead of the grid-based battle system from the original Persona, party members and enemy units act in the same phase of a turn, rather than being restricted by their placement on the field.

During battle, players cast spells using an assigned Persona: each spell drains a character's Spell Point meter. Each Persona has different elemental strengths and weaknesses, and different Personas can be used for defense, healing or elemental attacks. While a Persona is originally quite weak, if it is used enough, it will achieve a higher rank, with Rank 8 being the highest possible. As the Persona's rank is raised, that Persona is able to cast more powerful spells. In addition to individual actions, the player can align characters to trigger a Fusion Spell: when two or more party members use a certain sequence of spells, they will automatically summon multiple Personas to generate a powerful attack. During battles, both characters and Personas earn experience points. The player has the option to activate an Auto-battle option, having combat play out without player interaction.

During battle, the player can converse with enemies, though they are restricted to a single set of dialogue options instead of four as in the original Persona. If the player succeeds in talking with the enemy using the right character, it both causes the enemy to leave the battlefield and gains a spell card (a Tarot card linked to one of the Arcanum or family of Personas), which can be used to create Personas in a location called the Velvet Room. In the Velvet Room, the player can summon a new Persona that belongs to a spell card's particular Persona family group. As a character gains experience levels, more powerful Personas from a spell card's group become available. In addition to pre-set spell cards, the player can also obtain blank skill cards by forming contracts with enemies through the right conversation. These blank skill cards can be tailored to fit a chosen Persona family.

 2 . Synopsis

2.1 Setting and characters

Set a few months after the ending of Persona 2: Innocent Sin, Eternal Punishment takes place in 1999 in Sumaru (珠閒瑠^?), a fictional seaside city in Japan with a population of 1.28 million with its own media stations and a structure leftover from its foundations during the Warring States period. Many of the characters come from two high schools in Sumaru: Seven Sisters (七姉妹学園^?), a prestigious school the protagonist of Innocent Sin, and the less-prestigious Kasugayama (春日山^?). All the protagonists wield Personas, manifestations of their personalities. The ability to wield Personas was granted to them by Philemon, a benevolent personification of humanity's Collective Unconscious. The events of Innocent Sin are said to stem from a contest between Philemon and his opposite Nyarlathotep to see if humans could find a higher purpose in life despite embracing contradictory emotions. During the events of Innocent Sin, Nyarlathotep influenced events in his favor and all the world except Sumaru City was destroyed. In order to reset events, the party used the power of the Collective Unconscious to will the key event that caused the events of Innocent Sin out of existence in exchange for their memories of those events: this created an alternate timeline, with the Innocent Sin timeline existing as a separate "Other Side". A key element to the story of Eternal Punishment is Kegare, a negative energy that can possess humans and trigger rises in crime and the perpetuation of more Kegare.

The main protagonist of Eternal Punishment is Maya Amano, a reporter for teen magazine "Coolest" who had previously been a playable character in Innocent Sin. She is joined on her adventure by others, including people who were involved in the events of Innocent Sin: Tatsuya Suou, a student at Seven Sisters and the main protagonist of Innocent Sin; Ulala Serizawa, a school friend of Maya's an aspiring fashion designer; Baofu, a former prosecuting attorney out for revenge against the Taiwanese Mafia; and Katsuya Suou, Tatsuya's older brother and a sergeant in the Sumaru City Police Department. Returning antagonists include Tatsuya Sudou, a madman who was involved in the incident that precipitated the events of Innocent Sin; and Takahisa Kandori, a former servant of Nyarlathotep and the main antagonist of Revelations: Persona who is resurrected through the power of Kotodama. Kandori in turn serves Tatsuzou Sudou, Tatsuya Sudou's father. Two other central characters from Revelations: Persona, Kei Nanjō and Eriko Kirishima, act as supporting characters and optional playable characters. The other protagonists of Innocent Sin (Eikichi "Michel" Mishina, Lisa "Ginko" Silverman, Juna Kashihira) play minor supporting roles.

2.2 Plot

Eternal Punishment begins when Maya is sent to write a story about the Joker phenomenon: according to rumor, if someone phones their own number, the Joker will kill on request. Going to Seven Sisters, she, Ulala, and Katsuya find the school principal murdered by the Joker. The Joker then attacks them, forcing each of them to summon their Personas. After the Joker knocks them out, Philemon contacts them and warns of a growing danger to the city. After waking, the three pursue the Joker into the school clock tower, where he attempts for force a student to remember the events of Innocent Sin. They are saved by Tatsuya, who tells Maya for forget about him. After Katsuya is removed from the case by his superior Captain Shimazu, he teams up with Maya and Ulala to find the Joker. They eventually ally with Baofu, who believes that Tatsuya Sudou and his father Tatsuzou are involved with the Joker. Going to the mental institution where Sudou is held, they discover that Tatsuzou sent Taiwanese Mafia hitmen to kill Sudou. Once confronted, Sudou admits that he is the Joker, and reveals that he is attempting to trigger the reappearance of the Other Side. Pursuing him to the Sky Museum, the party run into Tatsuya, and save Jun from Sudou after he sets the building on fire. After escaping with the museum's visitors on a blimp, an injured Sudou makes a final attack that damages the blimp before Tatsuya kills him, then the blimp is evacuated. When the party regroup, Tatsuya has vanished.

Upon their return, the party continue to investigate Tatsuzou's activities, and find that negative feelings are turning other people into new "Jokers", who are in turn being kidnapped by Tatsuzou's agents. The party eventually learn that Tatsuzou and a secret organization he leads, the New World Order, is manipulating all Sumaru's vital services for his own ends. After this, they hear of two others, Kei and Eriko, investigating the New World Order and their links with the Joker curse and an increasingly prevalent fortune telling craze used to manipulate the spread of rumors: they are involved due to the possible involvement of Kandori, a former enemy of theirs, who is posing as Tatsuzou's secretary. Depending on the party's actions at this point, either Kei or Eriko will join their party as they go to investigate the holding area for the new Jokers. Upon arriving, they find Eikichi captured by Kandori while looking for a friend. While Kandori attempts to awaken Eikichi's memories of the Other Side, Tatsuya intervenes and enables the party and Eikichi to escape. The group then save Lisa and her girl group from their promoter, another Order member, with help from Tatsuya, who again vanishes afterwards. Through a friendly informant in the Police, they learn the New World Order's ultimate goal: to raise Sumaru City in the rumor-generated spaceship "Torifune", and trigger the destruction of the Earth's surface by sacred dragons by creating a concentration of Kegare to create a new world free of sin. The only way to stop the plan's fulfillment is defeating the Order.

After failing to corner Tatsuzou and puzzled about Tatsuya's motives, the party finally persuade Tatsuya to reveal the truth. During the original confrontation with Nyarlathotep, Maya was killed, prompting the rest of the group (Tatsuya, Lisa, Jun and Eikichi) to reset events. Tatsuya refused to forget the events of the Other Side, creating a dangerous loophole: if all the other members of the original group could be forced to remember, the Other Side would be brought back into existence, destroying the present reality. After revealing this, Tatsuya is allowed to join the party in place of either Kei or Eriko. After returning to Sumaru proper, the city is raised by Tatsuzou as part of Torifune. Successfully infiltrating Tirofune and defeating Tatsuzou and his "god" Gozen, the city returns to the surface, but the party are drawn into the Collective Unconscious by Nyarlathotep. Making their way into his domain, they discover Nyarlathotep has kidnapped Eikichi, Lisa and Jun in an effort to force their memories of the Other Side into reality. Defeating the Shadow Selves guarding them, the party saves each of them, then confront Nyarlathotep, who mocks Tatsuya for refusing to fulfill his part of Philemon's agreement. After Nyarlathotep is defeated, Tatsuya fulfills his side of the bargain, and after saying his final goodbyes separates his Other Side consciousness from his current self. With the city returned to normal and any specific memories of the Other Side gone, the party return to their normal lives.