Video Game Review: Persona Retrospective: Persona (PSP) Part 5: Hostile Takeover

Once the group created new Personas they head off to the Subway and find Elly. Of course she's surprised to find Maki up and walking but decides now isn't the time to be asking questions, especially when she says that the subway tunnels are all buried. After Mark fills Elly in on what she missed she offers her services, but in this case the gang refuses and head off to the Abandoned Factory. Not one to be discouraged she then decides to wander around town and heads off. At the factory Maki complements Mark's graffiti, then Nanjo points out that even though Mark hangs around the place all the time, he never noticed SEBEC's activity.

After Mark proves how SMRT he is the group finds Ayase hiding behind a barrel. She says that she barely got out alive since apparently St Hermelin wasn't as safe as they first thought. According to her the whole damn place is just gone. Nanjo speculates that the school vanished due to the effects of the Deva system and that once Kandori is stopped, St Hermelin should pop back up in short order. Ayase wants to come along, but of course the group refuses so she tells them to go to hell before storming off. But yeah at this point the group doesn't even know if Ayase has a Persona or not, she clearly doesn't have a lot of combat experience so she could be a liability if they took her along. So the Scooby Gang finds the entrance to the abandoned factory and try to find Kandori. I only have two piece of advice for this section, first; once you complete a dungeon you can't go back, so be sure to save often when you find the save points and open every chest you come across, two, if you come across a Yakuza demon, get its Spell Card, it will save you an insane amount of trouble later if you are trying to get every spell card in the game. Why should you? Because you will get a very special Totem for doing so that will allow you to summon an incredibly powerful Persona. So after fighting your way to the top of the SEBEC building you finally encounter Kandori. But before you head in you hear Kandori's Bodyguard apologizing for letting a woman (Most likely Setsuko) escape but all Kandori is concerned with is making sure that his scientists finish adjusting the Deva System. The group busts in but Kandori just sends his bodyguard Takeda and some goons on them to cover his escape, but not before Kandori reveals his Persona, Nyarlathotep of the Tower Arcana.

An Outer god of H.P Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, Nyarlathotep is known as "The Crawling Chaos", "The Faceless God", "Black Pharaoh" and the "Stalker of the Stars".

Once he delivers a taste of his power Kandori runs off leaving Naorin and his group to deal with Takeda, his goons and his own Persona. The goons should be no problem, just use attacks that hit multiple targets to get rid of them quickly, Takeda can be a problem with his guns and his Delyte skill, which can cause area wide blindness, just use Ice and Earth attacks to end the battle faster, but make sure you have plenty of revival beads with you because this can get nasty. Once the muscle is done for the gang looks for Kandori's secret door while Maki wonders where she's seen him before. Before you press the button near Kandori's desk, check the closet to find a new sword for Nanjo. Once the group finally makes it to the Deva system chamber Kandori is talking with the Deva systems creator; Dr Nikolai who is trying desperately to convince Kandori to stop all of this. Kandori's response goes something like this.

Even if it means throwing people into the dimensional rift created by the Deva System. Like a certain high school boy that seemed pretty determined to stop Kandori for some reason, but eh that probably isn't important, he's most likely dead now anyway, no need to give him a second thought no siree. Anyway the group manages to get inside but Kandori just ignores them, taking the Doctor with him inside the Deva System itself. Maki seems to vaguely remember the Deva system for some reason, but before she can remember where; the system starts to cause tremors. It turns out that Nikolai pulled a fast one on Kandori and has set the device to take the both of them out by reducing them both to Atoms. Kandori screams for someone to stop the machine, but of course the group doesn't know how. Maki mysteriously says that the blue button on the console will increase the output, but the red button is the emergency stop button (I'm guessing Dr Nikolai likes his devices to be idiot proof). Mark says they should press the red button to stop the machine. That way the group can stop Kandori themselves and save the Doctor. Nanjo on the other hand says to respect Dr Nikolai's wishes and press the blue button and take Kandori, the Doctor and the Deva System out at once. Naorin takes the more humane route and presses the red button to stop the Deva System, however the system doesn't stop and even worse Kandori starts to re-materialize before the entire area is surrounded by a bright white light. When the light subsides a little girl pops up in front of the Deva System saying how she won't let the group kill her "Daddy".

This is Aki, and oh boy are we going to hate her later.

Yeah this little girl turns out to be Kandori's trump card, Kandori then orders Aki to take him back to her world and she does so accidentally taking the group with her. After being teleported to a school gym the group starts to wake up after being knocked out from the teleportation. Once everyone is up Mark points out that they've been transported to their old school gym before it was torn down 6 months ago. But before the group can figure out what's going on they're informed that Yosuke got seriously injured, with that Maki rushed off to see what happened with Nanjo, Mark and Naorin not too far behind. So with that we'll explore this strange, brave new world next time.

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