Persona 5 - Kaneshiro’s Bank
This is where Persona 5 starts giving of those Ocean’s 11 vibes, which will only get stronger as we move closer to our final heist target. This is also where the alter egos of the villain depart from looking distinctly human to something other. It symbolizes the corruption of the villain to the point where most of humanity seems to have left Kaneshiro. His greed and hunger has transformed him into a pig. Kamoshida took pride in his physical appearance and appeared mostly naked inside his palace. Madarame carried delusions of grandeur that manifested his appearance to be that of a great benevolent artist in his museum. Deep down Kaneshiro knows he has succumbed to his baser instincts. So he appears as a pig in a suit when inside his bank.
When we first enter his palace, it is all of Shibuya in there with a giant bank hovering overhead. All the people here are just ATMs. Some have been completed tapped out of all their cash and dying by the side. Subtle as a hammer. Kaneshiro sees people only as the money dispensing machines. Once they are empty, they are discarded by the wayside. He sees all of Shibuya as his playground, while he sits in his bank above all the people.
Even as a human Kaneshiro is not exactly a model
Man he really falls apart inside his bank
Even though I did not like it as much on my first run, it is not as bad once I got lay of the palace better. It also helps to be a little bit overpowered when coming in here because those guard dogs take a chunk of HP out of the party. The fact that I have loaded up on the SP regenerating items allows me to be more liberal with the use of spells. The buffs, debuffs and the weakness exploitation is where Persona 5 truly shines. Having figured out most of these makes it easier to chain attacks with the “1 more” and attack handoff mechanics. I have a better idea of how to use the battle mechanics this time around which is probably why I’m enjoying the Bank more. As far as the lay of the land aspect, I had missed flipping one of the switches in my last play through which had me fumbling around the whole place for hours. Knowing where all the switches were in advance made the traversal smoother than last time. Even so, I find myself more interested in the social simulator aspect of the game more than the battle aspect. Dungeons feel like a chore I must complete so I can go back to making friends in high school.
I am about halfway through the palace. The second part is a giant bank vault. There isn’t much to the palace other than a series of corridors patrolled by guards and their dogs. Fight them and get to the switches to turn off the security. Few hallways also have security spotlights that can be avoided by hiding behind cover and moving into the space when the lights move off. At least the music is still amazing.
05/08/2020
Finished with the Bank and it is the third palace where I got through in single in-game day (took me a few real-time days though). Coffee and curry really help make dungeon traversal smoother. Only using one day on the palace makes more time available for all other aspects of the game. Considering my social stats are all maxed out, this mostly translates into hanging out with friends.
Atlus studio is now owned by Sega. While selling some of my items, I noticed a nod to Sonic. One of the accessories is named Sonic socks, description of which says, “socks that lets one run as fast a hedgehog” (I wonder what would be the average running speed of a hedgehog in real life).
Dehumanization of Kaneshiro continues. As an end boss he transforms from a pig into a fly. Distraction is a boss battle mechanic I don’t think I have talked of yet. During the boss battle, Hero gets an option to send out some one from the team to cause a distraction for major damage to the boss. Some members are able to cause distraction while others don’t escape notice. For the most part the boss is beatable without this trick too, but it does make short work of them. The downside is we have to fight one player short for a few turns. With Kaneshiro dropping an item causes him to try to scoop it up. More expensive the item is, more he is tempted to expose himself to damage in effort to get to it. I have not been able to figure out an item that will tempt him enough. In the end I beat him without resorting to the distraction.
Akechi pops up right before the boss fight. He probably took pictures of the Thieves here which will come into play soon. Now knowing his true nature, all the conversations with him take on a more sinister meaning. Right now I’m role playing Joker as someone who already knows the truth about Akechi and only playing dumb to lure him into a false sense of security. None of it changes the narrative of the game but it is fun to have that story in my mind. There was an earlier event at a school trip where Akechi tripped up and let us know that he can understand Morgana. Since only those who have been inside the Metaverse can understand her, he is at the very least lying about not knowing anything about the alternate universe.
05/07/2020
