Persona 5 - Masayoshi Shido

            With the route to treasure secured, only thing left to do is to send out the calling card. The Thieves do not have access to this man, so something grand needs to be done to get his attention. With Futaba on their side, anything is possible. With everything at stake, the Thieves make this their biggest declaration yet.  They hack into the public broadcasting system; the Phantom Thieves announce Shido’s crimes and their intention to change his heart. He has been warned. As an added bonus the broadcast also lets everyone know Joker is still alive. The conspiracy to kill him has failed, even though Akechi had been on tv just days earlier alleging the Phantom Thieves leader had committed suicide under police custody. The police that were already looking inept, come off as even less trustable now. Shido publicly denies any claims made by the Thieves but prepares for fight in private.

            This will be sweet battle. With the history between Joker and Shido, the whole team has been raring to take him down. Add to that the fact that he has just murdered Akechi (who was his own son), has also murdered Futaba’s mother, and has put out a hit on the whole team. Every single boss battle has been personal for at least one member of the team, but this man has slighted every single member of the Phantom Thieves. Add to that the fact they are fighting for the soul of their society and the stakes become clear. The Phantom Thieves will either take him down or die trying.

            And boy did I die trying last time. There is a significant difficulty spike here. Actually, it is not even a difficulty spike. There is one specific situation in the battle that causes everyone to die and there is only one real solution to it. I banged my head against this battle multiple times before finally giving up and looking up how to survive this fight. There is a point in the battle where Shido casts a spell to reflect physical damage back on to the player. Then he attacks the players to cast rage on them. With rage in place the defense falls, and the character is no longer under player control. By this time everyone dies, with only Joker alive and he is afflicted with rage. He attacks Shido who reflects the physical damage back on to him and kills him. The battle just ends here. There are (I think) two ways to survive this. Cast a defense boosting spell on everyone. Joker will still be enraged and attack Shido but he will survive the reflected damage. He can go into the battle with a persona that nulls physical damage or makes him immune to rage. I ended up going with the second method. With Joker being immune to physical damage, I was able to withstands this chain of attack.

            Shido is still a tough battle. When his HP gets lower, he gets more turns. This quickly gets frustrating. This time around I am so overpowered, Shido is not going to do much to me. Again, this guy tries to compare himself to the Thieves. He is just following the will of the people. This gaslighting with “you and I are the same” needs to stop. This man has tried to frame teenagers, had multiple people killed, used all kinds of criminals to raise campaign money. All of that to take over a country. He is nothing like the Phantom Thieves. Granted, Thieves are also vigilantes and not exactly bringing about the change the right way. But they have certainly not been running a criminal conspiracy that borders on sedition. Depending on the laws of the land he may even be charged with treason.

            Shido is not the one to admit defeat. Once he realizes he is about to have a change of heart, he asks his doctor to poison him and put him in suspended animation. It will cause his palace to collapse and kill the Thieves. Once that happens, they can bring Shido back to life. The plan almost works but the Thieves have taken the treasure already. As the ship is capsizing, they make a run for the exit. It is never clear where they have to get to in order to exit the metaverse. Most of the team makes out but the see Ryuji not making out in time.

            Once outside, everyone is in a shock. The girls start crying, only for Ryuji to show like nothing happened. The girls are so relieved they start beating him up right away. I understand they may feel annoyed that he worried them but beating him up seemed a little excessive. On the other side, the doctor brings Shido back. At first it looks like the trick worked. But then Shido starts crying and starts confessing to all his crimes. His cronies can not allow him to talk to the press. It is not just him, they are all complicit in the conspiracy to rig the election. The rest of his gang decides to tell everyone he is sick and under medical care. How long that will last, we don’t really know.

The whole team must have been feeling great at this moment in time. They have taken out Shido, who was the head of this conspiracy. Every member of the team as well as the country is now safe. They must have thought there is nothing to worry about anymore, and they can go about enjoying Christmas without a care in the world. Sae shows up and tells Joker he will have to turn himself in. Joker wants to keep all his friends out of harm’s way, so he agrees to it. In turn Sae promises to get him acquitted. All Joker asks is one more day to spend with someone he loves. Here we get to choose who he will spend the day with. This time I chose to romance Makoto and spend the evening with her.

Joker goes to jail the next day. Many days pass while he is in there. His friends come to visit. Sae has kept her promise. Joker is finally free to go home. While he was in custody, Shido confessed to his crimes. But it seems like nothing has stuck in the public’s memory. People are more worried now because he is not leading Japan. Everyone has forgotten about the Phantom Thieves. The events of December are just fading away from the collective memory of the society. This does seem alarming. The Phantom Thieves band again to solve this mystery.

05-23-2020