Persona 2: Eternal Punishment



Shin Megami Tensei Persona 2: Eternal Punishment is the third installment in the Persona series. It is proceeded by Persona 2: Innocent Sin and is succeeded by Persona 3. Maya Amano is the main protagonist and Tatsuzou Sudou is the main antagonist. The New World Order is the villainous faction in this game.

Eternal Punishment is the second in the Persona 2 duology, preceded by Innocent Sin. It follows Maya and her friends in their efforts to stop the New World from destroying the world, and uncovering the plot perpetrated by the Crawling Chaos, Nyarlathotep. It is one of the few Persona games that acts as a direct sequel to a previous game.

Originally titled Persona 2: Punishment in Japan, Eternal Punishment first released on the PlayStation in 2000. Unlike its predecessor, this game initially did release in the United States.

An enhanced port for the PSP was released in 2012. It featured enhanced music tracks and a revamped UI. This version, opposite to the previous game, was not released in the US.

Official Description
''Eternal Punishment focuses on protagonist Maya Amano. Eternal Punishment takes place on "the other side" from Innocent Sin. Rumors are spread about how if you call your cell phone, the JOKER will come and kill whoever you ask it to. Maya Amano is sent to write a story about the JOKER, when she meets him in person. Philemon grants Maya and her friends the ability to summon Personas, an ability that they use to hunt JOKER.''

Summary
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 High School, 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 to 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 Sudou 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 runs into Tatsuya and saves Jun from Sudou after Sudou 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. 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, are manipulating Sumaru's government, corporations, and media 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 by Tatsuya's motives, the party finally persuaded 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 Torifune 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 confronts Nyarlathotep, who mocks Tatsuya for refusing to fulfill his part of Philemon's agreement.

After Nyarlathotep is defeated, Tatsuya fulfills his side of the promise for Jun, and after saying his final goodbyes, separates himself from his This Side self to return to the Other Side. Soon after the city returns to normal and though many people will never know the truth about what happened, the party returns to their normal lives. The final scene shows Maya about to walk across the street, until she spots This Side's Tatsuya on a motorcycle. Instead of talking to or befriending This Side's Tatsuya, she decides to move on as she walks across the street before Tatsuya drives off. The game ends with Maya smiling as the credits begin to roll.

Persona 2 Batsu: Infinity Mask
RPG developed by Atlus and menue for mobile phones. Infinity Mask is an original story taking place after the events of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. Infinity Mask is about a possessed woodprint (ukiyo-e) created by some psycho from ancient Japan named Sutoku. Sudou inherited this woodprint, which was filled with enough rage to bring the deal back to life. Sudou comes back from the dead, along with Baofu's old mafia buddy, and use the power of rumors to kill off random people. (How rumors work without Nyarlathotep's influence is never explained.)

They gather the dead people who were killed off by "Master Sutoku." They extract a serum from the bodies which will allow them to transform into a new form. They planned to do this for every person in the world, transforming all of humanity into a new, undying state. After a long, drawn-out chase, you kill them and the spirit of Sutoku (the final boss), The last rumor that the characters make is that the Tatsuya Suou from the Other Side will inhabit the body of the Tatsuya Suou of This Side

Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (novel)
Novel based on the game of the same name. The novel is written by Mie Takase, who also wrote the Persona 2: Innocent Sin Novel. The book is published by Ascii Mediaworks and has no official translation past its original Japanese release. It features artwork by Shigenori Soejima on the cover. Spanning 271 pages, this novel features original artwork illustrated by Ken Sugawara.

Persona 2: Punishment Given by Sin
Novel written by Jun Nanbara and illustrated by Shinshu Ueda. The story takes place between the events of Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, serving as a bridge between the two, similar to Persona 2 Innocent Sin: Lost Memories. Jun Nanbara also wrote the Persona novel "Kandori no Yabo". Meanwhile, Shinshu Ueda, who drew the cover art for both volumes, illustrated and wrote the Megami Ibunroku Persona Manga.

Trivia

 * Eternal Punishment received a PSP remake on May 17th, 2012 in Japan. Directed by Shoji Meguro and as before, the new soundtrack is interchangeable with the original one. The new opening was done by Madhouse Inc.
 * There are new additions/improvements to the game:
 * Loading times are greatly improved
 * A fast-forward option is included for event scenes, as requested by players in the prequel
 * On/Off Option to remember the memory of the cursor in menus
 * Option to change the speed of the battle, like “Speedy”, etc. With the highest option, battles take marginally less time to complete than the previous Persona games.
 * There is a new scenario starring Tatsuya and featuring a woman with long purple hair and a cat named Zula.
 * The player can change the color of the menus: gray, red, blue, yellow, pink and purple in that exact order, corresponding to Persona, Persona 2, Persona 3, Persona 4, Persona 3 Portable (female route).


 * The PSP remake, just like the PSX version, includes save transferring. After choosing the difficulty, A prompt will pop-up asking the player if they'd like to transfer their Innocent Sin save file over to Eternal Punishment. By doing so, it will alter/change some things in the main game:
 * Tatsuya's last name will be altered (if you renamed him in IS). Same will apply to Katsuya's last name.
 * Tatsuya's level will be higher (if he was lv.55 or higher in your IS save file).
 * Spare tarot cards from IS will be carried over to EP.
 * If you had Karma Ring in IS, you'll have it in EP from the start.
 * All the money you've invested in Kuzunoha Detective Agency's lucky cat statue in IS will be carried over to EP (you need to invest 10,000 yen in total for "something" to happen).
 * "★" will be added next to your save data (in the original PSX version, Tatsuya would be added to the save icon instead).


 * Satomi Tadashi (scenario writer of Persona and Persona 2) states that the new scenario will change everything the player knows about fighting Demons and "won't be pretty," suggesting that it will be very dark.
 * Due to "unusual circumstances," the specifics of which are unknown, it could not be localized anywhere outside of Japan, however it has been announced that a fan translation is in the works.
 * Katsuya's Persona, Hyperion, has a very similar design to Tatsuya's Apollo, seeing as they are both brothers.
 * Also, Katsuya's initial Persona Helios looks like a cat, which Katsuya is allergic to. Also his name Katsuya sounds like 'cat.'

Continuity

 * Two members of the Megami Ibunroku Persona cast return as major cast members in this story. Depending on the story route you choose, you can either have Kei Nanjo or Eriko Kirishima on your team. In conjunction with that, Maki Sonomura or Reiji Kido can also be supporting members of the main cast.
 * The Nanjo Group becomes much more important in this game, after first being mentioned in Persona 1, they make up a major group of characters in this game. Nanjo now leads the group as an adult and assists the main cast in their effort to defeat Tatsuzou Sudou.
 * Using the power of rumors once again, Nyarlathotep resurrects Takahisa Kandori, the main antagonist of Persona 1 to do his bidding once again. In the boss fight with Kandori, Nanjo remarks that he was the one to kill him the first time and he will do it again.
 * Like in MIP, Kandori's "Persona" is Nyarlathotep.
 * Kandori's group is said to have been researching how to create artificial Persona Users by separating the JOKER Curse from them. In this game it is said that artificial Persona Users have severe side affects, which directly connects to a plot point in Persona 3.
 * Nyarlathotep returns as the main antagonist of this game and finally shows his true form, the Crawling Chaos. At the end of this game he is defeated once and for all after causing all of the headache in the last three games.
 * As the sequel to Innocent Sin, this game features direct connections to the previous game.
 * The "other world" that was left behind at the end of the previous game is references many times, as Tatsuya is the only person who remembers those events.
 * The main cast of the previous game also returns, and it is up to the player whether or not they remember the events of the previous game as well.
 * At the end of the game, Tatsuya sacrifices himself and returns to life in the world he left behind.
 * The final dungeon in the game is the same as the previous one, the spaceship Xibalba. Tatsuya even remembers what happened the last time he tried entering it.
 * The JOKER is a returning character in this game, having been inspired by the "other world," Tatsuya Sudou (King Leo in Innocent Sin,) dons the persona "JOKER," inspired by Jun's Joker from the previous game. His Persona is also called Joker, and those inflicted with the Joker Curse also have the same Persona, and it gets distorted as the game goes on.
 * This game introduces Tatsuzou Sudou, King Leo's father, who was absent in the previous game.
 * The main cast in this game were all featured in Innocent Sin.
 * Ulala was met in the training room of a mall and was said to be Maya's roommate, but not much of her was seen.
 * Baofu's rumor hotline was introduced, but him in the present day was never shown off.
 * Baofu's original identity can be seen in a flashback with Jun and Tatsuya earlier on, though.
 * Katsuya Suou is seen at the police station in the previous game.
 * At the end of the game when the Megami Ibunroku Persona cast catches up at the bar, all of them are shown together, and finally at the end Naoya Todo appears in the doorway off camera and they all greet him.
 * The only original cast members not to return are Mark and Ayase, as Mark was said to be studying overseas somewhere, however the reason for Ayase's absence is not known.