And now we start off the final arc of the original Persona 5, the 'Depths of Mementos'. Not really going to spoil too much about the story here, and it's frankly not my favourite part of the game's storyline? It is kind of obligatory for most J-RPG games to have this epic, world-shattering final boss fight, but I really do think that the game would've worked just as fine with taking down a larger, grander conspiracy than Shido as the final final boss of the fate of a nation.
But, well, it's not that the story is bad, not at all! I'm enjoying the rather interesting revelations about Mementos and the Velvet Room, and as someone who's only got a passing knowledge of the broader SMT/Persona games and lore, it's pretty neat to see all of this play out.
Our eyecatcher are the Velvet Room prison twins, Justine and Caroline, who are... a lot less obnoxious than I thought they would be in the beginning scene. Those random bits where you take them around Tokyo at night really do help in making the Twins feel a bit more kooky. I also do like that their Confidant progresses in a 'sidequest' of bringing specific Persona/move combinations, and I actually do wish that some of the other Confidants have something different like them? Would it have been too hard to program?
Anyway, a big spoilery thing happens with the Twins halfway through the final dungeon! I won't really describe in detail about the huge plot twists and whatnot, but that's why they're the eyecatcher here.
_____________________________________________
Mercurius
- Arcana: Magician
And one of the reasons I wanted to use Morgana as the eyecatcher is because the cat's Confidant level upgrades based on the main story, which means he reaches Confidant 10 right before this, evolving into Mercurius. Mercurius is an alternate name of Mercury (Hermes in Greek), the Roman god of commerce, speed merchants, messages, eloquence, communication, travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery and thieves. Mercury has a lot of domains! While mostly known as a messenger god, it's the 'god of thieves' and 'god of trickery' parts that I assume made it associated with a Phantom Thief.
Mercury and Hermes are often depicted with wings on their feet to represent their insane speed (as the 'Messenger of the Gods), and Persona 5's design of Mercurius really makes this extremely over-the-top, making the tiny little ankle wings to spread as large as the wings of a bird or an angel. It's a bit harder to see, but Mercurius's visor-like eyes are also turned into wings. In this design, he's holding a giant Caduceus, the staff most associated with Hermes/Mercury and a symbol of a herald, being created of two intertwined snakes with wings on top.
Making these reviews while talking about JoJo really does make me appreciate what is basically a more modernized 'Stand' design a bit more. It is a bit of a shame that Mercurius does lose Zorro's original silhouette and exaggerated physique, though one could make the argument that it's a representation of Morgana not having to exude a false aura of bravado after his character development and conflict with Ryuji earlier in the story.
Asura
- Monster Name: N/A
- Arcana: Sun
Perhaps one of the most common deities from East-Asian religions are the Asura, well-remembered for their six arms and three faces. And Persona's Asura, being the ultimate Persona of the Sun Arcana, is basically what you'd expect from an 'Asura'. Not much to say other than the aspects that made the Asura so easily recognizable thanks to their extra appendages.
It's going to take a long time to really explain everything about the Asura (or Ashura), but in the earliest Asian cultures, the Asura who started off as being gods of moral or social phenomenon; in contrast with the Devas, who were gods of natural phenomenon. In Hinduism, the Asura are fanatical, demon-like entities associated with carnal and materialistic desires, and are far more violent than the devas.
In Buddhism (where the iconic three-headed iconography came from), the Asura are considered the lowest rank of deities, and are jealous gods that are addicted to various passions and desires. They are noted to be one of the 'four unhappy births', represented a human that is unable to find peace and is always angered with the world. The Asuras are not always evil in Buddhism, being fierce protectors, but are also fierce and quarrelsome. The Asuras formerly lived on the peak of Mount Sumeru with the other gods of the world, but the Deva Sakra evicted them onto the base of the mountain after they got drunk on wine. This led to some conflict between the Asura and the other gods, but eventually Sakra of the Deva fell in love with Suja, daughter of the Asura chief Vemacitrin, and this ended hostilities. In the Buddhist Samsara, the Asura realm is one of the six realms, though the meaning of the realm varies between traditions, with some placing it as a realm of happiness (between the devas and humans), and some placing it as part of the evil paths (alongside the animal, hungry ghost and hell realms).
Hope Diamond
- Monster Name: Death
Another dungeon, another Treasure Demon. The Hope Diamond spawns from a diamond, which is the form these Treasure Demons take in the overworld. The Hope Diamond (or the 'French Blue') is extracted from the Kollur Mine in India during the 17th-century, being blue due to some boron contents. Its exceptional size allowed scientists to discover new information about the formation of diamonds. As with the other Treasure Demons, the Hope Diamond was stolen at one point, during the French Revolution, where a group of thieves broke into the Royal Storehouse and stole most of the crown jewels.
As noted in the description, it was thought to being bad luck instead of hope, purportedly causing the deaths of several of its previous owners, with a long article and a list of its bearers that met an unfortunate end in the Hope Diamond's article on Wikipedia. It's mostly exaggerated and overblown, obviously, but it's these sensationalism that makes these jewels a bit more mystifying. Currently, the Hope Diamond is in display in the Smithsonian Museum in America.
Dominion
- Monster Name: Merciless Inquisitor
- Arcana: Justice
Going up the rank of the ladder of 'Justice' to go through the angels, we rise up the middle ranks, skipping over 'Virtue' (who appeared in Persona 3 and Persona 4, but not this one) to the sixth of the hierarchy of angels, the Dominion. The Dominions are noted to watch over nations and regulate the duties of lesser angels, and are also known as 'Lordships'. Not really much is written about them beyond that.
The design is also pretty simple, especially in this part of the game that has a lot of angels showing up as both enemies and being available to fuse. The silhouette given by the coiling scarf is neat, and I do like the scales he's holding, but I find him a bit more boring compared to the designs of Power, the previous non-named angel we last saw.
Abaddon
- Monster Name: Abyssal King of Avarice
- Arcana: Judgement
Abaddon is a term that means 'destruction' or 'doom', and is often contrasted with the Greek term Apollyon. It appears in the Christian Bible as a term referring to a bottomless pit of destruction, often said in the same lines with Sheol (death). In the Book of Revelation, an angel that rose from the bottomless pit is named as 'Abaddon', one of the few named angels in the Bible. Abaddon leads a plague of locusts that are described as horses with human faces, lion's teeth, wings, iron breast-blates and a tail with a scorpion's stinger. Abaddon leads his army of monster locusts out to torment those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. Due to the ambiguity of the passage, some people have interpreted Abaddon as being a fallen angel, or a minion of Satan, although some maintain that Abaddon is an angel that unleashes destruction at God's bidding. Some non-Biblical text conflates Abaddon's locust plague in Revelations with the locust plague called upon by Moses in Egypt.
Beelzebub
- Monster Name: Fly of the Dead
- Arcana: Devil
As a demon, Beelzebub is sometimes described as one of the first angels to fall from heaven, and is often associated with the sin of gluttony, although sometimes Beelzebub is just regarded as another name for Satan. Thanks to his name literally being 'Lord of the Flies', Beelzebub is often associated with flies.
Obviously, the fly theme is where they lean onto here. That's why his design in Persona 5 is literally a giant, somewhat humanoid-looking fly demon. His insectoid legs are engorged and large so that Beelzebub can stand on two of his legs, albeit in a hunchbacked position, but I really do like just how nasty that bug-face looks. The eyes look more like pulsating tumours than an insect's compound eyes, and while he does have insectoid mandibles, there's a tentacle-like tongue just hanging down. Nasty! They do capture a lot of what makes a fly look so discomforting. The design allowing Beelzebub to hold a scepter and having a necklace of skulls does a great job at communicating that this is a fly-person, not a fly-monster-beast. Not the most creative of bug monsters if we're being honest, but a pretty cool-looking one nonetheless.
No comments:
Post a Comment