Captive is Mukuro Ikusaba (held captive in cell; will be executed for her crimes in the alternate reality if not rescued in time; picked very much the worst day to dress as Junko).
Shadow manifests as Makoto but wearing a creepy long black cloak, like he is the judge, jury and executioner (which he is), who turns into a 4-armed angel, one wielding a shield, the other a huge revolver (like truth bullets), and the 2nd pair holding up the weight of the worldās hope on his shoulders as a shining globe that seems to get heavier as the battle progresses. Itās also immune to Curse skills, which is rather unfortunate because thatās what everyone was betting on it having since Lincoln (and therefore Makoto)ās weak to Curse skills.
Palace is Hopeās Peak as ala the first game but much more pastel, with the walls instead draped in soft silk, light shining down in jarring contrast to the giant metal plates over the windows. It gives everyone the creeps, especially when the 2nd half starts with much more blood and gore appearing on the pristine sheets and floors.
As a little peep to the next palace, this is also where they get a glimpse of a Shadow Nagito. The original had gotten curious and just barely went a bit into the Metaverse. He managed to get out right away, but not before causing his shadow to be spotted tending to a strange memorial garden of class 78 before vanishing.
Finally after frankly too many puzzles, they arrive at the midway point of Mukuroās show trial at a near exact replica of the red door to the trial grounds. They open up and find the elevator, but what is much more relevant is the metric fuckton of Junko photos and Monokuma memorabilia all over the room, almost all of them horrifically destroyed in rage, aimed at the faces in particular. Since Mukuro was dressed as Junko the day she got abducted (Junko had a scheduling issue and made Mukuro dress as her for class, even though no one else really bought it), this makes everyone rightfully very nervous and reluctantly head down, despite the sick feelings roiling in everyoneās stomachs, because theyāre not gonna like this. And nope, they didnāt like it at all.
They came out to see the trial already underway, 2 large stands loaded with masked figures to the sides of the room and a high circle of 15 podiums surrounding Mukuro, chained into a kneeling position as the Judges gazed down upon her. The party looks up to see them, and finds something rather strange. On one side are 9 funerary portraits on raised poles, with the 6 judges in black robes in front of them, all focused on Mukuro. The Judges are cognitive versions of the DR1 survivors, all looking much worse for wear (cognitive Hiro looks exhausted, cognitive Hina is silently sobbing with a funerary portrait of Sakura in her hands, even cognitive Kyoko looks like she was in mourning), with Shadow Makoto in the center as the chief Justice. Itās right at the ending of the trial, and Mukuro is declared guilty for conspiracy to end the world, to the disgust and horror of the crowd.
Mukuro tries to argue, saying that this must be a mistake, they have the wrong person. Shadow Makoto tells her that no, they know full well who she is, Mukuro Ikusaba (full name, no honorifics). He continues, telling her, in no uncertain terms, all of the crimes he knows of from the alternate timeline committed by the Ultimate Despair. āAnd to prevent that from occurring, we must tear the despair out, root and stem. Junko would be nothing without her little cronies, after all. What better way to end this right now than by her dearest sisterās death, leaving her powerless?ā Then the Shadow has her trapped inside of a cage and sent down to the dungeons to await her execution, before the party can help her.
The rest of the palace works in a similar way to the first half, but everything goes into straight up horror movie territory. Like they were creeped out before, but now it was fucking all sorts of terrifying. Itās pretty much an amalgamation of all of Makoto from the other timelineās trauma and survivors guilt from the first game. This part of the palace also hasĀ a bunches of minibosses that they have to fight through in the second half because holy crap, those things are fucking horrific. The minibosses are all the souls lost to the killing school life and it is very much not pretty. Sayaka covered in blood impaled with knives; Leon tied to a pole, pummeled to a pulp, chucking bloody baseballs; Chihiro with his head bashed in, using a mess of cables and screens to interact with the world; Mondo as a hellish biker that seems to be melting; Taka the terrifying sergeant with his head bleeding; Hifumi with his head bashed in as well, using his horrific Junji Ito-style magical girl drawings for attacks; a thing so burnt and smashed up that they could only identify her as Celeste because of the twin drills; Sakura as a silent warrior, constantly coughing up poison and blood. Even a makeshift āMukuroā, hardly able to move from all the spears through her body. Holy crap, did that freak everyone out and make them very glad when they next saw their friends again at dinner because theyāre alive!
The time limit this time is because Shadow Makoto, while being a twisted mess of repressed anger, sadness, and misery, is also fundamentally a good person and doesnāt want to kill Mukuro before she had even done anything, even though he knows that sheās guilty as sin of conspiring to destroy the world and everything in it (in the canon timeline). Thatās actually where the party comes in, because by the time they clear the palace, the Shadow had finally decided that it was now or never and he needed to do this now. When they rush in to stop him, thatās when the boss fight starts.
The fight is genuinely hard as hell and the Shadow isnāt holding back.Ā The attacks are all similar to the various minigames from DR1, just with a Persona flair.Ā Makotoās providing as much support as he can without being able to control his own persona, with the Shadow lashing out every time that Makoto offers his emotional support. Eventually, they notice that the giant ball of hope is getting heavier to the point of nearly crushing Makoto, whoās holding up the globe like Atlas holding the sky. His Shadowās about ready to cry, begging the others to stop as Makoto encourages them all to keeping fighting and to not give up now. The battle only stops when they finally get Makoto to confess that heās not always the bright ball of sunshine that they think he is and that even he needs help sometimes. With that resolved, the shadow returns to being Makotoās persona, now instead of Lincoln, he is Logos (basically the closest to Jesus as I can get without making an even bigger mess in the MegaTen universe)
[Holy shit, I feel like I wrote a whole novel here! Iām ending this here, good night!}
Mod: The design for Makot's shadow is so flipping awesome. Itās so fitting for Makoto considering that heās the main speaker during the class trials (cause MC and all) and this is literally a trial his shadow is holding, with the shields and revolver in each hand. Though my favourite is him holding up the worlds hope like Atlas with the sky, cause itās still my favourite part of his character development that he admits in the DR3 anime that heās sometimes really overwhelmed with always having to be positive as the Ultimate Hope but still keeps it up for ever (and as entertaining the anime was, it was one of the only good things it did story wise, but thatās a different topic altogether...)
The palace must be so disturbing for the party, cause up until now every palace was basically a fantasy place representing something of the personās life/personality. But now they are in a twisted and later on gory version of their own school, and still donāt know anything of the past timeline. But things are starting to get unravelled now. Though most disturbing must be the memorial garden for their very much alive friends. The fact that the survivors, who were not among the memorial photos, are the judges who look like they experiences something very awful and traumatic. Not to mention the tons of destroyed Junko photos
That the minibosses are the victims in an all horror like fashion, where Iām imagining something along the lines of DR3 anime with Makotoās despair hallucination, must be so brutal cause these are literally the ācorpsesā of their friends that are attacking them, who are in this timeline alive and happy
I can only imagine how hard it must have been for everyone to see how Makotoās shadow actually is, which is basically being overwhelmed with all the support he has to give all the time. Cause everyone does lean a lot on Makoto (not that leaning on people is bad, but there is a limit how much one person can handle, even for Makoto)
