Open love letter to Persona 4
Dear Persona 4,
So I just finished you. You were pretty good. Pretty DAMN good. So good that I'm still wiping the tears out of my eyes, and even though your story is still fresh in my mind, I almost want to start replaying you right now. The only reason I'm not is I've been informed you might be directly related to our power bill going up $30 in the past month.
Also the crying hurts my eyes :<
Anyway I've been trying to quantify just what about you has kept me spellbound for the last month/60+ hours of gameplay. I spent over 70 hours in Persona 3, but it didn't make me cry. It didn't make me hold my breath in anticipation. That game was mindless fun. You, my friend, were deeply cerebral for me.
So let's start with the first thing that jumps out at me: your characters. Oh my God your characters. Being that you're an almost fully-voiced, dialogue-heavy, turn-based JRPG with an integrated social simulator, it was a good idea to have varied and likable characters. I mean, there were cut scenes that lasted hours. You have to listen to these characters talk a lot, and usually they take a really long time to figure things out that you realized like three hours before. BUT, this was all made tolerable... no... meaningful by how fleshed out and complex the characters were. You went above and beyond stereotypes that games like this can fall in, and gave actual depth to your characters.
I'd list everyone individually because they're just all so amazingly well thought, but I can really sum it up with two: Kanji Tatsumi and Naoto Shirogane. OH MAN. These characters really sort of embody the depth you have, game. Kanji, being the typical stupid-bruiser and Naoto being the typical smart androgynous boy that is perpetuated in this type of game, seem at first to be just regular fare for a JRPG, but once you get to know them through the story they show a different side of themselves. Kanji is overly insecure about what it means to be a man, and so hides his thoughts behind the over-masculine facade. He fears women, he fears the idea of being too much like a woman, and he struggles with his own sexuality as he grapples with the idea that if he really loves being a "man's man," then shouldn't he love men as well? And Naoto... he... no... SHE is so determined to prove herself a competent and intelligent detective, she has hidden her true gender in order to be taken seriously. She struggles with her gender identity, but not in the wacky cross-dressing way you would expect from Japan. She wants to be a man, and over time she has to learn who she is before she can make the decision to be "herself".
And you know what game? That's really your base, "learning to be yourself". You start off with this simplistic premise of being a murder mystery game, then you hit me with this whole concept of looking deep inside yourself to learn who you really are, and THEN you intensify that with the Social Links forming bonds with the characters as you learn who they are inside (and in turn, learn about yourself), and THEN(!) the plot took a turn into a thought provoking exploration of the wants and needs of humanity: the need to be understood, the need to be accepted, the desire to learn but the fear to learn too much. The apathy that builds up between us if we get too focused on the darkness in our hearts. The way that true insight into yourself can help you see truth in others. WOW. Just... wow. Game, all of this would have been great alone. Fun game, neat characters, awesome story... but then there was one thing you did that just hit me in the gut...
Those Social Links... when they were in Persona 3 they were kind of a chore. You have to hang out with people after class to increase the Link, which in turn powers up your Personae. It was fine, but most of the Links were boring and unengaged, and the game suffered from the combat and social aspects feeling like they were two different worlds. Nobody in Persona 3 was really worth being friends with. I didn't really particularly care about them, I just wanted to max out the Link so I could get some new Persona to fight with. But in 4... making most of the Social Links people like your friends and family was probably one of the best ideas ever. Characters that I talked to CONSTANTLY made sense to have as someone I would hang out with after school/make progress in the Link. And then as I hung out with them I got to hear more about their secrets, help them progress through their problems, and pretty soon it became less of "I want to increase the Link so I can fuse a cool Persona" and more of "I want to hang out with this character because they are interesting and I want to hear what they have to say." In other words... I forgot, if only for just a moment, that this was a game. For a moment the characters of Persona 4 were my friends.
Now I'm not saying that I feel like I've made friends with video game characters. No, what I mean is the game accomplished what it was supposed to do and I didn't even realize it. It got me to care about people that weren't real to the point that I was concerned about their well being. To the point where I cried when I had to part with them. In fact, at one point in the game two of the characters you have Social Links with are seriously injured and put in the hospital and you cannot see them until the end of the game. If you did not max out their Link before the date they are injured, you can't finish it. From a gameplay standpoint that means if you didn't finish those Links, you don't get those special Personae. And yet... when I realized that one of the characters was in the hospital and I was never going to have another Social Link encounter with her... My thought was not "I missed out on that Persona!" it was... "I wish I had gotten to spend more time with her." Something that I would have thought if one of my real friends were seriously injured and I was unable to spend time with them anymore.
And with such a character driven story, you have to care about these characters. You can't make it through Persona 4 if you don't care. It's too long, too hard, and waaaay too needy for you to only be causally invested in it. If you don't give a shit, you don't finish. But you sucked me in, Persona. You made me care about people who weren't real, but felt so real. They all felt like friends I have here in the real world. People I do care about. And at the end of the game, when the main character has to leave everyone, I cried and cried because it really did feel like I was leaving my friends. That all-too familiar feeling for me hit me so hard that I couldn't stop crying. And it made me miss my real friends, made me want to learn more about myself and others, and made me just so happy that I am blessed with all the friends that I do have.
And while we're talking about the ending, you were SO amazing when it came to your theme. Being a murder mystery game, naturally the theme is the search for the truth. And a good portion of that was dedicated to searching for the truth within yourself (a la Social Links, Shadow dungeons ect) but towards the end of this game... you really stuck with it. There are five different ways this game can end, and all of them but the true ending are unsatisfying and "bad". If at a crucial moment you decide to accept the hazy answers in front of you, and fail to push forward and chase every loose end that nags at you, you will get one of these bad endings. You MUST look for the truth, in all forms, if you want the good ending. And this game... it tried to push and push and steer you away from the truth and force you to accept the easy answer... but in the end it finally rewards you for seeing it through until the end. In fact at one point everyone was celebrating a job well done, and I thought for sure it was the ending, and it COULD have been had I not remembered one tiny nagging detail. So I pushed on, insisted to the game that I was not satisfied with it's "false" truths, and though it prompted me many times to turn back and celebrate my "victory", it was all a lie. There was still truth waiting to be uncovered. And had I been content to just celebrate when things seemed complete, I wouldn't have gotten that ending. That truth.
You are one amazing game. I can't remember the last time I've cared so deeply about a game. I've loved many games, but you... for a moment, it felt like you loved back. Your complex characters, your determination, your amazing usage of tarot and mythological symbolism... and of course your amazingly fun gameplay. You are a fantastic game, and truly one of my favorite games of all time. At a point in my life when I feel like I hate video games more then ever, you have given me hope again. Hope that the medium still has great potential for storytelling, for deep and complex narratives that go beyond "go here, kill x," while still being fun and challenging. I can't wait until I've spent some time away from you so I can relive it all over again like it was new. But for now... Well, I learned a little about myself from playing you.
So now it's time for me to show that new face of mine to the world.
<3 Neko-D
So I just finished you. You were pretty good. Pretty DAMN good. So good that I'm still wiping the tears out of my eyes, and even though your story is still fresh in my mind, I almost want to start replaying you right now. The only reason I'm not is I've been informed you might be directly related to our power bill going up $30 in the past month.
Also the crying hurts my eyes :<
Anyway I've been trying to quantify just what about you has kept me spellbound for the last month/60+ hours of gameplay. I spent over 70 hours in Persona 3, but it didn't make me cry. It didn't make me hold my breath in anticipation. That game was mindless fun. You, my friend, were deeply cerebral for me.
So let's start with the first thing that jumps out at me: your characters. Oh my God your characters. Being that you're an almost fully-voiced, dialogue-heavy, turn-based JRPG with an integrated social simulator, it was a good idea to have varied and likable characters. I mean, there were cut scenes that lasted hours. You have to listen to these characters talk a lot, and usually they take a really long time to figure things out that you realized like three hours before. BUT, this was all made tolerable... no... meaningful by how fleshed out and complex the characters were. You went above and beyond stereotypes that games like this can fall in, and gave actual depth to your characters.
I'd list everyone individually because they're just all so amazingly well thought, but I can really sum it up with two: Kanji Tatsumi and Naoto Shirogane. OH MAN. These characters really sort of embody the depth you have, game. Kanji, being the typical stupid-bruiser and Naoto being the typical smart androgynous boy that is perpetuated in this type of game, seem at first to be just regular fare for a JRPG, but once you get to know them through the story they show a different side of themselves. Kanji is overly insecure about what it means to be a man, and so hides his thoughts behind the over-masculine facade. He fears women, he fears the idea of being too much like a woman, and he struggles with his own sexuality as he grapples with the idea that if he really loves being a "man's man," then shouldn't he love men as well? And Naoto... he... no... SHE is so determined to prove herself a competent and intelligent detective, she has hidden her true gender in order to be taken seriously. She struggles with her gender identity, but not in the wacky cross-dressing way you would expect from Japan. She wants to be a man, and over time she has to learn who she is before she can make the decision to be "herself".
And you know what game? That's really your base, "learning to be yourself". You start off with this simplistic premise of being a murder mystery game, then you hit me with this whole concept of looking deep inside yourself to learn who you really are, and THEN you intensify that with the Social Links forming bonds with the characters as you learn who they are inside (and in turn, learn about yourself), and THEN(!) the plot took a turn into a thought provoking exploration of the wants and needs of humanity: the need to be understood, the need to be accepted, the desire to learn but the fear to learn too much. The apathy that builds up between us if we get too focused on the darkness in our hearts. The way that true insight into yourself can help you see truth in others. WOW. Just... wow. Game, all of this would have been great alone. Fun game, neat characters, awesome story... but then there was one thing you did that just hit me in the gut...
Those Social Links... when they were in Persona 3 they were kind of a chore. You have to hang out with people after class to increase the Link, which in turn powers up your Personae. It was fine, but most of the Links were boring and unengaged, and the game suffered from the combat and social aspects feeling like they were two different worlds. Nobody in Persona 3 was really worth being friends with. I didn't really particularly care about them, I just wanted to max out the Link so I could get some new Persona to fight with. But in 4... making most of the Social Links people like your friends and family was probably one of the best ideas ever. Characters that I talked to CONSTANTLY made sense to have as someone I would hang out with after school/make progress in the Link. And then as I hung out with them I got to hear more about their secrets, help them progress through their problems, and pretty soon it became less of "I want to increase the Link so I can fuse a cool Persona" and more of "I want to hang out with this character because they are interesting and I want to hear what they have to say." In other words... I forgot, if only for just a moment, that this was a game. For a moment the characters of Persona 4 were my friends.
Now I'm not saying that I feel like I've made friends with video game characters. No, what I mean is the game accomplished what it was supposed to do and I didn't even realize it. It got me to care about people that weren't real to the point that I was concerned about their well being. To the point where I cried when I had to part with them. In fact, at one point in the game two of the characters you have Social Links with are seriously injured and put in the hospital and you cannot see them until the end of the game. If you did not max out their Link before the date they are injured, you can't finish it. From a gameplay standpoint that means if you didn't finish those Links, you don't get those special Personae. And yet... when I realized that one of the characters was in the hospital and I was never going to have another Social Link encounter with her... My thought was not "I missed out on that Persona!" it was... "I wish I had gotten to spend more time with her." Something that I would have thought if one of my real friends were seriously injured and I was unable to spend time with them anymore.
And with such a character driven story, you have to care about these characters. You can't make it through Persona 4 if you don't care. It's too long, too hard, and waaaay too needy for you to only be causally invested in it. If you don't give a shit, you don't finish. But you sucked me in, Persona. You made me care about people who weren't real, but felt so real. They all felt like friends I have here in the real world. People I do care about. And at the end of the game, when the main character has to leave everyone, I cried and cried because it really did feel like I was leaving my friends. That all-too familiar feeling for me hit me so hard that I couldn't stop crying. And it made me miss my real friends, made me want to learn more about myself and others, and made me just so happy that I am blessed with all the friends that I do have.
And while we're talking about the ending, you were SO amazing when it came to your theme. Being a murder mystery game, naturally the theme is the search for the truth. And a good portion of that was dedicated to searching for the truth within yourself (a la Social Links, Shadow dungeons ect) but towards the end of this game... you really stuck with it. There are five different ways this game can end, and all of them but the true ending are unsatisfying and "bad". If at a crucial moment you decide to accept the hazy answers in front of you, and fail to push forward and chase every loose end that nags at you, you will get one of these bad endings. You MUST look for the truth, in all forms, if you want the good ending. And this game... it tried to push and push and steer you away from the truth and force you to accept the easy answer... but in the end it finally rewards you for seeing it through until the end. In fact at one point everyone was celebrating a job well done, and I thought for sure it was the ending, and it COULD have been had I not remembered one tiny nagging detail. So I pushed on, insisted to the game that I was not satisfied with it's "false" truths, and though it prompted me many times to turn back and celebrate my "victory", it was all a lie. There was still truth waiting to be uncovered. And had I been content to just celebrate when things seemed complete, I wouldn't have gotten that ending. That truth.
You are one amazing game. I can't remember the last time I've cared so deeply about a game. I've loved many games, but you... for a moment, it felt like you loved back. Your complex characters, your determination, your amazing usage of tarot and mythological symbolism... and of course your amazingly fun gameplay. You are a fantastic game, and truly one of my favorite games of all time. At a point in my life when I feel like I hate video games more then ever, you have given me hope again. Hope that the medium still has great potential for storytelling, for deep and complex narratives that go beyond "go here, kill x," while still being fun and challenging. I can't wait until I've spent some time away from you so I can relive it all over again like it was new. But for now... Well, I learned a little about myself from playing you.
So now it's time for me to show that new face of mine to the world.
<3 Neko-D