Character Select: Kanji Tatsumi (Persona 4)

Sometimes the reason a video game resonates with us so powerfully has to do with the characters we encounter along the way. This post marks the first in a new series I will be adding new entries to every on a semi-regular basis, and which will explore some of my favorite characters from different video game series in brief. Simply stated, these posts will be more along the lines of quick blurbs than full-fledged articles, though I may have more to say about certain characters than others due to a variety of factors – the numbers of games they have appeared in, the degree to which I have found myself entertained by their antics or invested in their development, etc.

Following the legacy of handsome blond-haired bruisers like Final Fantasy IV's Kain Highwind, Kanji is rough, tough, and hits like a truck. What lends Kanji to stand out from the crowd is his personality, and his role as part of a modern social commentary. While other JRPGs remain rooted in the expansive fantasy realms that first put them on the map, the Persona titles opt for a contemporary setting, featuring high school kids capable of using the powers of the Arcana to summon their respective Personas and – in the case of Persona 4 – defeat the shadow monsters of the Midnight Channel as they piece together a mysterious series of kidnappings in the rural town of Inaba. Kanji is one of the Persona series’ most striking reflections of modern sensibilities, as his shadow form, a physical manifestation of his inner struggles, deals with a confusion of his own sexual identity and the interpretation of what others view as ‘manly’ and ‘masculine’ versus what he knows he is good at and passionate about. While Kanji’s actual sexual orientation is somewhat left up to each player’s own interpretation, it’s certainly easy to find yourself invested in his story, especially when it comes to accepting the fact that some people might think his sewing and crafting skills are unusual, but that it is more than acceptable for him to take pride in these. I also found the clash of Kanji’s badass scrappy external image and the fact that he could become so easily flustered when put on the spot to be entertaining, as well as facets that further lent to his progress being arguably more human and meaningful than some of his P4 comrades, and certainly a more compelling individual tale than many other JRPGs have to offer these days.

Anime review: Persona 3: The Movie - #1: Spring of Birth

Following the release of the anime adaptation of Atlus’ well-received Persona 4, film trilogy was announced adapt the story of its predecessor, Persona 3. The first of these films, titled Spring of Birth, serves primarily to set the stage for all that is to come, introducing some of the major characters, teasing the eventual inclusion of others, and familiarizing viewers with the concept of the Dark Hour and Tartarus. While it may cut out a great deal of the content that falls between major plot points, this first installment in the movie trilogy does a solid job at hitting all of the important notes, though its pacing is admittedly a bit odd.

The story begins much like its video game counterpart, with the mostly-silent protagonist (given the name of Makoto Yuuki for the purpose that other characters will constantly be engaging in conversations with or about him) moving into co-ed dorms near Gekkoukan High and experiencing some strange phenomenon. Every night at midnight, clocks, vehicles, and all manner of machinery stop and most people are sealed away in coffins, entering a sort of stasis during a period known as the Dark Hour. The Dark Hour is effectively an hour-long span of time that is only perceived by those with special potential, namely individuals who can all upon Personas to aid them in battle against otherworldly monsters known as Shadows.

On the night of a full moon, these Shadows become notably stronger and more aggressive than usual, breaking out of their natural territory within the fortress of Tartarus, and taking to the streets of the outside world. It is upon one such night that protagonist Makoto Yuuki finds himself in the company of his peers and classmates Mitsuru Kiriho, Akihiko Sanada, and Yukari Takeba, as the Shadows are bearing down upon their dormitory building. Not fully understanding the nature of these Shadow monsters or his schoolmate’s operations with the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (S.E.E.S. for short), Makoto almost instinctively reaches for an Evoker, a gun-shaped device that the S.E.E.S. members rely on, and uses it to summon his first Persona.

What follows, naturally, is an action-packed beat down of the Shadows by Makoto’s Persona, dubbed Orpheus. But there is seemingly something sinister that lurks within his Persona, as – shortly before Makoto passes out from exhaustion – it transforms into a menacing creature that appears to bear some sort of skeletal face and spreads its coffin-shaped wings. Not long after, Makoto recovers and is formerly inducted into S.E.E.S. His peers make a point to bring up that relying too heavily on one’s Persona can be problematic, yet Makoto’s visits to the ethereal Velvet Room make it apparent that his ability to summon multiple Personas makes him an anomaly among Persona users.

From there, the movie takes on two very different approaches to crafting the world and characters or Persona 3 – when highlighting new party members like Fuuka and Junpei, the story’s pacing slows significantly to explain their importance to the operations of S.E.E.S., as well as give viewers a strong impression of their character traits and personal values. This makes their inclusion all the more meaningful, and is one of the film’s greatest strengths, and should provide some relief for any Persona fans who were concerned that this three-film adaptation might attempt to do too much in too brief a time span. Even Shinjiro sees some inclusion in the film, helping to solidify his inevitable recruitment to the S.E.E.S. cause in the second film, while Koromaru and Ken both make brief cameos during the opening credits.

On the other hand, the film barrels past the everyday school studies, athletics and club activities, and time spent out on the town. The anime adaptation of Persona 4 similarly kept its focus on the major story points, but still slowed down every once in a while to explore the Inaba locals and the small yet personal rewards Yu Narukami and his teenage crew of investigators earned as a result of their setting aside time to tackle minor requests. In this first Persona 3 film, the most direct involvement with teachers, classmates, and non-S.E.E.S. peers comes in the form of brief montages. While these sequences do show Makoto taking part in some school activities and even meeting up with Junpei for an afternoon at the arcade, it doesn’t offer as solid an immersion in Gekkoukan High or its surrounding locales.

The animation is solid throughout – arguably better than the Persona 4 anime, in most cases. Character renders have seen significant updates in terms of their level of detail and fluid motions from the cutscenes that played out during the original Persona 3 video game. The splotchy dark watercolor look of the invading Dark Hour on previously-established environments does a great job of presenting these areas as both familiar and alien. Meanwhile the few portions of Tartarus that are shown present it as a labyrinth fortress, with elegant floors, arched windows, and dull lighting emanating from wall-mounted candles. The soundtrack brings back a number of the video games’ upbeat and peppy tunes, as well as some of the more dire, heavy rock-influenced songs, with remixes sprinkled throughout (some significantly altered, others with more subtle tweaks).

Spring of Birth is not a perfect adaptation of the Persona 3 story, and its hour-and-a-half runtime begs the question as to how successful the two following films will adapt the later legs of the video game source material. The material that the film does cut out may not have left a major impact on the core plot of Persona 3, but it does rob the film of some of the video game’s unique quirks, as well as any connections between the S.E.E.S. members and their non-Persona-adept classmates. The major points that it does focus on, however, are handled quite well, and go a long way in establishing connections between the S.E.E.S. members, as well as painting the Shadows of Tartarus as an ever-looming threat, even if one scene late in the film is drawn out to an agonizing length and almost laughably bad presentation.

My rating: 7 (out of 10)

3DS review: Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth

The first game from the Persona series to be released on Nintendo’s 3DS is an odd summation of Atlus’ works, to say the very least. All of the useable party members from Persona 3 and Persona 4 are drawn together in a school that seemingly exists outside of normal time and space – the Persona 3 heroes and heroines hailing from the year 2009, while the Persona 4 cast arriving from some point in 2011, which is as simple and convenient an explanation as is need for why the characters look exactly the same as they did during their respective major adventures as any. Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth adopts a chibi art style that translates surprisingly well to the slightly altered gameplay of this spinoff title, while the dungeon crawling elements are ripped directly from the Etrian Odyssey series of RPGs.

It’s a curious amalgam, no doubt, but one that works wonders for this surprisingly fully-realized sidestory. Regardless of whether you play the story from the perspective of the Persona 3 cast or the Persona 4 cast, the premise and major story points play out in effectively the same manner, albeit with greater input from the respective cast members on one side or the other. All of the party members find themselves pulled into the Velvet Room, face-to-face with either Elizabeth or Margaret, who explains that the threads of fate are working in ways they cannot explain, yet they know what lies ahead is important to the protagonists’ personal journeys. Upon arriving in an alternate version of Yasogami High School, the P3 and P4 cast members are introduced to Zen and Rei, two amnesiacs who are apparently the only individuals they can interact with outside of their Velvet Room associates. When the party realizes they cannot leave the school due to two doors leading to their respective eras within the Velvet Room being locked, they begin to investigate the first of the school’s festival exhibits, which turns out to be a winding and multi-level labyrinth. Zen and Rei seem quite familiar with the behavior of the Shadows that lie in wait within the labyrinth, despite not having any Personas to call their own, and thus accompany the party on their first exploration of this new realm.

Combat carries over some key elements from the core Persona games, but swaps out others. Instead of earning an immediate second strike on an enemy after exposing which magical element it is weak to, party members are instead treated to a boosted state, wherein they will be allowed to move faster the following turn as well as utilize magic and specialized physical attacks at no cost from their SP or HP meters. The same goes for landing critical strikes. Many of the enemy types will prove familiar to Persona veterans, so those who have previously experienced Persona 3 or Persona 4 may find the variety of run-of-the-mill enemies less trifling early in the game. Capitalizing on this strategy can lead to a higher chance of being offered the Persona series’ signature cartoonish ‘pile-on’ all-out-attacks, and chaining these in successive turns can result in significantly faster victories, as well as experience point reward bonuses and new Personas.

With sixteen playable characters to choose from, there is a lot of freedom offered to how you organize your party. While you are required to keep at least one of the protagonists in the mix at all times, the other four spots can be split between the front and back rows, with three open spaces per row. Should you prefer to place your heavy hitters on the frontline, this can lead to enemies taking greater damage from bash and cut attacks, but will simultaneously place those heroes more directly in harm’s way, as they will generally be the first to take the brunt of an attack. The back row, meanwhile, is ideal for support members, as well as ranged attackers. Some players may prefer three in the back and two in the front, while others prefer the opposite – it’s all a matter of personal preference, though careful strategy and management are just as important as ever, as Persona Q’s difficulty factor increases a bit more frequently than that of Persona 4.

Each labyrinth plays host to a strikingly different thematic, including the fantasy realm of Alice in Wonderland and a haunted school exhibit based off classic Japanese horror tropes. Each is introduced as being exhibits put on as part of the school fair, yet behind their innocent exterior lies a complicated series of hallways and multiple floors, each ending with boss fights that appropriately match the tone of each labyrinth. Entertaining as their brief moments in the spotlight are, the bosses do not play nearly as an integral role in the development of the story and characters – quite unlike the bosses encountered in Persona 4’s Midnight Channel, which served as the darkest parts of the P4 party members’ psyches and self-images, allowing them in turn to grow as individuals once they had learned to accept these imperfections.

Navigating the labyrinths can take a brief while to grow accustomed to, as filling in shortcuts, points of interest, and locations of stairwells is up to the player. This is where the touch screen and stylus come to play an integral role, as any errors in the labyrinth’s layout displayed on the mini-map or missteps in navigation are the player’s responsibility. Knowing where shortcuts are located is key for solving some of the game’s more involved puzzles, and can also provide a quick escape from a pursuing FOE, which effectively serve as the closest thing Person Q has to offer for miniboss battles. Treasure chests can reward players with new armor, weapons, and accessories, while larger chests often house rare and more powerful items, but can only be opened once a floor’s map has been filled in to one-hundred percent completion. Power spots offer up rare materials, typically with one or two being located on any given floor on a labyrinth.

FOEs are incredibly powerful, and though some of the game’s ‘request’ sidequests ask that your party take them on to reap tempting rewards, it is typically best to wait until your party is decently leveled up from their exploration of the following labyrinth before returning to face these beasts in familiar territory. Each FOE sports a unique visual style and behavioral pattern that, much like the game’s bosses, match their respective environments – The card soldiers in the Alice in Wonderland labyrinth patrol set paths, while sometimes directing their attention to tending to bouquets of flowers. Other FOEs will attempt to draw you in from a distance, while others still will adjust their speed and behavior based on whether or not you are in possession of a particular item specific to that labyrinth.

While social links have been entirely removed from the experience, the aforementioned requests can still be accepted the school’s Nurse’s Office. Some of these have a time limit, and these ones typically yield greater payoff, both in terms of physical items and experience points. Some requests can only be activated by visiting specific areas of the game’s labyrinths, while others require use of specific party members. Thankfully, these never result in tying your hands too much with regards to how you can or cannot carry tasks out, and the requests are divided quite evenly between combat-focused treks back into familiar labyrinths and dialogue selection options among your friends and allies related to the school’s fair activities.

Visiting the Velvet Room is, once again, the means through which you can fuse Personas to gain more desirable abilities. Whereas in previous Persona titles the protagonist was privy to use of as many Personas as he/she could carry at a time, Persona Q restricts the P3 and P4 protagonists to use of their iconic main Personas and one other interchangeable Persona. However, the tradeoff to this restrictive measure is that every one of your party members – with the exception of Zen and Rei – can also utilize a secondary Persona alongside their primary canon Persona. This rule also applies to Rise and Fukka, the game’s labyrinth navigation specialists – while they do not join combat directly, their Personas can make use of abilities specific to their roles, offering up offense and accuracy buffs based on the fullness of the P3 or P4 protagonist’s ‘leader skill’ meter, as well as passive ones, like a wider range for detective shortcuts within a labyrinth or a higher rate of cancelling out preemptive strikes from enemies.

There is a limit of sixty individual items to you party’s inventory, which may seem like plenty of storage space early on, but can lead to many trips back and forth from labyrinths later in the game. Any materials recovered that are not specific to a certain sidequest can be sold to Theodore, the youngest sibling of Margaret and Elizabeth, who can craft new weapons, armor, and equipable items from them. Theodore also offers up occasional tidbits of information on particular enemies and sections of the labyrinths as they relate to specific sidequests, making his role in the game a bit more than simple shopkeeper.

The tone of Persona Q is not unlike its predecessor Persona 4 - dark and tense at times, with an overall sense of free-spirited adventure that is a successful match to the teenage heroes and heroines it revolves around. With the social links and larger world absent, Persona Q does not boast as fully-realized or complex a narrative as the core numbered entries, but it is a surprisingly meaty experience for a spinoff. While interacting with your friends in the halls of this phantom Yasogami High does not actually play into the endgame result, the dialogue flows very naturally and shows that a great deal of care went into preserving these characters and their mannerisms. While greater depth to character interactions during these periods of downtime would have been appreciated, the illusions Persona Q relies on to cover this gap are moderately successful, and - if nothing else - maintain the game’s atmosphere well enough.

The soundtrack is jazzy and upbeat, incorporating some hip-hop flair and hard rock vibes into vocal tracks. Other tunes are remixes of tracks that debuted in previous games, but they mesh quite nicely with Persona Q’s new audio offerings. On the whole, the sound design of Persona Q is among the best the 3DS has seen yet, with endearing performances from series veterans and the couple of newcomers alike. Persona Q could have easily been a quick, one-and-done, bare-bones spinoff, but instead it offers up an energetic and intriguing story. The main story will likely last players sixty hours or more, and the bonus ‘new game plus’ allows both money and the compendium completion to be carried over into higher difficulty settings and the opportunity to try out new party configurations. While it may not have all the makings of a proper numbered entry in the Persona series, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is nonetheless a labor of love, filled with references to previous games and fluid gameplay that offers an incredibly rewarding experience for fans of either Persona 3, Persona 4, or both.

My rating: 9 (out of 10)

Aesthetic appeal in JRPGs: Persona 5 and Final Fantasy XV

This morning, my Twitter feed was abuzz with word of the first proper trailer for Persona 5. While Atlus did offer us a teaser in 2014, this new footage showed off more action-packed anime cutscenes in greater detail, as well as some of the dungeon-crawling and shop-browsing. While the majority of the response was positive, my own feelings toward the trailer were a tad mixed. To be fair, my experiences with the Persona series are relatively limited – I only played through Persona 4 within the past year and a half, am currently entering the late hours of Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, and have spent a grand total of about twenty minutes with Persona 4 Arena. With that in mind, I have very much enjoyed the Persona games as I’ve played them thus far, and even the anime adaptation of Persona 4 was a solid offering, despite its need to condense the forty-plus hours required to play through its video game counterpart.

The new Persona 5 trailer

I did notice, however, one particular tweet that stated how someone had watched both this new Persona 5 trailer and the Final Fantasy XV gameplay trailer back-to-back, and how they felt it 'put things in perspective'. While I can’t speak on their behalf, I can say that this individual’s particular post led me to go and rewatch the Final Fantasy XV gameplay trailer from the Tokyo Game Show 2014, and I have since drawn some conclusions about the presentations of both titles. Obviously these titles are both a ways off yet, and we don’t know everything about the final product, so this is less my attempt at gauging the final games themselves, rather my thoughts on what we know of them so far and some concerns I have with the angle both Atlus and Square Enix are taking in trying to sell these titles.

To be blunt, I have very little faith in Final Fantasy XV. It’s been repurposed from Final Fantasy Versus XIII, which spent nigh on a half-decade in development hell. It appears to follow the action RPG formula, and the last time an FF title did that (Final Fantasy XII), it was met with heavily polarized reception. Equally strange is how un-Final Fantasy this latest numbered entry looks. There seems to be some strange obsession in the industry today that because our consoles have higher graphical capabilities than ever before, developers ought to push highly-detailed and hyper-realistic character and environment models, instead of being creative and adventurous. The problem with this approach is that the aesthetic loses its identity. Instead of colorful monsters and exciting Chocobo rides, we have been treated to dull brown behemoths and futuristic armor-clad soldiers with less variety in textures than Final Fantasy XIII’s Psicom troops. And all of this is presented through the eyes of a small group of stereotypical dude-bros with pretty faces and silly hair, getting overly excited as they spot these uninspired designs from an equally boring high-end car - one that looks like it could be driving through the Hamptons this very minute. Even the earlier trailer that announced Versus XIII’s rebranding as FFXV highlighted some (again) all-too-familiar Mediterranean architecture. There are no suits of Magitek armor to be seen, no medieval knights boarding a fight to the moon, no massive structures that combine ancient culture and space-age tech in seemingly impossible fluidity. There is a complete absence glory and fanfare in the overall presentation - just a group of handsome guys on a road trip, and their 'oohs' and 'aahs' at the other in-game assets proved a failed attempt at trying to evoke the same reaction from me.

The TGS 2014 gameplay trailer for Final Fantasy XV

Persona 5’s trailer showcases what I can only assume to be the base cast – four characters, including the neutral-looking male protagonist, his two blonde-haired friends (one male, one female), and a cat. I say the ‘base cast’ because that was how Persona 4 operated – the game offered three playable characters almost immediately, with the fourth (Yukiko) added to your crew only a few hours into the experience. From there, the other party members (Kanji, Rise, Teddie, and Naoto, respectively) were gradually incorporated into the story. Today’s trailer highlighted some chandelier-hopping, stealthy dashes down a hallway, the different places around the city that will be visited, and a couple of the menu systems and shops. It’s a lot to throw at fans of the series right off the bat, but understanding just how narrative-driven Persona titles are (yes, even a spinoff like Persona Q), this trailer has merely shown the tip of the iceberg.

What little was shown of the gameplay evoked an overwhelmingly positive response from me – the dungeon-crawling looks slightly more free-form than in Persona 4, but relies on the same general layout and design as far as I can tell. The shops appear almost entirely unchanged, albeit with new faces running them, and there will apparently be ample time spent in class or hanging out with friends. Though no fusions were explicitly shown, the Velvet Room’s Igor made a brief appearance, indicating that the familiar Persona Compendium will make a return. The aesthetic direction of this latest numbered entry in the Persona series has me unsettled, however, as the emphasis on black, red, and white is strikingly similar to the currently-popular Danganronpa games/anime.

I realize that aesthetic appeal is not something that everyone weighs with the same degree of importance. But for me, I at least want to enjoy looking at what it is that is on the screen in front of me, especially when I’m going to be spending anywhere between forty hours or more with a game. I might not be so disappointed with these four P5 characters if three of them were not such simply boring designs. The protagonist bears a striking resemblance to Vincent from Atlus’ surrealistic puzzle stacker, Catherine. Meanwhile, the blonde boy and girl have very few defining characteristics. I feel this is in part due to the darker color palette of Persona 5, as it emphasizes black suit jackets and pants for their school uniforms, and there similarly do not appear to be many distinguishing features in their bandit/super hero/vigilante costumes aside from them having different colors (which are, again, under dark lighting). I will give Atlus props on the cartoony, scarf-donning cat, who is easily the standout crew member at this point. But whereas Kanji was instantly recognizable thanks to his skull t-shirts and refusal to wear his jacket properly, Naoto's hat and coat quite becoming of a mysterious young detective, and Yosuke's headphone's and sharp smile subtle nods to his being the child of a successful business-owning family, the P5 cast - at least, as they stand right now - fall into territory that could easily have them confused for Danganronpa or generic characters from any other contemporary anime.

Anime review: Persona 4: The Animation

Anime adaptations of video games and other licensed properties sometimes receive a bad reputation due to their nature of being produced solely to make a quick buck based on namesake. Persona 4: The Animation is a curious case of trimming a fifty-plus hour JRPG into a twenty-six episode series. There’s a lot to consider with such a bold undertaking – what gets left on the cutting room floor, how do the writers properly convey such a large and diverse main cast, and how could the variables unique to each individual player’s experiences factor in without alienating viewers? The result, while perhaps not perfect, is one of the more successful forays into adapting a video game to anime in recent years.

As with the video game, Persona 4: The Animation begins with Yu Narukami moving to the small town of Inaba to live with his Uncle Dojima, the local detective, and young cousin Nanako. Early on during his stay, Yu hears rumors of a television broadcast that airs rainy evenings as the clock strikes midnight, and begins to formulate with his friends and classmates as to whether this Midnight Channel might share any connection to a recent string of murders in the area. After a few brief ventures into the world behind the television screen, Yu and friends learn they must face their inner selves in order to call upon the Arcana powers of their own unique Personas and face off against the violent Shadows that inhabit the TV realm.

Yu is the lone exception to the rule of everyone hosting a singular Persona, as he can forge bonds with his friends and locals in order to expand his capabilities. While the actual process of his forging social links is largely glossed over in this anime version due these being left largely up to individual players’ discretion in the video game, a few episodes see Yu interacting with NPCs and taking time away from the murder case in order to help an old lady and tutor a child. The dungeons are typically completely explored within a single episode each, as the anime is less concerned with the process of fighting hordes of enemies and opening treasure chests, opting instead to place greater emphasis on the investigative team facing their shadow selves and subsequently revealing more about their personalities and character traits.

Key non-combat events from the game also receive ample attention, including the school camping trip and Miss Yasogami beauty pageant. It provides a fresh break from the otherwise intense atmosphere and darker color palettes within the TV world. The animation style itself is highly reminiscent of the few fully-animated cutscenes from the video game, though Persona 4: The Animation has a notably higher production quality than said sequences. A few new subplots, such as Nanako dressing up as a magical-girl-meets-Sherlock-Holmes anime protagonist and tailing Yu to find out what he has been up to all summer break, add a bit more lighthearted storytelling that is welcome in putting a slight spin on a story otherwise quite familiar to those who have already poured multiple days worth of time into the video game.

The majority of the cast from the video game’s localization return for the English dub of the anime, with only a couple change-ups – Chie’s being the most instantly noticeable, due to how heavily involved in the story she is from the outset. Johnny Yong Bosch’s voice work for Yu Narukami is a real treat – while he may not be highly talkative in order to preserve a sense of neutrality and focus the story more on Yosuke, Yukiko, Kanji, and so on, there are certain points in the anime where he will deliver lines of dialogue that would be considered the strange or obscure options in-game. This often creates evokes humorous responses from his companions. With many of the gaps bridged due to the anime not covering so much of the downtime between dungeons, Naoto’s inclusion in the story is more consistent, and Margaret prefaces nearly every episode, giving the Velvet Room a constant presence, though one that is left largely unexplained in this version of the story. Dojima is effectively reduced to a one-dimensional and often bitter individual, which makes his shift to becoming a more caring parent in the later episodes both sudden and clunky.

As is only to be expected, the endgame storylines see slower pacing in order to fully prepare viewers for the multi-layered revelations. They remain just as half-baked as in the video game version, however, and it is a shame that both interpretations of Persona 4 stumble over themselves so late in their runs. Aside from a couple of the events signifying a maxed out social link being shuffled around to places that proved more convenient in this version, Persona 4: The Animation remains largely unchanged from its video game counterpart, and given how story-heavy the game was to begin with, that’s probably just as well. There is little revolutionary about this adaptation, but at the same time, it does exactly what it sets out to do, offering ample time to highlight Naoto’s gender dysphoria, Rise’s stress from life in the spotlight, and Teddie’s existentialism.

My rating: 7 (out of 10)

PS2 review: Persona 4

It’s the start of a new school year, and a high school student has moved to the small town of Inaba to live with his uncle Dojima, a local detective, and young cousin Nanako. Shortly after his arrival, this high schooler learns of a few odd happenings around Inaba. First is the Midnight Channel, a static-laden television broadcast that seems to display the faces of certain locals on rainy nights as the clock strikes twelve. Second is a series of murders that, while involving victims who were seemingly unrelated, may be connected through their faces appearing on the Midnight Channel prior to their deaths. After making a few friends among his classmates, this newcomer decides to investigate the murders, utilizing a newfound ability to enter a world behind the television screen and call upon the Arcana powers of Personas.

The ability to utilize multiple Personas and their varying powers and skill sets is what sets the player-controlled protagonist apart from his comrades – you, the player, are able to adjust your own play style on the fly. You are only able to take three others with you into any given dungeon crawling session, and while some are better suited as healers, physical fighters, or stat boosters, each tends to specialize in at least one type of magic. In the case of Yukiko, her Persona hits foes with fire attacks and can also heal up party members, while Kanji is more focused on physical attacks at the cost of some lost HP, as well as electric attacks and a couple of boosts to your party members’ stats. In order to best compliment the offerings that your companions bring to the fight, you will need to visit the ethereal plane of the Velvet Room and fuse Personas that you collect from defeating enemies. Each Persona is attributed to a different symbol of the Arcana, such as Death, the Tower, the High Priestess, the Hierophant, the Chariot, the Lovers, and so forth. Building up your social links in-between your dungeon crawling sessions is key to earning experience bonuses when fusing these Personas and granting your allies a greater range of abilities in battle.

Maxing out every social link in a single playthrough is impossible, so it’s up to your own discretion in determining which social links you wish to pursue. Those associated with jobs and tasks around town typically take less time to complete, though the bonuses earned from your party members’ social links are always more significant, making the extra time it takes to complete them all the more worthwhile. Social links with some of the female party members and classmates can also open the door to romantic pursuits, though these are not necessary and you can opt to remain as friends – it will simply prompt altered and extra dialogue segments after you have cemented an intimate relationship.

With the option to participate in sports and school clubs, take up part-time jobs, spend time fishing, tutoring, and so on, no two playthroughs will be quite the same. The large amount of downtime in-between dungeons is one of the elements that sets Persona 4 so far apart from many of its JRPG contemporaries. Which of these tasks you decide to take up will boost your skills in Understanding, Diligence, Courage, Expression, and Knowledge, and jobs will net you extra cash depending on how devoted or focused you are. Meanwhile, the dungeon exploration segments are reminiscent of some of the older Final Fantasy titles, with multiple sprawling floors of interconnected chambers and hallways, and enemies that become tougher the higher you climb. While the earliest of dungeons are host to classic fantasy aesthetics, later locales includes a sauna, an anime-style secret base, and a metaphysical 8-bit video game.

Each dungeon concludes with a challenging boss fight, though each boss has a relatively predictable pattern of attacks, buffs, and defensive options. While these could not be more different from one boss encounter to the next, you may find that being beaten the first time you attempt to take on one of these powerful foes will grant you a more solid plan of attack with the next attempt. Later dungeons include a mid-dungeon miniboss encounter, while every dungeon includes two kinds of chests – small chests, which often contain health and magic-replenishing items, and golden chests, which must be opened with keys that are sometimes earned from fallen enemies. These golden chests often contain weapons or armor, as well as rare and valuable materials for crafting at the local metalsmith.

Persona 4’s approach to the dungeons is highly unorthodox, as it is not required that you complete each dungeon in a single attempt. Rather, you can tackle any given dungeon over the course of multiple days (or multiple weeks, even). The only risk you run of seeing a ‘game over’ screen is if you do not reach the end of a dungeon by the time heavy rain and the fog that follows are to set in, which would effectively see to the death of whoever has been thrown into the television world at that time due to the enemy shadows growing overly powerful.

However, Persona 4 suffers from an archaic save system, in that the only places you are able to save the game are the hubworld area within the Midnight Channel, and the final floor preceding each dungeon’s boss fight. And while it would be fine and dandy to save after you’ve cleared each and every floor of each dungeon, the amount of money you would waste on the Goho-M items which warp your party back to the dungeon entrance would prove ludicrous in the long run. This certainly adds an old-school RPG challenge factor to the combat-heavy portions of the game, but it can also be quite frustrating, especially in the earlier dungeons when you have a less concrete idea of how tough the enemies that lie in wait ahead are going to be.

When you do square off against enemy Shadows, it is important to learn what sorts of attacks each is weak to, as well as what your own Personas a weak against. Hitting an enemy with whatever they are weak to will net you both a critical hit and an immediate bonus strike to either finish them off or to focus your efforts on another enemy on the field. Ocassionally, your allies will request to perform a strong physical attack, which will always end in a critical hit. These criticals, as well as the ones earned from exploiting an enemy’s weakness, will cause them to fall down. If all foes in a fight have fallen, your party can then band together to pile on in a cartoonish cloud of dust and sound effect symbols, dishing out a heaping helping of damage that frequently finishes those enemies off.

After your newest ally faces their shadow self at the conclusion of a dungeon, they will begin to open up to you about their insecurities and personal struggles. For some, these are more commonplace pressures of feeling the need to please family and friends, or adhere to certain expectations that others have for them. In a few cases, the game takes a very twenty-first century approach to deconstructing characters by exploring their confusions regarding sexuality and their own gender identities. Persona 4 does a magnificent job of tackling these in a pointed manner while still maintaining its often cartoonish and comedic routine, which goes a long way in advancing classic staples of the JRPG subgenre, hand-in-hand with the highly-creative dungeon designs and emphasis on non-combat subplots and game mechanics.

While Persona 4 does well to consistently deliver generally high quality and quantity for the sum of its parts, the endgame stretch does fall victim to a streamlining process that robs the experience of some of its quirky spirit as well as the previously high degree of interactivity and player freedom. The last few hours of the game effectively become a series of pre-scripted dialogue sequences, some of which can result in a ‘bad ending’ cutscene if selected improperly. The motives for key individuals will also likely leave a great number of devotees disappointed, given how uninspired and plain stupid they are both in the context of the game world and as general driving forces for character development were they to be applied to a story in any other medium. That said, most of the party members weave stories that pan out in rewarding manners, so while the experience does see some significant falters later on, the journey taken there is, by and large, an excellent modernized spin on the fundamentals of classic JRPGs.

My rating: 8.75 (out of 10)

Persona 4 journal - entry two

I’m really digging the balance of characters and their respective roles so far. They’re all clearly specialized, but still decently flexible, which is highly appreciated. I’m starting to get the hang of fusing personas too, opting not to have much overlap in abilities if possible (I mean, what’s the point of having two or three personas for my main characters that all do basically the same thing?). The prospect of having the protagonist interact with party members, schoolmates, and others around town is a unique way of advancing your strategies and abilities, and makes the ‘social simulator’ side of things strategic as well. You’ll have to pick your battles between work, school activities, and hanging out with friends, because you simply can’t do them all every week.

I like the concept of the bonus ‘chance card’ found behind some persona cards after a battle, but the actual application of some cards seems quite lopsided. The cards can all be drawn face-up or face-down – the former granting the player a benefit and the latter doing the opposite. That said, a bonus like gaining more experience points from battles for a brief period does you better in the long run than having the entire map of a dungeon exposed for a brief period. Likewise, having your party members’ health bars drained to near-zero, while annoying, is easy to remedy, whereas a sudden shift in enemies gaining preemptive strikes (or advantages, as they are referred to in Persona 4) for a brief period can actually put you at a major disadvantage quickly - the more attacks your foes can get off immediately, the longer you have to wait to counter or heal up.

While the general floor layout of the dungeons are similar to older Final Fantasy titles and similar RPGs, I consider their aesthetic designs to be one of the game’s highest points. Sure, Yukiko’s Castle was typical fantasy JRPG fanfare, but it was colorful and just plain fun to explore. Meanwhile, Kanji’s Bath House is ridiculously silly, but also one of the freshest ideas I’ve encountered in the genre in a long while. And that’s something I’ve felt about the game as a whole – it takes a lot of classic staples of the JRPG genre and gives them new twists, some more drastic than others.

P.S. - While I really like Persona 4's battle system, I could do without Teddie's narration. He states the obvious, freaks out when my health drops even a little bit or one of my party member's defense drops, and is just an all-around obnoxious character.

Persona 4 journal - entry one

I’ve been playing quite a few JRPGs as of late, and while I have every intention of returning to both Final Fantasy VII and X in the not-too-distant future, I’ve decided to mix things up a bit by playing Persona 4 on the recommendation of a few friends. As I post this first journal entry, I have completed little more than the tutorial phase of Persona 4 – i.e. the first two hours. I’ve been shown the ropes on the game’s combat and how to use the lead protagonist’s Persona. And while that’s all rather basic, I can appreciate it for the sole fact that the game bothered to give me a rundown – sure it was a bit lengthy, but I’d rather have a long tutorial segment than be dropped into the thick of battle with no indication of what I’m supposed to do/how I’m supposed to do it (which was unfortunately the case with my recent attempt to play my first Fire Emblem title, Radiant Dawn).

Though I’m still being introduced to the main cast and have yet to meet about half of my remaining party members, I like the group so far. They fit into typical roles you’d expect of any anime without falling into the territory of the cliché. Yukiko might be popular with the boys, but she’s frequently unaware of when she’s being asked out on a date. Yosuke is a goofball and is annoying to a certain degree, but not so consistently that I’ve found myself fed up with his antics – it's a balance that is seemingly difficult to find in anime and video games of this nature. It’s refreshing that Chie is the one who is more frustrated with Yosuke than I am. Chie is a quirky character as well due to her interest in kung-fu movies and role as being arguably the most masculine party member thus far.

While I would like to have some more interactivity with the school and home segments, I realize I’m only a little over two hours into the game and these will likely come along soon enough. The whole concept of entering the television realm and attempting to piece together clues from the murders is an interesting combination of classic elements of the genres/entertainment mediums Persona 4 draws from. While I certainly know more about my protagonist’s daily life than I do about the television realm or the murders, the game has been progressing its story at a nice rate, leaving me just enough in the way of metaphorical bread crumbs to keep me entertained. For my first experience with a Persona title, I'd say things are off to a pleasant start (the game's serial murder theme aside).

What makes a 'special edition' so special?

Special edition, collector's edition, and limited edition releases of video games are nothing new. They've been around for as long as companies have known they could make a few extra bucks by slapping on some new box art and including a few bonuses with the retail release. But these special edition releases weren't nearly as frequent ten (or even five) years ago as they are today. It seems like every major title has to provide this second option - or in some cases (like Halo), three flavors to choose from. Obviously the cost between standard and special editions is a major factor for gamers when they look into purchasing a game, but the contents can also be a dealbreaker. I certainly can't say that I'm speaking for the majority, but what I personally look for in these so-called special edition releases is, well, something different that makes the upsell seem worthwhile. The only criteria for the titles I'm going to cover is that they have to fit in the category of a special/collector's/limited edition, where the content comes packaged with the game for this special release, regardless of where the game is purchased. This means that any exclusive content promised by one store or another does not count, nor do re-releases that come packaged with an extra disc worth of DLC (ie. Game of the Year editions).

My copy of Majora's Mask is the collector's edition version, which was a promotional stint Nintendo put on for those who pre-ordered the game. Aside from the gold-colored cartridge and the holographic cover art, there's nothing to separate it from the standard game. And that's the sort of thing people expected from special edition releases of yesteryear - a little extra flair, perhaps, but the same game they could buy otherwise. I still think Majora's Mask is a phenomenal game, and I can use the gold cartridge for some bragging rights. But the content in today's special editions are usually divided into two categories - content for use in the game itself such as character costumes and weapons, or physical objects like posters and small statues.


However, I've found a lot of people tend to complain about the mini-statues included with games like Bioshock and the upcoming Batman: Arkham City. I have to agree with such sentiments - while they certainly look cool, they are likely going to sit on a shelf and gather dust. Those that include poseable parts are usually cheaply constructed and prone to break, and it's usually a better alternative to fork out a few bucks for a more sturdily-built action figure. In some cases, though, these statue-like items can serve a dual-purpose. In the case of Halo 3's Legendary edition, the Spartan Mk VI helmet (though not wearable) slid over the protective case that housed the game and the bonus material DVDs. Not to say that the Noble Team statue from the legendary edition of Halo: Reach isn't cool to look at, but Halo 3's helmet serves both aesthetic and practical purposes.

Focused more on physical bonuses, Bioshock 2's special edition release included three posters from Rapture, an artbook that detailed characters and locations from the game as well as those that were cut from the final product, the soundtrack to Bioshock 2 on a CD, and the soundtrack to the first Bioshock on a vinyl record. To top it off the box art featured a butterfly collage of handprints representative of Sofia Lamb's Rapture Family. As a huge fan of both Bioshock games, I feel this is the ultimate package 2K could have delivered to their fans. Even if you aren't as big a fan of Bioshock, there's still a nice mix of different inclusions to merit the price tag. Similarly, the recently-released Catherine had a deluxe edition that oozed the essence of what the game is all about - a pair of boxers, a t-shirt, a pillow case, and an artbook with the game's soundtrack, all packaged in a Stray Sheep pizza box.


Not all special editions have to include physical items, though they certainly should include more than two extra characters if they are going to cost an extra ten dollars (I'm looking at you, Marvel vs. Capcom 3). Going back to Halo 3, the majority of the bonus content for the Legendary release was on the included DVDs, which presented a great deal of information on the major characters, species, and events of the Halo universe. The collector's edition of Halo: Reach went a slightly different route by including a journal penned by Dr. Halsey and a number of files, photographs, and maps that served to elaborate on the events preceding the fall of Reach as well as to closer tie the game to the Halo novels. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots saw a limited edition release that included a bonus disc which served a similar purpose - present players with a digital encyclopedia that links together every event and character from the Metal Gear Solid storyline.

While there has been a constant increase in recent years in the number of games that see special edition releases, not every one of them receives as much praise as the next. It seems some companies are now listening to their consumers and including content that not only sets the special edition apart from the crowd, but also makes gamers feel like their money was well-spent. Personally, I'm a fan of such a motion. Obviously not all of them are going to change their tune to accommodate, but that's also a big part of the reason I seek out the few special editions that I do wish to splurge on - the more one-of-a-kind package it is, the more likely I am to purchase it.