Persona series

It's a little of column A and B for me.

Not only is Yosuke an insufferable brat, but the thing that sends him into denial is a doppelganger of his citing how bored he is with Inaba. I mean, is that really so uncommon or terrible a thing that you'd deny it? Even if you don't exactly care for it to be true. It's relatable, but it's also really silly, especially in the face of his going on to have wacky adventures in his normal everyday life alone.

I kind of like Chie and I ultimately get what her problems stemming from Yukiko are about... but ultimately I can't really bring myself to care? It's high school drama you could sort out over an afternoon and be done with it, and I get that these are children and these are the kind of things they'd deal with

but to blow them up in such a grandiose way and have these absurd looking boss designs embodying some of the most petty nonsense around (barring Kanji and Naoto's, and I've gone on far too long in here about why the former pisses me off) and I just can't take this game's narrative or its characters seriously.

Mind you, I dislike the concept of first world problems. If something is a problem it's a problem, even if other people might have it worse. I'm just noting that singling one character's issues out for being petty but not another is inconsistent.

By the way, Yosuke's thing isn't just that he's bored, but that he actually didn't care much that Saki died. He just wanted to investigate her death because magic powers are cool. That sounds awful and he knows it. The Shadow may have exaggerated but that basic part is still true.

edited 29th Mar '17 9:05:10 PM by Arha

Persona 5 Quick Look on Giant Bomb.

I have to say that some of these interpretations are incredibly dismissive of very real problems that people face.

The social links and shadows are all about insecurities that these characters have (and that real people have as well) and about how they're not handling them as well as they'd like others to believe and how it's tearing them up inside. Brushing them off as unimportant issues or as the characters just whining is.. well, missing a huge point of the game.

Not everyone is going to care about the problems the game presents to them, and there's nothing wrong with the reasons Hashil gave for doing so.

At the end of the day, it's still a video game. No matter how relatable a character's plight might be for you, the fact is that it's still in a medium that you cannot empathize with. That's why so many people just brush off the P4 cast's issues as "first world problems", especially given the supernatural nature of the game. When there's a serial killer on the loose as well as demons who threaten to overtake humanity, are you really going to give a fuck about the comparatively small issues faced by a bunch of teenagers? Namely, teenagers that are inside of a Video game?

Yea sure, their issues might be ones most teenagers actually face, but fun fact, Teenagers blow everything out of proportion because they are still in that awkward stage of life. It was relatable 9 years ago for some fans probably due to a lot of us being teens when we played the game for the first time. But most of us are adults who are either in College or graduated and trying to live. So looking back at P4, the cast's issues seem pretty small time in hindsight due to the far bigger challenges that adulthood brings.

edited 29th Mar '17 10:24:58 PM by BlackYakuzu94

...I'm confused, are you saying that it's impossible to emphasize with characters in a video game? Because I really don't think that's true.

It's not impossible, but difficult unless you just seriously immersed yourself in the game. Some part of your brain will probably still subconsciously acknowledge "This is a video game that has no bearing on my life and it's proceedings".

...how is that any different from any other piece of media though? I mean, unless your argument is that people can't easily empathize with media which just seems ridiculous to me.

Yeah, being a game has nothing to do with it.

Hmm, ok not so much being a video game itself, but a fictional video game.

I still don't really understand what you're trying to say though, because again, if your point is that people in general can't meaningfully connect with or empathize with fiction and the characters in it, that is self-evidently false. None of that really has anything to do with P4's writing or its shortcomings.

edited 29th Mar '17 10:59:52 PM by Draghinazzo

People can't emphasize with fiction?

edited 29th Mar '17 11:00:19 PM by KarkatTheDalek

I feel worse for fictional characters than real people.

I do too, a lot.

Just these characters in particular I don't really feel for. I think how they introduce some of them might have something to do with it. We don't really get any sob stories for the P3 cast until late into the game.

And since their character development is a fixed part of the story and not optional side content, P3's cast is overall more likable for me. If you weren't already drinking Yosuke's Kool Aid after he gets his Persona, you probably never will, since in the game itself he can't really change or grow much by necessity.

Alright, I feel like my original point just got lost somewhere along the way, so lemme try to salvage it.

9 Years ago all of us were likely teenagers around the main character's ages when the game dropped. The game also likely touched upon a lot of issues that some of us might've been going through at the time.

Fast forward 9 years later and a lot of us are older, likely adults with bigger problems than the ones we initially thought were big as teenagers. So looking back with our current mindset, yea it's easy to see the Persona 4's casts problems as "first world problems" that aren't a big deal.

In short, Hindsight is a bitch.

Jeez...

edited 30th Mar '17 12:45:04 AM by BlackYakuzu94

I don't feel like that's exactly the issue for me at least. It's more that me getting older has made me more critical and so I don't exactly hold P4 in the same regard I did before because I see more problems with it. If the writing was better I don't think it would really matter how "1st world problems" their issues were.

Well it's not like I think the game has amazing writing or anything, but let's not ignore the fact that the game kind of blew up for a couple years after release.

I feel like Persona 4's issues come more down to being a fairly mainstream-oriented game made in Japan in 2008, with all the baggage that entails.

Persona's issues are pretty much all Japanese social issues, some do not make too much sense to us like Naoto's, Yukiko's or Tower's but they are quite applicable to Japanese life.

Yukiko's I think is particularly a Japanese problem since most families expect their children to just take over their business without considering if it's something they might want. Because in Japan, you're expected to put your family above anything else, even your own personal desires.

To anyone who's played/seen the game in its entirety:

Are there any scenes that have super weird sexual tension to them that just pop up out of the blue? Seems to be pretty common in Japanese titles, and not that it's a bad thing specifically, I'd just like to know if there are any more "let's all spy on the naked and vulnerable girls that trust us wholeheartedly like a bunch of scummy creeps" type scenes like in 4.

I have not seen the entire game, but I can think of at least one that would count.

edited 30th Mar '17 9:52:29 AM by LordVatek

Like, more in the sense that it's done a) by the main characters and b) would go against a major theme of the entire game while c) being really fucking creepy. I mean I never played 4, but the hot springs scene is very annoying to me.

From what I understand they realize they were being creeps afterwards and stop. It's the only time it happens.