Alright everyone. I have a confession to make. A long while ago I did an article about my favorite video games of all time…but the truth is that there was a game I was excluding from the list. I’ve been feeling guilty about not revealing what that game was sooner, and for repressing my true feelings on what has to be one of the most perfectly crafted pieces of gaming media ever conceived from the brilliant minds of the human race.
Well, for no particularly pertinent reason (and certainly not related to this day specifically), I have decided to finally come clean and reveal what my actual favorite video game is. To be fair, there’s quite a few games that could hold this treasured position that I’ve neglected to bring up before, but this particular game just makes me feel so…passionate. I just have to share about it!
And that game is, of course…
Now, I’m a relatively newer fan of the Persona series, I must admit. I’d always followed along with news, but I’d lacked the proper physical consoles to play the games. When I finally went out and bought a PlayStation Vita, Persona 4 Golden was the first game that I purchased for it. I loved every single second of that game, and I still hold it as one of the best RPGs that I have ever played (spoilers, I suppose, if I ever do a Top 10 RPGs article). So of course I was super excited to be right on the ground floor for the release of the next mainline installment, Persona 5.
And let this very special article be the first place where I make it clear that I absolutely, one-hundred-percent, for-sure, totally, unendingly, LOVE this game!
Let’s get the elephant out of the room first, okay? The storyline and characters of Persona 5 are perhaps the most fleshed out and fully realized of any game that I’ve ever played. Each character is never once robbed of their development at every turn, dynamic subplots and social links most certainly do not get their emotional impact ruined by mind-boggling gameplay decisions, and the story’s core theme is most certainly not a harmful and morally detrimental ideology being shoved down the player’s throat.
I mean, anyone who says otherwise is just trying to besmirch the name of this perfect game! Haven’t you seen the glowing reviews online? Surely none of those reviews made you question if the reviewer actually paid attention to the game, or even played it at all! Persona 5 is perfect!
Let’s examine the core conceit of the game.
In Persona 5, you play as a rowdy group of teens who come to call themselves the Phantom Thieves (as core member Ryuji frequently screams from the top of his lungs, and it’s always such a laugh riot, ha ha ha!). Using your shadowy creature powers known as Personas, you are able to infiltrate the literal manifestations of people’s hearts, attack the physical representation of a person’s soul, and forcibly change their heart, which in turn results in them becoming a completely different person against their will.
Sounds like the powers of a villain, right? No, you silly goose! I said that you play as the Phantom Thieves, remember? That means that you’re playing as the good guys! You’re the heroes of this story. In a bold move, the director’s of Persona 5 decided to abandon the complexity and moral ambiguity surrounding Persona 4 Golden, and instead present a fairly clear-cut story. If you have the power to change the mind of someone you disagree with, you should do it. After all, the ends justify the means!
Oh, but rest assured, you only take down bad guys in Persona 5, and they are certainly quite the bunch of baddies who are in no way stereotypical, cliched, or unrealistically portrayed. And, as we all know, if a hero does something to a bad person, then they deserved it. Any punishment they receive is clearly warranted, and the hero obviously has more responsibility to be judge, jury, and executioner than anyone else. Our heroes can’t be bad people…because they’re the heroes, duh! Morally gray characters? No sir, I haven’t heard of that concept before.
I mean, who cares if the people whose hearts are being changed don’t give their consent to the heroes? Who cares if the victims of the Phantom Thieves have their entire minds and personalities twisted and warped by the heroes against their will, with no consideration spared towards how this will affect their lives or anyone else’s moving forward? Who cares if our heroes recklessly pursue this avenue of action immediately against anyone who disagrees with them instead of…doing literally anything else? The only important thing is that the victims are bad, and our heroes are good!
Huzzah! Long live ‘ends justify the means’! Honestly, I wish every story ever told preached this theme so hard it was crammed down the player’s throat!
Of course, we don’t need to worry about this theme interfering with storytelling, no sir! Our perfect, flawless, never-questioned, capable of no wrongdoing protagonists face their fair share of challenges and set backs in the story, and especially during their personalized social link arcs. It’s a good thing, then, that every time a social link gets interesting and delves into engrossing personal drama, it is instantly derailed by either a comically evil antagonist showing up, or a totally believable and almost relatable opposing force being confronted in the exact same way…entering their heart’s and twisting their minds forcibly.
This is a relief, of course, because I often got worried while playing Persona 5 that a legitimate moment of character development might be about to happen. Thankfully, these fun little (and not at all predictable, rote, and annoying) twists happen in basically every single social link arc. Right before the focus character has to confront an issue in their life like a mature adult, the Phantom Thieves simply remove the obstacle by force with their mind-altering powers, and the star of the social link blithely gets to keep being happy without growing!
I love these scenes so much, and in the story-writing business this technique is often referred to as Subverting Expectations. As we all know, never before has an emphasis on mindlessly subverting audience expectations without proper consideration for the story backfired!
In fact, on the topic of subverting expectations, I’d like to touch base on my favorite single moment in the game, which occurs near the climax.
See, the one main character I mentioned earlier, Ryuji, is the first friend you make who joins your little band of Phantom Thieves. He has a tendency to be loud, obnoxious, mess up plans, and just generally make a fool of himself. Of course, this is all hilarious and endearing, and never gets old. I certainly loved to include this character in my main party, and to assume I dumped him as fast as humanly possible when I got a replacement member is blasphemy. How dare you!
Still, this character has a surprising amount of depth that the main story does not touch on, mostly relating to his history as a sprinter on the track and field team at his school. However, do to the actions of the abuse gym teacher, Ryuji broke his leg, and has yet to ever properly run again since then. He fears he might not ever be able to, but he trains hard and pushes himself to stay strong thanks to your help. It’s a sweet moment of his social link, though I sure do wish the moment was interrupted by a comically evil villain like the other social links, as I firmly believe that would only have improved it!
I digress. Near the end of the game, you and your friends are trying to escape from a cruise ship before it explodes, but your exit is blocked and you need to reach a lifeboat. The lifeboat is attached to a crane on the other side of ship. Surprising everyone in your party, Ryuji selflessly breaks off into a run to the crane, ignoring the pleas of his friends and pushing himself to the limit to reach the crane and lower the lifeboat for everyone else. He already knows where this course of action will lead him, but it’s his way to save those he cares about and prove to himself that the injury he suffered from his gym teacher those months ago will not define him or destroy his dreams.
In a wonderfully fully-animated cutscene, Ryuji makes it to the crane, lets his friends onto the boat, and then sends them on their way right as the cruise ship explodes. The fireball takes Ryuji with it, but at least he passes on from this world happy, knowing that everyone else made it out to safety. For a character with so many…quirks, shall we say…I would argue that this scene perfectly encapsulates his character and would convince even the most stalwart opponents of his very presence that his character had a truly memorable and surprisingly well-crafted ending.
But wait, I hear you say! This is Persona 5. Nothing is ever good straight-forward in its story. What’s the twist? Where are my expectations subverted?
Well, fellow readers, hold onto your seats. Just a few short scenes after this heroic sacrifice, right before our heroes can even process their grief, Ryuji is revealed to be alive and well! Apparently, the giant explosion he was wholly engulfed in simply tossed his body to safety without injury or repercussion! Isn’t that hilarious? Isn’t that a laugh riot? Ha ha ha! Classic Ryuji! Classic Persona 5! I sure do love kicking the very concept of character development while it’s down! And everybody just jokes about it! The one character even gives him a friendly little slap, saying that he made her worry! Ha ha ha!
Actually, if I’m being honest here, this might be one of my favorite moments in all of video game storytelling. It’s just so thought-provoking, you know? I love it to bits, and in no way is this single scene one of (and certainly not my number one) most hated moment of storytelling in any video game that I have ever played in my entire life. Ha ha ha!
This consideration for the player and the value of their time extends to the gameplay too, especially with regards to shadow negotiations and the Mementos dungeon.
Shadow Negotiations are the system wherein you recruit new shadows to join your team during battle. In Persona 4, you were naturally awarded new shadows for doing well in enough consecutive battles. For this game, the developers decided that wasn’t goofy enough, and so you have to fulfill vague and obtuse conditions to trigger an interrogation scene instead. In the interrogation, you have to pick from a randomly selected list of questions and answers to satisfy the shadow’s needs so that they’ll join you. The fun part is that the correct choice, 100% of the time, comes down to total blind luck and trial-and-error, because you only get one shot per battle (without some late-game upgrades).
Isn’t that awesome?
But wait, Mementos is even better! First presented as an optional dungeon, Mementos is a series of endlessly samey-looking subway tunnels that are randomly generated each time you enter, and contain random enemies and items. All of the social link battles against the cartoonishly evil people (where you assault them and forcibly erase their minds) take place in Mementos. While sporadic checkpoints exist, the randomly generated nature of Mementos ensures that each journey inside takes as excruciatingly long as possible, which really emphasizes the themes and deeper natures of the game or something, I swear.
So what’s the kicker? I’m super glad you asked! In the very late game of Persona 5 it is revealed that the true evil final dungeon is actually located in the depths of Mementos. Though this final dungeon is well-crafted like the others, it is, as I mentioned, at the bottom of Mementos. This means that you have to complete the entirety of the “optional” dungeon the game gave you access to in order to reach the final true dungeon and finish the game. Heaven forbid you put off doing social links and Mementos because it was explicitly stated to be “optional”. If you did, you now have to do all of Mementos is a single sitting, because the plot at this point forces you into the dungeon with no way to leave and nothing to do but do all 50+ floors in one go!
And wait, there’s more. For the absolute cheery on top, every single gosh diddly darn floor of Mementos has the exact same soundtrack! It’s a thirty-second long song playing on an endless loop with a droning, depressing, mind-numbing tune! I’ll include it here, because it’s truly fantastic, and the great closer to the incredibly memorable gameplay mechanic that is Mementos!
Here it is, if you want to give the track a listen! As you listen, try to imagine it playing for hours on end, unceasingly!
Golly gee, I love Persona 5 so much!
It’s only a shame that not every area of Persona 5 is as perfect as the story and characters. For example, the soundtrack is full of well-composed music and tons of tracks that are guaranteed to become earworms. The voice acting is superb, and the entire English cast does an amazing job with each and every scene. Likewise, the core combat is very engaging, and the loop of using free time to enhance social links and explore the world is really addicting. I put nearly ninety hours into the game before the credits looped.
But…like…this is Persona 5. I think these areas should’ve matched the quality of the rest of the game, so I’ll knock some points off for overachieving in these regards. Mabye this game needed to go back to the drawing board. Who told these developers that some areas were allowed to be great, and some areas are the most insulting story I’ve ever had the misfortune of experiencing from a video game?
Uh, oops! I didn’t mean that last part. Persona 5 is flawless! Play it. PLAY IT NOW! LET IT CONSUME YOUR SOUL!
But hey, that’s just my objectively 100% legitimate opinion!
(As if the silliness of this article wasn’t clue enough, APRIL FOOLS! I actually hate Persona 5. Okay, April Fools again, I don’t hate it…sort of. The gameplay is entertaining enough, the music and voice acting is great, and it’s pretty addicting. Maybe a 6/10. The story is genuinely awful, though, and extremely insulting. That part wasn’t a joke. I just thought it’d make a silly April Fools article topic to rant about a game I don’t like, but phrase my writing all as overly excited passive-aggressiveness. After all, when’s the next time a Contrarian Corner Saturday will fall on April Fools? I didn’t want to pass this chance up!)
The Contrarian Corner 