28) Persona 4 Golden (2008)

Originally released for the PS2, Persona 4 is the fourth installment in the Persona series, which itself is a spinoff of the Shin Megami Tensei series. While the Shin Megami Tensei series dates back to the late 80's, the Persona series began in 1996, and was heavily associated with Playstation for many years. While both series have maintained popularity in Japan, they remained a niche cult classic in the west. Despite immense critical acclaim, I never jumped into the series until this year, though the stylish UI and and catchy soundtracks had always caught my attention.

We begin the game as a user named silent protagonist who moves from the city to the small rural town of Inaba to spend a year living with his uncle and cousin while attending his second year of high school. Given the option to name my character, with first and last names, I named my silent high school student Tadius Plimples and began my journey. In very slow order, we're introduced to our somewhat estranged uncle, who happens to be a detective for the local police, and his young daughter, Nanako. We then begin our first day of school where we're introduced to characters you know will be important because they have unique designs. However, it seems our arrival in this small, unassuming town happens to coincide with the discovery of gruesome murder of a television personality who had recently made headlines for an affair with a politician.

Afterwards, we're introduced to Saki, a third year student who our classmate Yosuke has a crush on. It's revealed that she's the one who first discovered the dead body, and later appears on the news being interviewed. It's here that things begin to kickoff, as Saki goes missing and we learn of a local ghost story that involves looking at a TV at midnight when it rains to see your soulmate. Tadius does so, and sees the silhouette of a girl that looks like Saki. Reaching out to touch the screen, Tadius finds his hand passes through the screen, though his TV is too small to investigate further. Soon after, Saki turn up dead with her body being put on display in a similar fashion to the previous murder victim. This kickstarts the plot, as Tadius, Yosuke, and Chie begin to investigate, eventually deciding to pass through a large screen TV at the local department store. In doing so, they enter a strange world filled with monsters, causing them to awaken their Personas, which are manifestations of their inner selves that allow them to fight monsters. We also meet Teddie, an odd, mascot like bear who lives in this other world and helps guide us.

Thus begins what will become our gameplay loop, as people will appear on the Midnight Channel shortly before going missing. Once they go missing, it becomes a race against the clock to enter this other world and find them, lest they end up dead. The routine becomes going to school and living a normal life in a visual novel, life sim manner, then crossing over to the other world to tackle dungeons in the hopes of saving people. It's an odd, yet satisfying loop that seems a bit at odds with the narrative as you can only perform a handful of actions each day. You're encouraged to spend time with your party members and NPCs in the real world to build social links, which have a variety of benefits, though doing so means you can't explore the TV world for that day. You learn that, once a person goes missing, you have until the next period of rainy days to find them, as if they aren't found by the time fog rolls into town, they will be dead. It's an odd feeling of a race against the clock mixed with a leisurely life sim that comes off as a bit jarring.

Outside of this odd sense of being rushed while being encouraged to take your time, we get to know the people of the small town. You can freely choose who you spend time, how you want to raise your social stats, whether or not to take a part time job or get involved in clubs at school, and all of the characters you meet are well written, if a bit odd. You can even choose to pursue a romance with a number of the girls in town, not just the ones in your party. As we progress, the mystery behind the murders and the disappearances begins to slowly unravel, and there are a few twists and red herrings along the way. The story is heavily influenced by mystery novels, such as the ones written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Seishi Yokomizo, to name a few. As a mystery story, the plot works fairly well, offering just enough information to allow the players to figure things out for themselves, though the red herrings seem a bit forced.

The party members, outside of our protagonist, are written very well and effectively. Each of them have their own problems and issues that going to the other world forces them to confront. While there are a couple of things that I feel haven't aged gracefully, the more controversial elements are handled well enough overall. When a person goes missing, they show up on the Midnight Channel as an exaggerated version of themselves, and it's this shadow of them that we must ultimately contend with to save them. For two of our female party members, this means facing hyper sexualized versions of them, which is a bit uncomfortable given the age of the characters, but it does work as these are issues that teenage characters would face. The bigger issue comes with Kanji, a younger student that works hard to portray the male delinquent/ bad boy image, only for his shadow self to be an over the top flamboyant caricature of homosexuality. It's... a bit rough to see nearly twenty years later.

That said, Kanji quickly became my favorite character, as he confronts his shadow self with a surprising amount of maturity. He opens up about his hobbies and interests, which are traditionally feminine, and grows to accept those parts of himself. This, more than anything else, is the overarching thread that ties the story together. A group of characters that see the darkest sides of one another, being forced to face the parts of them they don't like, and learning and growing because of it. Each party member, outside of our protagonist, has wonderfully written character development that is genuinely refreshing to see. It made spending time with the characters feel more real. Moreover, the growth of these characters isn't always clean and neatly wrapped up, which is true to life.

Outside of all of this, the music and voice acting are top notch. While I think damn near everyone is voiced to perfection, I have to specifically point out the work of Troy Baker and Erin Fitzgerald, the voices of Kanji and Chie respectively. Kanji, being arguably the most complex male character, displays a wide range of emotions while also being able to sell some of the sillier lines effectively to great comedic effect. Chie, the brash tomboy, is usually confident and peppy, though she's also shown to be insecure, and still very much a teenage girl, which is captured wonderfully. The only voice that I have any issue with is that of Nanako, our young cousin, though I feel it comes down more to writing than delivery, as she's rarely given the chance to be childlike.

The final bit of criticism I have comes down to how the game ends. There are multiple endings, including a bad ending, good ending, true ending, and even a golden ending. My problem comes with how these endings are handled. While I don't mind being locked out of certain endings depending upon choices you make along the way, there is one specific point that determines far too much for my tastes. While playing, another red herring is thrown to the player, and it's obvious that the person being built up as the mastermind is very much not behind everything. In a small series of choices, you end up determining far too much, and I experienced the characters basically just shrugging off the remaining mysteries and jump to credits. Baffled, I decided to look it up, and discovered I had made one, single incorrect dialogue choice. What's more, It didn't seem as though the option I chose would immediately end the game. I reloaded and chose the correct option, which led me to a better, more satisfying ending, but the fact that one dialogue choice immediately ended the game was a bit disappointing.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed my time with the game despite how at odds it seemed with itself at times. It has an incredibly, painfully drawn out setup that takes several hours to get rolling, but once it did, I was hooked. I grew to love the cast of idiots, especially Kanji, who was always a delight. While there are certainly some questionable moments, like when a male teacher says that one of the female students is the only attractive one or when an adult is overly flirtatious with Tadius, it's surprisingly progressive in other ways. It tackles homosexuality in an over the top manner, but also shows other characters being fairly accepting of it. It tackles transgender issues along with the struggle of things being traditionally associated with one gender or the other. More than anything, it's a narrative focused on internal examination and coming to terms with the parts of ourselves that, for whatever reason, we may not like. It's about accepting who we are and growing as a result. The narrative may not be perfect, but the underlying themes are positive and, honestly, allow the game to hold up remarkably well despite a few questionable choices.