Neat!
I started P2 in September and instantly started riding high on the sheer Vibes. While Persona 1 struggled with its character relationships and nuances, Persona 2 absolutely excels. The opening minutes quickly establish your protagonist Tatsuya, the troubled punk at odds with the systems around him and how to function in daily life. Seven Sisters High is an odd school, as students fawn over their incredible principal as some sort of deity. His words are law, and people who exist outside the established authority are outsiders at best and threats at worst. Instantly, the game’s theme is established. The Accepted Truth is the Forever Truth among the population, no matter how ludicrous or unfair it may be. The power of rumors aids authority, as people avoid the unknown in favor of their safe, existing systems.
The other cast fill out the usual archetypes, but with compelling grounds. Lisa/Ginko is the overly attached crush, but that relationship is inherently built on a complicated framework. Lisa wants attention, but she doesn’t want it attached to her status as a foreigner. She’s yearning for something profound and sincere, but her teenage brain can only interpret it through base pleasures and drives. Tatsuya is nice and seemingly daring, so he’s a vessel for those wants. Reaching a real understanding of her needs requires her to evolve her understanding of the world and herself. She learns about herself when she learns about others. It's an excellent dynamic.
Eikichi/Michel often falls into the typical Dumb Bro role. Ryuji, Yosuke, Junpei, all taking their cues from him. Unlike the more traditionally attractive characters, the game isn’t all that interested in examining Eikichi’s abusive home. One character facing a specter of their complicated parental relationship is a serious, heart-wrenching affair. Eikichi encountering his stern, violent father is a joke. A laugh track at Eikichi’s expense, no big deal. It's an odd distinction and it's one that sticks out against the story’s heavy hitting scenes.
The other characters engage in their own personal soaps, with my returning beloved Yukino having evolved into a photography career after her school punk days. It's a great evolution of the character, and one that feels a little underserved. The first game never really engaged with Yukino’s punk life as anything more than a backstory, and it's a shame that the game doesn’t engage with how Yukino’s anti-authority streak likely influenced her current career choice. Maya, the protag of Eternal Punishment, is cool and considerate, while struggling with her own fragmented memories and resentments of traumas long past.
In October, I caught covid. Almost instantly, my motivation cratered as I struggled to progress much farther.
Stepping away from the game made it difficult to retain a lot of the facts and I ultimately just had to repeat what I did with Persona 1 and finally just watch the ending on youtube.
Which is a particular shame when this game absolutely whips when I’m playing it.
The biggest hurdle is the grind. The dungeons aren’t as purposeful as later entries, extending out game time with increasingly obtuse and unnecessary delays in plot advancement. The persona mechanic was certainly more freeing when any character can take on nearly any persona. But the game begins to expect certain survival tricks. If you aren’t picking from a very specific stock of persona with certain immunities, you’re essentially fucked at the end game. Grinding is your second best bet, followed by making the exact right choices at the exact right points in the game. Allowing yourself to miss a single missable upgrade can make any attempt at the final dungeons into a miserable slog with no clear route to success.
I guess the main thing I've learned is that writing only gets you so far with video games. If the mechanics are frustrating, people are only going to forgive so much in favorite of excellent storytelling. But if the mechanics are smooth and rewarding, people will forgive many more storytelling flaws. I'm not above admitting that about myself. I can accept the dark reflection, the shadow self. This is what Persona is all about.
Pretty neat that you can kill Hitler though.
I started P2 in September and instantly started riding high on the sheer Vibes. While Persona 1 struggled with its character relationships and nuances, Persona 2 absolutely excels. The opening minutes quickly establish your protagonist Tatsuya, the troubled punk at odds with the systems around him and how to function in daily life. Seven Sisters High is an odd school, as students fawn over their incredible principal as some sort of deity. His words are law, and people who exist outside the established authority are outsiders at best and threats at worst. Instantly, the game’s theme is established. The Accepted Truth is the Forever Truth among the population, no matter how ludicrous or unfair it may be. The power of rumors aids authority, as people avoid the unknown in favor of their safe, existing systems.
The other cast fill out the usual archetypes, but with compelling grounds. Lisa/Ginko is the overly attached crush, but that relationship is inherently built on a complicated framework. Lisa wants attention, but she doesn’t want it attached to her status as a foreigner. She’s yearning for something profound and sincere, but her teenage brain can only interpret it through base pleasures and drives. Tatsuya is nice and seemingly daring, so he’s a vessel for those wants. Reaching a real understanding of her needs requires her to evolve her understanding of the world and herself. She learns about herself when she learns about others. It's an excellent dynamic.
Eikichi/Michel often falls into the typical Dumb Bro role. Ryuji, Yosuke, Junpei, all taking their cues from him. Unlike the more traditionally attractive characters, the game isn’t all that interested in examining Eikichi’s abusive home. One character facing a specter of their complicated parental relationship is a serious, heart-wrenching affair. Eikichi encountering his stern, violent father is a joke. A laugh track at Eikichi’s expense, no big deal. It's an odd distinction and it's one that sticks out against the story’s heavy hitting scenes.
The other characters engage in their own personal soaps, with my returning beloved Yukino having evolved into a photography career after her school punk days. It's a great evolution of the character, and one that feels a little underserved. The first game never really engaged with Yukino’s punk life as anything more than a backstory, and it's a shame that the game doesn’t engage with how Yukino’s anti-authority streak likely influenced her current career choice. Maya, the protag of Eternal Punishment, is cool and considerate, while struggling with her own fragmented memories and resentments of traumas long past.
In October, I caught covid. Almost instantly, my motivation cratered as I struggled to progress much farther.
Stepping away from the game made it difficult to retain a lot of the facts and I ultimately just had to repeat what I did with Persona 1 and finally just watch the ending on youtube.
Which is a particular shame when this game absolutely whips when I’m playing it.
The biggest hurdle is the grind. The dungeons aren’t as purposeful as later entries, extending out game time with increasingly obtuse and unnecessary delays in plot advancement. The persona mechanic was certainly more freeing when any character can take on nearly any persona. But the game begins to expect certain survival tricks. If you aren’t picking from a very specific stock of persona with certain immunities, you’re essentially fucked at the end game. Grinding is your second best bet, followed by making the exact right choices at the exact right points in the game. Allowing yourself to miss a single missable upgrade can make any attempt at the final dungeons into a miserable slog with no clear route to success.
I guess the main thing I've learned is that writing only gets you so far with video games. If the mechanics are frustrating, people are only going to forgive so much in favorite of excellent storytelling. But if the mechanics are smooth and rewarding, people will forgive many more storytelling flaws. I'm not above admitting that about myself. I can accept the dark reflection, the shadow self. This is what Persona is all about.
Pretty neat that you can kill Hitler though.