Caution: Minor spoilers for Persona 4
I know I'm going to take a lot of flak for this, but the Social Links in Persona 4 fall a little flat. No, I'm not some Square lover. Hell, I've been on board with Atlus since the mid 90s. Yet, as much as I enjoyed Persona 4, I couldn't help feel it was just a quick sequel. It's a great game, but without something new and powerful next time, Atlus will need a new system entirely, and I don't fancy the idea of another five plus year period of waiting while they figure out what that should be.
One problem the social links had was that they seemed to have much less sense of progression. In Persona 3, each character had their one specific hurdle to overcome, and they were built up from early on. Also, their storylines and personalities seemed to line up perfectly, and often integrated the way you met them. The rival athlete's hurdle was about giving up his promising career for his family, while the team manager had to find - through being a sports trainer, what she wanted to do in life to motivate her to work harder in school. In Persona 4, often times it felt like the hurdle didn't line up with their non-social link functions.
Links progress too quickly in Persona 4, especially near their respective ends, and for me, lacked a certain sense of completion. It feels like most characters cross their hurdles, which often seem relatively minor mostly by themselves, and it rarely takes them far from where they started. Gives it a Wizard of Oz feeling. If you can't find happiness in your backyard, you never lost it to begin with. Sure. We believe you, Dorothy. Maybe it's the aspiring writer in me and the god complex that causes, but I like to think I make a difference. That the world nearly revolves around me. Persona 3 gives you the feeling that the main character changes the world around him. The main character of Persona 4 is a cool guy, but that's about it.
It also felt like we were seeing a lot of similar hurdles. Admittedly, Junpei had no Social Link, but the similarities between Junpei and Yosuke as characters is almost frightening. Other characters just got short changed. Comparing Elizabeth to Margaret isn't even fair. Elizabeth had the hilarious edge of being both knowledgeable and also totally unfamiliar with the world. Margaret just chuckles to herself over stupid jokes. That might have worked if one of your PCs wasn't already filling the bad pun niche.
I'm not going to lie. There's no magic solution to fix flat writing. That said, here's the magic solution to fix flat writing.
The next Persona game either needs a new formula entirely OR it should have the main character be female. Better yet, you should be able to choose. Have alternate versions of every Social Link, just like picking your sports team in Persona 3 and 4. First, it adds replay ability if you can choose either gender. Second, by having the Social Link system from the female standpoint, it would be almost as great a leap as having Social Links in the first place. With similar writing, it could make the game feel more original even if it isn't. Third, and another trick I've picked up as a wannabe writer of schlock- little things like switching gender roles can completely change a story and can get the creative juices flowing a whole lot smoother. Like getting an oil change in your brain
Guys, don't you agree? If you've got to stare at someone's backside for eighty hours as you traverse massive dungeons, better that the backside be female. Ladies, wouldn't you like to see a woman kicking ass in a video game, in a realistic way instead of all that Lara Croft/ Kasumi nonsense?
Don't get me wrong, dumb T&A has it's place, but it's a fifteen minute thing. Get a few laughs and you move on. All things considered, women tend to get the short end of the stick in video games because they only get to play the lead if they're half naked. As an old hand with RPGs, it feels like having a few good female mains is exactly what we need- especially for the ultra hardcore RPG elitists who want something to look down their nose at other genres about.
The Persona series is the perfect place to do it for three reasons. First, it's the foremost realistic/contemporary RPG series. Most games are sword and sorcery affairs- even the sci-fi ones (see: Star Ocean). Second, the series has already prepped its fans for this. Back in Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, the main was female. Back then Megaten mains were straight silent, though. More recently, Aigis took center stage in both The Answer, part of Persona 3: FES, a spin-off of the main game, and a Japan only spin-off prequel which was for cell phones. Unfortunately, those weren't "full" games. Even so, I think that fans of the Persona series are now ready for such a development. Personally, I felt there was already a little bit of gender role swapping in the previous couple of games to help loosen us up to the idea even without Aigis spin-offs. Finally, Persona is the series that should do it because games with "dating sim elements" are becoming somewhat less rare in the states, what with Ar Tornelico games and the confirmation of an American release of Sakura Taisen V. If you want to keep an edge in the market, or even if you just want to legitimize the expanding genre, making a female main is the obvious choice.
There's a very fine line between stupid T&A and kicking ass. Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers = dumb. Sigourney Weaver knocking a queen alien out an airlock = kind of dumb, but mostly awesome. That's what I want to see in a game. I loved P4, but I think it could have been so much better. Since I'm such an Atlus Fanboy, I expect the world from them. So you see, the pressure, and the bad jokes (See: Atlas) are on, now. You hear that Atlus? I demand to get my mack on as a 15 year old girl in Persona 5. Demand it!
|
RSS feed
iTunes