Persona and the Power of Love*

Can I do this? Can I blog about a video game? Can I talk fondly about a Japanese role-playing game without looking like a complete anti-social nerdbag?

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I'ma do it anyway.

Back in my teenage years, I played a lot of Japanese fantasy role-playing games. I felt like revisiting the genre a few months ago, so I picked up Persona 3: FES off the Playstation Network. Persona 3 is the story of a student whose school turns into a massive dungeon at night full of monsters which he fights with the help of a robot and a bunch of different monsters that he collects and then summons by shooting himself in the head.

It is, without a doubt, the most Japanese thing I've ever seen.

Truthfully, I've been enjoying the heck out of this game - not so much for the gameplay as for the story. And, I guess, I'm not enjoying the main story as much as the side story. See, the monsters that you collect throughout the dungeon actually grow in power as you strengthen your relationships with the people you meet in your day-to-day life. That means that you are literally fighting evil with the power of friendship.

Did I mention this game was Japanese?

Every day, your character goes to school and has the option to interact with several different types of people, usually inspiring them to make some real positive changes in their own lives. A lot of these stories actually wind up being far more interesting than the main plot.

There aren't necessarily a lot of original stories here, per se, but there is a lot of emotion. I'm always surprised when a video game gets an emotional response from me, so I tend to dig it. My favorite stories from the game (so far) include:

• Kazushi, a track star whose nephew is suffering from a debilitating physical injury. The athlete makes a deal with his nephew - if Kaz wins at a regional tournament, the young boy will go in for physical therapy. When Kaz develops a knee injury of his own, he has to decide whether to honor his promise to his nephew or drop from the tournament to take care of his own health.

• Bunkichi and Mitsuko, an elderly couple whose son taught at the high school until he died in a car accident. The school moves to have the tree commemorating their son's death cut down to make way for a new expansion to the school. At first hurt by the decision, the couple decides to let the school expand without raising any complaints, as their son would want his students to have the best possible educational opportunities available to them.

• And then there's Mutatsu, an old monk who drove his wife and son away by putting his work ahead of them. Over the course of the game, the hero wears down his callous attitude and convinces him to ask his family for forgiveness and try to win them back.

Again, we're probably not going to win any Emmy's here, but the side stories in Persona 3 offer quite a bit of complexity to an otherwise straightforward "Them monsters - kill dead!" plot.

Of course, there are a few problems with some of these side stories.

• My fledgling feminism is slightly provoked that seemingly all of the female characters you encounter are really only made happier by however strong their romantic connection with the male lead is. So far, the emotional resolution to these plots is ALWAYS a fade-to-black PG scene in the girl's bedroom. And that's just... well, it's kinda ridiculous.

• Oh, man. Then there's this guy. TV Tanaka, a prominent shopping network personality (think Billy Mays, only creepier) tends to hang around malls at night, trying to talk underaged boys into modelling in their underwear.
  
  No, I'm not stretching anything. Within the context of the game, that's actually what happens. Guy's a creep!


• Of course, the biggest problem with the game MIGHT just be the fact that, after completing nearly 50% of the whole thing, my Playstation decided to wipe my save file, meaning I have to start all the way from the beginning if I want to find out how the rest of the stories play out.

And, truthfully, I'm considering it. I mean, it's an enormous time sink, and it'd probably be December before I actually finished the game ("MELLY CHRISTMAS! YOU HAVE COMPLETED A GREAT GAME. AND PROOVED THE JUSTICE OF OUR CULTURE. NOW GO AND REST OUR HEROES!"). Still, I find myself actually wanting to know what happens to these characters.

The writer in me sees something really important here. Well, obviously. Otherwise, the writer in me wouldn't have WRITTEN ABOUT IT!

I've been drawn in to the world of Persona 3 not because of the gameplay but because of the characters. I want to see them achieve their goals, and I want to see the struggles they go through. With NaNoWriMo looming on the horizon, I think it's time I gave some thought to side-characters and motivation. Even the most peripheral of characters deserves a bit of development.

It's kinda like how those high school drama teachers spend so much time trying to get all 100 members of the ensemble in the annual musical production to write a page-long biography of their character. Turns out that attention to detail really is important.

*Originally, I'd titled this post "Happy Friendship Time: Ultimate Persona Monster Fighter Okay!" I thought that'd be a little culturally insensitive.