[The other self]As I've said, it was a lot harder to make choices this year than it was last year, when the biggest task was selecting between BioShock and Portal (at Gamasutra, we chose Portal). I won't spoil just yet, and we are doing a team top ten at Gama, as I've said -- but all I can say is that my personal top five are all titles that made an impression on me, they're titles that I still regularly discuss, admire and think about, and are titles that I either still play (a rarity) or, now that I've beaten them (also a rarity) would play again.
Mostly, they're titles that I think represent the potential of what games can do and be. When it comes to each of them, even if they weren't perfect in any respect (in fact, I'd argue two out of five of my tops can fairly be called "deeply flawed"), I fell in love with them for their intelligence, the multiple ways in which they can be interpreted, and the ways that they give credit to the player's mental and emotional flexibility.
Wow, I'm starting the expansive justification process already! Probably because I'm getting my gloves on to defend something else I love -- the long, drawn-out exposition of Persona 4 (a game that does indeed make my year-end list).
The only complaint I hear about P4 is that there's literally two hours of gameplay before you take any kind of meaningful control over your protagonist, and three -- more, if you're a slow reader -- before you enter your first dungeon.
I know, I know, any significant kind of non-interactivity is a horrendous no-no in the world of game design. They've done studies that show that the longer the player has to sit there, the less engaged they are with the play, with the caveat that certain types of cutscenes, for example, can actually drive player engagement.
But the thing I'd like to know is this: Why in the world would you ever finish a game that offers at minimum 80 hours of mechanically-identical gameplay throughout; that requires an enormous amount of repetition and patience; that can at times be brutally frustrating (see instant-death attacks that can banish hours of progress) -- if you're not being motivated by emotional investment?
I find the old refrain "I want to play games, not watch them," to be slightly oversimplified. And indeed, I love PixelJunk Eden (it makes The List) because all there is to do is play; one of my favorite all-time games is Castlevania: Symphony of the Night because I just want to kill things and complete maps. That's one way of enjoying video games. But entire genres have cropped up around the idea of immersion and depth; there are just as many games that try to satisfy the player's desire for a long-term experience as there are ones that offer quicker-hit risk and reward.
Persona 4 is absolutely not a quick-hit title. It requires you to make an enormous investment in what you're doing, it requires you to own that silent protagonist and act on an interest in the themes of the game world. It requires you to be interested enough in its story and its subtext to keep driving it to unfurl. And not everyone's going to find it sufficiently interesting, of course -- but along with all the toplists I've made lately comes the thematic refrain that I'm going to carry with me as my major takeaway of the year: Engagement is a choice -- at least in part.
Persona 4's exposition is a highly-detailed slow-burn. Delicately-paced pauses offer you the opportunity to tap into the sense of alienation that a city boy feels when he moves to a sonorously rainy countryside painted with all the visual touchstones of rural Japan. Making tons of menu selections between things like "thank you," "I don't want this" and "..." can seem rote and meaningless at a glance, especially when you note that your answer has little or no effect on the gameplay.
But in a game that is, hauntingly and in no uncertain terms, about "the masks you wear to face life's hardships," the empty buzz of a classroom full of strangers or the sight of your young relative uncomplainingly feeding herself in her father's absence can have additional meaning, especially as you choose what "face" to put on for them.
It's all there if you want to look. Of course, the preference for games that will very quickly respond and reward your input in mechanics-driven, visible ways is wholly natural. Most people like video games because they like that when they press an input button, something quantifiably responds.
But I don't like the easy dismissal of games that are structured so that when you put thought in, you can get emotion back. Maybe on some level games are responsible for engaging and satisfying the player, but I don't care to invalidate the idea that a game is a framework within which a player can elect to engage with themselves. The game won't do it all for you, and you can play your own role in what you yourself take away from it.
Caveat: This doesn't always work. Sometimes a cut scene is just a slog, and sometimes all the elective engagement in the world can't compensate for grueling game mechanics (someone asked why I hate Xenosaga, didn't they?)
But if you haven't played Persona 4 yet, I advise really making time for it. Please don't rush through the opening. If there's something else you need to be doing, or if you just feel like killing things right off, don't sit down with it (you can save numerous times throughout the exposition). If you're interested in reading a book, would you skip the first five chapters because you're impatient? Carve out some time to see what the exposition has to offer you, and allow it to build for you a foundation for your relationship with the game. Decide to invest in the story, and you won't even mind its cliche moments.
Even though I say this, it is admittedly hard for me to sit still and just look and listen a lot of the time, but I found it a very rewarding exercise.
This is a narrative that asks you to believe in "the other self", one that appears inside of a TV, no less -- and then it brilliantly gives you the opportunity to create exactly that. It doesn't grab you by the hand, but holds out its own, palm-up, and asks you to take it.
Also, one of the coolest moments I've seen in a video game all year came early: You, the player, watching on your TV screen as this representation of yourself watches his own reflection in a TV screen, dark enough that you can see your own reflection superimposed on his. Don't X-button through something like that.
25 comments:
I, too, am liking Persona 4 so far, and I don't mind that my dialogue options have little actual effect; I just want to get my say.
However, I did notice one scene where I think too few dialogue options were offered. Specifically, I wish during the school camping trip one could select "Slap Yosuke for repeatedly making an ass of himself." One was only able to either agree with him or be passive about it, but seriously, on three separate occasions during that one event.
Although I guess it did certainly impact me, as I put Yosuke out of my battle party after that and have no intention of ever putting him back in if I can help it.
This reminds me of the opening section of Twilight Princess. I remember a lot of complaints that the first two or three hours were just a boring extended tutorial, and from one point of view, that's completely valid. For me, though, that "happy times in the village" stretch was the game's emotional anchor, and it made me care a little more about saving the world in a video game YET AGAIN. (It probably helped that I hadn't played a Zelda game since the first one, so the whole experience was pretty fresh for me.)
I'm coming up on the end of Persona 3 after nearly 90 hours of monster-fighting and girl-dating. And there's actually ultimately a lot more time spent improving my social links and studying for exams than there has been in battle. Initially, I was planning to put a Tales or Kingdom Hearts in between this one and Persona 4, but that's not happening.
The narrative and characters in Persona 3 are what keeps me going. I've elected to engage, but the game has also made a strong case for me to remain engaged. Putting a lot of emphasis in and out of battle on the fact that you're playing this one protagonist was really helpful in making the case for the game's level of involvement.
What sometimes seems to get overlooked is that there are good stories and bad stories, there are good custscenes and bad custscenes. For example, I found the dialogue and zany plot in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga to be delightful and my enjoyment of those elements probably trumped my enjoyment of the battle system. But those elements weren't nearly as entertaining in Super Paper Mario, which I gave up on about halfway through.
Meanwhile, as I wind down my last month in P3, I'm actually very much saddened that I'm not going to be able to complete the stories of Kazushi or the Dying Young Man. I'm not going to be able to take my relationships with Mitsuru, Yukari, and Aigis to level 10. And it's not the fusion bonuses I'm after. I just want to be around for their stories.
I've played a lot of games over the last couple years - good ones and bad ones, AAA-titles and those games you rarely hear about. That being said, to me, the best two games of the last couple years have been the Persona games. I completed P3 several months back and am working my way through P4 now. No matter how many other great games I play (recently Fallout 3, Prince of Persia, Valkyria Chronicles, Bioshock and a few others), the Persona games top my list of my favorite games of the year.
Its not that the other games aren't good, on the contrary many of them are awesome titles. But, for starters, my love is RPGs and the Japanese variety in particular. And, secondly, to be frank, no other game has engaged me quite as much as P3 and P4 and I think this post of yours just put a finger on why. :)
I love the drawn-out exposition and the subtle yet poignant moments, its characters are endearing and relatable and you just want to see what happens to them all. I know right now I'm going to have to play through it at least once more to see the stories from all the social links to their finale. Why? Because darn it, I'm actually caring about what happens to the characters. That's something that very few games do for me.
Well, I loved Xenosaga. I completely understand why many people wouldn't like it, but for me, it worked. (Should I be ashamed to admit that I am Allen Ridgeley?)
I still haven't played Persona 3 yet, but I probably should. (I liked the two Digital Devil Saga games.)
Oh, and I even liked the "gameplay" in the Xenosaga series.
Incidentally, have you played The World Ends With You?
Honestly I want to play FROM THE TOP.
Its why I only played MGS3 for like 2 hours. The endless blatter at the beginning immediately put me off the game and didn't exactly make me happy to start with. I was saying SHUT UP. SHUT UP. constantly, then when I got into the game its control scheme and lack of button remap put me over the edge and I quit playing.
Let's face it, most games don't have 50+ hours of gameplay. Around the 20-25 hour mark even the biggest RPG epics start becoming tedious despite any variety in gameplay they may have.
I'm 58 hours into Final Fantasy 12 and I can't be bothered to finish it. All I see are the flaws and the same damned things I did for 58 hours being done for another 10 and I just don't wanna barely pay attention to the game while it mostly plays itself out of me moving to various locations and casting the odd Cura spell. And I mostly go pure combat and have very few gambit options set. (It and Dungeon Siege are a prime example of why real time strategy style combat DOES NOT WORK. Once the combat system and AI are good enough that you don't need to endlessly babysit your dudes, its good enough that you are in fact BARELY PLAYING THE GAME. Real time strategy sucks hard for this reason. Give me a nice engaging turn based system any day. Or make it direct player control over at least one character..)
Give me shorter but sweeter games. Not everyone is the MMORPGer who has multiple max level toons, or gets to level 99 in Final Fantasy. Or want to replay the same damned level a dozen times every time we die to one of the multiple end bosses bite my shiny metal ass NES Ninja Gaiden 1 level 6...
There are so many games that if they ended in the 20-30 hour mark with a reasonable level of challenge I would have completed. But they decided to drone on and on so I quit playing and thus have a less positive opinion of the game than I would have had if it ended earlier.
Get me INTO the game and engaged from MINUTE ONE.
Now that I know Persona 4 doesn't let me do more than read text and maybe select a yes or no type of option for 2 hours I probably will not buy it.
That's TERRIBLE game design. I know it works in Japan with those hideous visual novel things, but I would much rather read a book or a comic than read tons of text on a videogame in that manner.
It shows horrible storytelling skills from the developers if they can't find a way to mix it up.
Moviewise a good example is the original Terminator film. Tons of action, but even during action scenes they still gave out information and plot instead of a huge dead scene that was little more than a mood or information dump.
That is good.
Entertainment where you sit bored because the writers felt you needed all this blather at once is not good.
Good tabletop games know you spread things out too. Its why the 1983 version of Dungeons & Dragons is the best RPG rulesbook EVER MADE. Minutes after opening the Player's book they are teaching you the rules and having you immediately put things into practice. They break things up, teach you the mechanics, and keep you interested as opposed to just reading 32+ pages of rules that for a novice would be obtuse, arcane, and confusing.
(There are some in the tabletop RPG community who think this edition of D&D is bad for having nice Larry Elmore artwork, and daring to explain things and get the reader to use these rules immediately. These people are IDIOTS.)
The thing with these Persona games is that the story and social interaction among the characters is one of the aspects of the gameplay. I suppose in that way it's indeed a bit like a visual novel, but it's a major function and draw of the game. There are certainly games where this is a problem (I can't believe how slow-going and meandering the Grim Grimoire tutorial/intro is), but where the dialogue (which is exquisitely written, translated, and acted--all three rare for a video game) is an important feature of how the game plays, it makes sense.
But then, Leigh already amply made the case for this kind of game structure in the article, so I'm being redundant.
MINOR P3 SPOILERS
I never even really noticed that there was hours at the beginning of P3 where I wasn't even "playing"; to me it still felt like the game. Ironically, it was when I was having to kill nights grinding in tartarus (which was mostly because I felt like Yukari and Mitsuru were guilt tripping me into it) that I felt myself beginning to get bored. Getting to a miniboss, sure all good. Trying to kill the rest of the month waiting for boss shadow to show made me more far more impatient than all the finals, or the little school trip (not that I minded those, really).
I just started The Answer last night and so far it seems to cop the rhythms of P3 in miniature. But one thing that looks like it's gone, much to my pleasure, is the artificial time structure which seems to make me more willing to plow through the game. a little of the personality is muted, but maybe that's because the game is 100% melancholy from the getgo.
Going back to your comment about reflections, Leigh... I beat P3 and my g/f is about 3/4 of the way through it. When the silent hero doesn't show up in the first screen, she asked about where he was using first person pronouns, which threw me for a loop. OTOH, when I saw Junpei and Mitsuru, I felt this warm familiar affection, less like they were my favorite characters from my favorite movie, and more like they were forgotten friends I hadn't seen in years. the g/f saw her reflection in the MC, I saw mine in the links and relationships he'd forged. Yes, this is all going to sound very cheesy to someone who can't get into this game.
That said, I like that the social links in P4 apparently have direct combat effects when you forge them with teammates; I think it will make me feel more invested in combat and the team I pick.
P4 is under my xmas tree now; I've made myself beat the Answer before I'm allowed to open it.
Also, I just started reading SVGL on a tip from Kotaku; this is great stuff. Thanks for doing it.
Persona 4 is fucking cursed for me.
Whenever I sit down to play it something happens, I get called somewhere, a fire drill gets called away, general quarters gets called, something comes up.
Whenever people are playing Call of Duty or Gears of War or Madden, it's cool. But the minute I want to sit down and play this or fallout, shit happens.
Gonna have to wait until I get back on dry home land to get through this one I think=\
Great article Leigh. I picked up P4 this past week myself, but the only issue is that I have still yet to come anywhere close to finishing P3. I just got through a 65 hour play-through of Tales of Vesperia and have to choose my next engagement carefully.
Yeah, I think Doug brought up Xenosaga and I put the question to you. You've pretty well answered it.
I was just curious because both the gameplay and story have a lot to hate (or love) about them.
Am I the only who winds the end of battle cars mych more difficult? Or is it just that I'm playing through my computer and my response time is off due to that?
Robert -- no, the card game is freaking hard now.
Well at least I feel somewhat better. So has anyone chosen Band over Drama for non power gaming reasons?
And "Every day's great at your Junes!"
I just started playing P4 yesterday and I've already clocked in 7 hours. I was up until 3AM playing it.
I absolutely loved P3. My favorite part of the game was building the social links. Towards the middle arc I stopped enjoying he dungeon crawling because I wanted to be doing more with the social links. It's also the reason why I don't like FES as much - they removed my favorite part of the game and made it completely dungeon crawling.
With that disclaimer, I didn't find the 3 hour wait for the main game play to be that bad. I'll admit that when the game finally turned control over to me I felt some relief. And once again I find myself reluctant to go back in the dungeon.
(post written by me while wearing my P4 t-shirt and sitting across form the Teddie plushie on my dresser)
Rob - I chose the Drama club simply because it was the first one I found. I wandered around the school for 5 minutes looking for the rooms the clubs were in and drama was the first one I came to.
I've gushed plenty about Persona 4, but what impresses me so much is how distinct of an experience they've made from Persona 3 while still retaining the same underlying feelings (not to mention engine).
Many games from the SMT studio are known for their strong direction, and I think it really shows when you put P4 next to P3, and they both hold up without overshadowing or overlapping one another. (If you're interested, look for Play magazine's Dec 08 issue that features interviews with P4's producer/director, art director, and composer.)
Just contrasting the themes of P3 and P4 have been a treat, which is certainly not common when it comes to video games, and I discover more the further I get through the game. Big eureka moment? Persona 3 is about mortality & sacrifice, hence the guns. Persona 4 is about information & perception, hence the glasses. (Big nudge to Leigh: please compare/contrast P3 & P4 in one of those Aberrant Gamer-esque pieces I love you so much for)
So far, P4 is really meshing with me. What does kind of annoy me with it so far is the ability to take direct control of the non-player characters in your party. I know what Atlus was getting at in P3 by not letting you take control, and while P4 feels a tiny bit lighter in mood, it still feels almost too traditional to let the player micromanage his/her whole party.
The shadow selves also seems to occasionally be just a little over the top, but its a cool concept for a boss enemy. The call-back through the main character's Persona to the original Famicom Megami Tensei is also pretty cool, even if it was a coincidence.
The social choices this time around are a bit overwhelming, but since the Social Links were the thing I had the most fun with in P3, I'll cherish the opportunity to make tougher choices this time around.
Just started playing this myself, and I figured I wouldn't be the only one enjoying every fact of the game (well, that and I've read this blog before, so...).
One thing I'm rather glad of is that I recently decided to start playing a game not as a gamer, but rather to further the storyline. Much as I'd always wanted to do that, somewhere along the line of every game I've ever played I got too wrapped up in the gameplay rather than the story. This new approach enabled me to enjoy Fallout 3 a lot more than I would have, and it's pretty much doing the same thing for P4.
I suppose it all depends on what type of gamer you want to be. You want to be entertained, to read/listen/watch the world unfold around you as you play through as you want to, or you want to be the best, to use every advantage in the game to make yourself stronger?
Very much prefer being of the first order myself, and I heartily recommend more folks try it.
Also, first comment on this blog I think. Been reading for a fair while though!
Interesting.
I don't generally like turn-based JRPGs for all the reasons you've listed, but I decided to buy Persona 4 in the belief that one day I would start hearing a lot of great things about it and want to play it, but it will be rare and expensive by then, and I'll have wished I'd bought it when I'd had the chance.
Your article, however, seems like just the nudge I needed to give this game a go. I like that you didn't cater to the niche who's going to be into Persona anyway, but rather someone like me who goes into these games wanting to like them, but generally finding them impersonal and leave me cold.
You hate Xenosaga because it's a movie-game and has long cutscenes? For shame. I thought that once I saw the "please put up with Persona because it's amazing," I'd see some love for games like Xenosaga.
Yeah, it's mostly movie. Yeah, it has more than 8 hours of cutscenes (I've marathon-ed them online.) But you really can't discount the awesome plot and characters that go into the game. I can't understand any way to put down Albedo and Rubedo because a cutscene got a little long.
I contest the claim that having to sit through two or more hours of exposition without control builds a game's foundation. This may work in movies and books, but for video games it does the opposite, especially if your character is a silent protagonist.
It can easily build on an existing foundation. Take Xenogears for instance. Sixty five hours long with a very long period of exposition through narrative. However, the narrative doesn't begin until you're well over your head in plot, and it only serves to explain the past so you have a better understanding of what is happening now. At this point, if you're not already invested in your story and characters, then one wonders why you would even be playing still.
To put this at the beginning of game is like saying "I don't trust you to not wreck my car before we leave town and get on the highway." It's not even the lack of combat that bothers me. Maybe I want to explore the school and familiarize myself with new surroundings on the first day. Maybe I want to wander around in TV world and discover disturbing images for myself the first time. Maybe I want to stay after class and introduce myself to Ms. Sofue (the one character I didn't find incredibly dull). Not being able to direct my own course from the start makes me feel like I should be watching an anime, and I don't play video games to watch anime.
If you want to experiment with and evolve the genre, that's all fine and good and I encourage it. Just don't give me a silent protagonist so I can put myself in his shoes if you're going to force me to walk a predetermined path anyway. The introduction killed the game for me by making me totally indifferent to what was happening.
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