RE: SUPER MARIO TENSEI: Persona M
07-02-2018, 06:21 AM
Tenet the Second: Persona M as Critique of the Thematic Failures of the Persona Series
Any good critique comes from a place of love, and I love Persona! It's a JRPG whose stories revolve around the struggles of being a teen in Japan, and deal with matters of alienation, trauma, friendship, and identity. I love all the kids we get to know, I want them to be safe and happy and I wish, really wish, that the game devs wanted that too.
See, the Persona series is either a victim of developers with very low introspection, developers that expect their consumers to have high introspection, or both. Here's what I mean:
In Persona 5, the most recent installment, every player-aligned character is a victim of abuse, and every villain, major or minor, is one of their abusers. The player gets to know each of their allies intimately as a key component of gameplay, and help them through emotionally turbulent times of their lives. Meanwhile, the villains' crimes range the gamut from direct physical and emotional violence, to sexual assault, fraud, blackmail, and murder.
So, naturally, one of the main messages of the game is: sympathize with victims and condemn abusers...
...unless the abuse has comedic value.
And then we have the gay and genderqueer and trans characters wherein one half get walked back to HeteronormalcyTM and the other half feel like they're there on accident because of how otherwise garbage at subtext Persona is.
This is a series explicitly about True Selves and The Acceptance Thereof, mind you.
I'm angry and bitter and I can do better.
< Spite! It Gets the Job Done
Any good critique comes from a place of love, and I love Persona! It's a JRPG whose stories revolve around the struggles of being a teen in Japan, and deal with matters of alienation, trauma, friendship, and identity. I love all the kids we get to know, I want them to be safe and happy and I wish, really wish, that the game devs wanted that too.
See, the Persona series is either a victim of developers with very low introspection, developers that expect their consumers to have high introspection, or both. Here's what I mean:
In Persona 5, the most recent installment, every player-aligned character is a victim of abuse, and every villain, major or minor, is one of their abusers. The player gets to know each of their allies intimately as a key component of gameplay, and help them through emotionally turbulent times of their lives. Meanwhile, the villains' crimes range the gamut from direct physical and emotional violence, to sexual assault, fraud, blackmail, and murder.
So, naturally, one of the main messages of the game is: sympathize with victims and condemn abusers...
...unless the abuse has comedic value.
This is a series explicitly about True Selves and The Acceptance Thereof, mind you.
I'm angry and bitter and I can do better.
< Spite! It Gets the Job Done