Quite a while back, I wrote a review of the two latest main-line Persona games. Persona 4 became a runaway hit with me, and to this day I don't go back on my decision to publicly declare it my favourite game of all time. I then played Persona 3, in its updated FES version and found it pretty disappointing. The review text I wrote may have been too focused on the negatives, and I certainly gave the impression of thinking the game worse than it was: It was entirely the fault of the excessively high expectations I had of the prequel to Persona 4.
I'm now in the process of re-playing Persona 4, and don't really plan to do the same with FES. Still, this has made me think about certain questions that I feel are quite interesting to explore, first and foremost is that of tone. Undoubtedly, the two latest Persona games have very different tones, and Persona 4 is very much the game that's most different from the rest of the Shin Megami Tensei series. Since playing the Persona games, I've played quite a bit of Digital Devil Saga, after which I intend to play the mainline Shin Megami Tensei games. I've also watched bits of playthroughs of several spin-offs, and they're all very different from the way Persona 4 feels, in their dark and twisted worlds compared to Persona 4's world consisting largely of wacky high-school antics.
This is a sticking point I've heard a lot from the people who dislike Persona 4, and, whilst they have a point, I feel they underestimate how dark Persona 4 actually is. I often hear Persona 3 being praised over how dark it is, and, whilst I see the point, I disagree, even if it can be chalked down to me being pedantic over semantics. I'd say of the two games Persona 4 is actually darker, whilst Persona 3 is far gloomier.
Note that the following will contain spoilers aplenty for both games. The plot plays such a major role in both games atmosphere-building that I don't think I can get around it, so I'll just go ahead and get it out.
Let me explain. Moment for moment, Persona 3 definitely feels darker, and maybe that's all that matters to some people. It adopts a cold blue color scheme as opposed to Persona 4's warm orange. The music is a mixture of too-cool-for-school hip-hop with titles like Mass Destruction and emo-rock named stuff like Burn My Dread, whilst its successor instead chooses J-Pop with titles like My Affection and Signs of Love. The main apparent threat for the later part of Persona 3 is the death of all life everywhere, brought unknowingly about by your own hands, whilst in Persona 4 it's the death of your cousin and escape of her killer.
I won't deny that playing an hour of Persona 4 is usually a feel-good experience, whilst playing an hour of the second half of Persona 3 will usually give you a somber, almost resigned, feeling of inevitability. Still, calling a game "dark" merely on this front is something I feel is quite short-sighted. Let's explore the main thematic story arcs of both games:
Persona 3 is quite simple in this respect. You're initially tricked into believing this is a simple story of fixing something wrong with the world that's creating the so-called Dark Hour, which happens after midnight each day. During this Dark Hour, most people and machines are frozen in place, and made to look like coffins, and creatures called Shadows have a bad habit of attacking them. The people who are attacked become apathetic and practically emotionless, something known as Apathy Syndrome. You're a Persona user, which protects you from the freezing effect. You become part of SEES, an extracurricular group at your new school, the prestigious Gekkoukan High. SEES, though camouflaged as a regular club, is actually a group of Persona users tasked by Chairman Shuji Ikutsuki, tasked with destroying twelve powerful Arcana Shadows, which we're told will end the Dark Hour. However, once this is done, Ikutsuki reveals this releases the fragments of the thirteenth, Death Arcana hidden within each Shadow, and awakens Nyx, an almighty Goddess of Death who will descend upon the Earth and destroy all life.
The second half of the game is spent essentially waiting for Nyx to appear, and having to make a series of hard choices to fight it despite knowing that it's impossible to win. Still, once you get to that point you end up summoning THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP and sealing the Death-goddess away, even though you (the main character) are required to stay there as the seal for all eternity.
After this, the members of SEES loose their memories, and live a few months of a normal life, before remembering a promise they made before the final fight: If they live through this, they'll meet up on the roof of the school on graduation day. This they do, only to find the protagonist lying down, resting his head on his strongly implied canon romantic interest's lap, only to give them a last smile and peacefully die.
Persona 4 is a lot more complex in what it's about. I explained the general idea of the plot in my review, which I recommend reading if you don't know of it, because it's too complex to really summarize. Initially, it's more about character exploration and how people do certain things for reasons who aren't really apparent. You've got the person who's doing genuinely good things for some really fucked up reasons, the guy who acts in ways that are very obviously self-defeating out of an identity crisis, and several others. Then, in the later half, the story throws a curve-ball and goes "No, this is actually a story about pursuing the truth no matter what". The second half of the game has you stumble into a series of fake leads as to who the killer is, and pursue each person viciously. There's a couple obvious false trails you're not allowed to fully fall for, and then a few less obvious ones you are allowed to fall for. The real killer ends up being one of the funniest side-characters, Tohru Adachi, a guy who you've probably come to like and grown used to as part of your little world in Inaba. He's actually a really depraved, deeply, deeply messed up individual, and I'm willing to nominate him as one of the most absolutely terrifying game villains, mostly because Adachi is such a perfectly normal guy. The fact that I see a lot of myself in him is even scarier. Furthermore, to get the True Ending, the real best one, you have to put an absolutely abnormal amount of effort in finding the truth, the truth, and nothing but the truth, disbelieving even what the game itself tells you. To make matters worse, if you don't get the True Ending, the world is consumed by eternal fog, and humanity is turned into thoughtless Shadows, who care about nothing but their own self-satisfaction. You're not even aware that this happens unless you get the True Ending, becoming one of the Shadows yourself without even knowing.
The main difference comes in how mature the themes are. Sure, Persona 4 is spent laughing at Yosuke and Chie bickering about the fact that Chie made completely uneatable curry for the school campout, but when the story gets going it's talking of some really disturbing stuff. You've got these deeply seeded, rather horrifying motivations and thoughts in your closest friends psyches. Then there is the absolute horror that is Adachi, an absolutely abhorrent man who is just SO. DAMN. NORMAL, despite the fact that he's willing to kill people for literally no reason, and the chilling realization, that, behind the seemingly good and satisfyingly tied up Good Ending lies the ultimate triumph of lie and self-deception.
In comparison, Persona 3 comes across really childishly. Sure, it's depressing to have this constant reminder of your death around, and the death of all life on Earth is certainly not a pleasant thought. Still, in the rather easy to reach Good Ending (Do you choose to let everything die, or do you choose to try to save it?), you manage to magic away the looming menace through THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, and then peacefully die in the presence of your friends. Persona 4 instead has you realize that even the closest of your friends are, in their heart of hearts, quite disturbed individuals, often with selfish motivations for even the best of their actions. You realize that what passes for normal, and, indeed, the aspect of mankind that shows itself to be the strongest is an empty husk, content to ignore the truth as long as it gets its own personal satisfaction, and even looking down on the truth as something that gets in the way of its selfish desires. In the most obvious way to finish the game, you end up succumbing to this yourself, and dooming humanity to become something almost worse than dead. Sure, you can magic away this threat with THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, but this requires downright ridiculous amounts of scepticism, disbelieving even the unwritten law that what the game tells you about itself mechanically is true, and it's made clear that the threat is more retreating out of respect for your effort than actually being beaten back. It also promises that, if it feels its original plan was the one that made humanity happier, it will return to actually carry it out.
The fact that Persona 4 also has a lot of time where you hang around with your friends and Yosuke complains about curry suddenly seems a lot less relevant.
Still, this is all really about thinking about the consequences and subtones of things. I still won't refuse that Persona 3 is by far the gloomier game, even if Persona 4 is, to me, an extremely dark game. An hour of Persona 3 won't make you feel nearly as good as an hour of Persona 4, and, for the most part, Persona 4 does feel a lot more carefree. I come out of Persona 4 play sessions feeling pretty happy practically every single time, even during the Adachi and Izanami segments. In contrast, I usually come out of Persona 3 play sessions feeling resigned. Still, the point that Persona 3 makes is that, despite the inevitability of death, life is worth living. Persona 4 makes several almost contradictory points: It tells you that the truth is, almost inevitably painful, and comments on how little worth is put on it by anyone any more. You end up almost coming across as selfish, a group of a few young people not allowing humanity's collective will to believe in its own lies and become happy.
In short, Persona 3 ends on an uplifting message about the power of friendship and beauty of life, and Persona 4 ends by preaching to you about how selfish and shallow everyone really is.
Also Tartarus sucks and not being able to control your party members is stupid and I hate actually playing Persona 3 and I wish I didn't but I do and oh god why.
I'm now in the process of re-playing Persona 4, and don't really plan to do the same with FES. Still, this has made me think about certain questions that I feel are quite interesting to explore, first and foremost is that of tone. Undoubtedly, the two latest Persona games have very different tones, and Persona 4 is very much the game that's most different from the rest of the Shin Megami Tensei series. Since playing the Persona games, I've played quite a bit of Digital Devil Saga, after which I intend to play the mainline Shin Megami Tensei games. I've also watched bits of playthroughs of several spin-offs, and they're all very different from the way Persona 4 feels, in their dark and twisted worlds compared to Persona 4's world consisting largely of wacky high-school antics.
This is a sticking point I've heard a lot from the people who dislike Persona 4, and, whilst they have a point, I feel they underestimate how dark Persona 4 actually is. I often hear Persona 3 being praised over how dark it is, and, whilst I see the point, I disagree, even if it can be chalked down to me being pedantic over semantics. I'd say of the two games Persona 4 is actually darker, whilst Persona 3 is far gloomier.
Note that the following will contain spoilers aplenty for both games. The plot plays such a major role in both games atmosphere-building that I don't think I can get around it, so I'll just go ahead and get it out.
Let me explain. Moment for moment, Persona 3 definitely feels darker, and maybe that's all that matters to some people. It adopts a cold blue color scheme as opposed to Persona 4's warm orange. The music is a mixture of too-cool-for-school hip-hop with titles like Mass Destruction and emo-rock named stuff like Burn My Dread, whilst its successor instead chooses J-Pop with titles like My Affection and Signs of Love. The main apparent threat for the later part of Persona 3 is the death of all life everywhere, brought unknowingly about by your own hands, whilst in Persona 4 it's the death of your cousin and escape of her killer.
I won't deny that playing an hour of Persona 4 is usually a feel-good experience, whilst playing an hour of the second half of Persona 3 will usually give you a somber, almost resigned, feeling of inevitability. Still, calling a game "dark" merely on this front is something I feel is quite short-sighted. Let's explore the main thematic story arcs of both games:
Persona 3 is quite simple in this respect. You're initially tricked into believing this is a simple story of fixing something wrong with the world that's creating the so-called Dark Hour, which happens after midnight each day. During this Dark Hour, most people and machines are frozen in place, and made to look like coffins, and creatures called Shadows have a bad habit of attacking them. The people who are attacked become apathetic and practically emotionless, something known as Apathy Syndrome. You're a Persona user, which protects you from the freezing effect. You become part of SEES, an extracurricular group at your new school, the prestigious Gekkoukan High. SEES, though camouflaged as a regular club, is actually a group of Persona users tasked by Chairman Shuji Ikutsuki, tasked with destroying twelve powerful Arcana Shadows, which we're told will end the Dark Hour. However, once this is done, Ikutsuki reveals this releases the fragments of the thirteenth, Death Arcana hidden within each Shadow, and awakens Nyx, an almighty Goddess of Death who will descend upon the Earth and destroy all life.
The second half of the game is spent essentially waiting for Nyx to appear, and having to make a series of hard choices to fight it despite knowing that it's impossible to win. Still, once you get to that point you end up summoning THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP and sealing the Death-goddess away, even though you (the main character) are required to stay there as the seal for all eternity.
After this, the members of SEES loose their memories, and live a few months of a normal life, before remembering a promise they made before the final fight: If they live through this, they'll meet up on the roof of the school on graduation day. This they do, only to find the protagonist lying down, resting his head on his strongly implied canon romantic interest's lap, only to give them a last smile and peacefully die.
Persona 4 is a lot more complex in what it's about. I explained the general idea of the plot in my review, which I recommend reading if you don't know of it, because it's too complex to really summarize. Initially, it's more about character exploration and how people do certain things for reasons who aren't really apparent. You've got the person who's doing genuinely good things for some really fucked up reasons, the guy who acts in ways that are very obviously self-defeating out of an identity crisis, and several others. Then, in the later half, the story throws a curve-ball and goes "No, this is actually a story about pursuing the truth no matter what". The second half of the game has you stumble into a series of fake leads as to who the killer is, and pursue each person viciously. There's a couple obvious false trails you're not allowed to fully fall for, and then a few less obvious ones you are allowed to fall for. The real killer ends up being one of the funniest side-characters, Tohru Adachi, a guy who you've probably come to like and grown used to as part of your little world in Inaba. He's actually a really depraved, deeply, deeply messed up individual, and I'm willing to nominate him as one of the most absolutely terrifying game villains, mostly because Adachi is such a perfectly normal guy. The fact that I see a lot of myself in him is even scarier. Furthermore, to get the True Ending, the real best one, you have to put an absolutely abnormal amount of effort in finding the truth, the truth, and nothing but the truth, disbelieving even what the game itself tells you. To make matters worse, if you don't get the True Ending, the world is consumed by eternal fog, and humanity is turned into thoughtless Shadows, who care about nothing but their own self-satisfaction. You're not even aware that this happens unless you get the True Ending, becoming one of the Shadows yourself without even knowing.
The main difference comes in how mature the themes are. Sure, Persona 4 is spent laughing at Yosuke and Chie bickering about the fact that Chie made completely uneatable curry for the school campout, but when the story gets going it's talking of some really disturbing stuff. You've got these deeply seeded, rather horrifying motivations and thoughts in your closest friends psyches. Then there is the absolute horror that is Adachi, an absolutely abhorrent man who is just SO. DAMN. NORMAL, despite the fact that he's willing to kill people for literally no reason, and the chilling realization, that, behind the seemingly good and satisfyingly tied up Good Ending lies the ultimate triumph of lie and self-deception.
In comparison, Persona 3 comes across really childishly. Sure, it's depressing to have this constant reminder of your death around, and the death of all life on Earth is certainly not a pleasant thought. Still, in the rather easy to reach Good Ending (Do you choose to let everything die, or do you choose to try to save it?), you manage to magic away the looming menace through THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, and then peacefully die in the presence of your friends. Persona 4 instead has you realize that even the closest of your friends are, in their heart of hearts, quite disturbed individuals, often with selfish motivations for even the best of their actions. You realize that what passes for normal, and, indeed, the aspect of mankind that shows itself to be the strongest is an empty husk, content to ignore the truth as long as it gets its own personal satisfaction, and even looking down on the truth as something that gets in the way of its selfish desires. In the most obvious way to finish the game, you end up succumbing to this yourself, and dooming humanity to become something almost worse than dead. Sure, you can magic away this threat with THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, but this requires downright ridiculous amounts of scepticism, disbelieving even the unwritten law that what the game tells you about itself mechanically is true, and it's made clear that the threat is more retreating out of respect for your effort than actually being beaten back. It also promises that, if it feels its original plan was the one that made humanity happier, it will return to actually carry it out.
The fact that Persona 4 also has a lot of time where you hang around with your friends and Yosuke complains about curry suddenly seems a lot less relevant.
Still, this is all really about thinking about the consequences and subtones of things. I still won't refuse that Persona 3 is by far the gloomier game, even if Persona 4 is, to me, an extremely dark game. An hour of Persona 3 won't make you feel nearly as good as an hour of Persona 4, and, for the most part, Persona 4 does feel a lot more carefree. I come out of Persona 4 play sessions feeling pretty happy practically every single time, even during the Adachi and Izanami segments. In contrast, I usually come out of Persona 3 play sessions feeling resigned. Still, the point that Persona 3 makes is that, despite the inevitability of death, life is worth living. Persona 4 makes several almost contradictory points: It tells you that the truth is, almost inevitably painful, and comments on how little worth is put on it by anyone any more. You end up almost coming across as selfish, a group of a few young people not allowing humanity's collective will to believe in its own lies and become happy.
In short, Persona 3 ends on an uplifting message about the power of friendship and beauty of life, and Persona 4 ends by preaching to you about how selfish and shallow everyone really is.
Also Tartarus sucks and not being able to control your party members is stupid and I hate actually playing Persona 3 and I wish I didn't but I do and oh god why.
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