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Jul. 2nd, 2020 12:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yvonIt's sad to see tumblr's slow demise, as we saw other sites die before it. The direction of the internet right now just feels kind of sad, in general. I want to see it get better again.
When Persona 4 Golden came out on Steam the other week, I jumped on it immediately and played through the whole thing in just a few days. I loved that game so much when I first played it, 10 years ago. It captured everything about the small town that I grew up in (and currently live in once again) in a way I'd never seen in a video game before. I'd never played a video game that addressed adolescent issues of gender and sexuality in a realistic way. The closest thing I'd ever seen to that was maybe some gay side character who simply was, without any of their identity being discussed in any depth. I'd also been a life-long fan of murder mysteries.
Playing it again now was enjoyable, I suppose, but it also left me tired. It hasn't aged very well, and arguably did not handle those issues very well at the time either, especially considering that 2-3 games prior in the Persona series we had a protagonist in a gay relationship that was 90% canon. There is definitely something to be said for games that have unfulfilled potential, and for me and many others the works that end up with the biggest fandoms are the ones that are full of that, full of things to springboard from and "fix" in ways you wish you could see. It's funny, how an imperfect story often ends up being the most perfect as a creative playground.
It was nice to see the new content at last, though, some of which should have been there from the start, like Adachi's social link. Other things were unnecessary and even kind of embarrassing in the same way the ham-fisted address of gender and sexuality is, but it all has a charm to it even so. I ended up liking Marie quite a lot even though I originally found her design unappealing and wondered if her inclusion was necessary. I've always been, on the whole, reluctant when it comes to Persona's additional content - the anime and manga adaptations, the side story games, the dancing stuff and whatever - I always found it ridiculous, kind of unnecessary and seemed to simply be motivated by a desire to profit rather than to really expand on the world in a meaningful way, but I can concede there is fun to be had there for some people. I don't particularly care for it, but that doesn't make it worthless.
Replaying P4 awoke a lot of feelings in me again and I set up a PSP emulator to replay P2, though I didn't progress beyond checking it worked for now - and I started playing SMT: Imagine again. Another thing I spent a lot of time on, a decade ago. A lot of time and a lot of money, and I have to say I don't miss that part, or the extremely poor official handling of the game, but the private server is actually pretty great and it feels really nice to return to while I take a short break from FFXIV. I want to do all of the things again that had so much impact on me before. Maybe I'll even get around to making the zine I always wanted to make.
It makes me think of the people I played it with back then, though, and wonder what they're doing now. Everything seems to return to that lately. I suppose because at the moment I'm very much in a transitional phase, drifting through life and waiting and hoping to grasp on to opportunities.
When Persona 4 Golden came out on Steam the other week, I jumped on it immediately and played through the whole thing in just a few days. I loved that game so much when I first played it, 10 years ago. It captured everything about the small town that I grew up in (and currently live in once again) in a way I'd never seen in a video game before. I'd never played a video game that addressed adolescent issues of gender and sexuality in a realistic way. The closest thing I'd ever seen to that was maybe some gay side character who simply was, without any of their identity being discussed in any depth. I'd also been a life-long fan of murder mysteries.
Playing it again now was enjoyable, I suppose, but it also left me tired. It hasn't aged very well, and arguably did not handle those issues very well at the time either, especially considering that 2-3 games prior in the Persona series we had a protagonist in a gay relationship that was 90% canon. There is definitely something to be said for games that have unfulfilled potential, and for me and many others the works that end up with the biggest fandoms are the ones that are full of that, full of things to springboard from and "fix" in ways you wish you could see. It's funny, how an imperfect story often ends up being the most perfect as a creative playground.
It was nice to see the new content at last, though, some of which should have been there from the start, like Adachi's social link. Other things were unnecessary and even kind of embarrassing in the same way the ham-fisted address of gender and sexuality is, but it all has a charm to it even so. I ended up liking Marie quite a lot even though I originally found her design unappealing and wondered if her inclusion was necessary. I've always been, on the whole, reluctant when it comes to Persona's additional content - the anime and manga adaptations, the side story games, the dancing stuff and whatever - I always found it ridiculous, kind of unnecessary and seemed to simply be motivated by a desire to profit rather than to really expand on the world in a meaningful way, but I can concede there is fun to be had there for some people. I don't particularly care for it, but that doesn't make it worthless.
Replaying P4 awoke a lot of feelings in me again and I set up a PSP emulator to replay P2, though I didn't progress beyond checking it worked for now - and I started playing SMT: Imagine again. Another thing I spent a lot of time on, a decade ago. A lot of time and a lot of money, and I have to say I don't miss that part, or the extremely poor official handling of the game, but the private server is actually pretty great and it feels really nice to return to while I take a short break from FFXIV. I want to do all of the things again that had so much impact on me before. Maybe I'll even get around to making the zine I always wanted to make.
It makes me think of the people I played it with back then, though, and wonder what they're doing now. Everything seems to return to that lately. I suppose because at the moment I'm very much in a transitional phase, drifting through life and waiting and hoping to grasp on to opportunities.
