It is a disturbing and compelling image. The young man is wearing his school uniform and a slim pair of headphones. He reaches into a pocket with his right hand and pulls out a gun. He flourishes, twirls the gun, and points it at his own temple. There’s a sharp report as he fires, and a fountain of glittering shards spray out of the other side of his head.
It is a compelling and disturbing image. In the course of a game of Persona 3, it is an image that will assault you thousands upon thousands of times.
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 is a game that exploits this transgressive — and powerful — image to the fullest extent. There are complex in-game explanation as to why the teenagers in the game are not really blowing their brains out, but those are post-facto explanations. Fundamentally, the game was developed as an excuse to use this provocative image.
That Persona 3 is a Japanese game makes the suicide theme all the more disturbing. Japan has had an alarmingly high suicide rate for some time, and it has been increasing dramatically lately, especially among children. One could try to view Persona as a meaningful commentary on this situation, but that reading isn’t reasonably sustained by the game’s narrative or leitmotif. It feels to me at best crudely insensitive, and at worst a cynical attempt to profit from the phenomenon. Persona 3 is troubling not only because of the subject matter, but because of its reimagining of suicide as a heroic act. The game’s introductory video, for example, makes it seem downright romantic:
The Shin Megami Tensei (literally translated: “True Reincarnation of the Goddess” or “True Goddess Metempsychosis”) games have always been transgressive and edgy. It’s not clear that this game’s suicide theme is substantially more grim than the themes of previous outings (“You turn into a demon and destroy the world,”) or indeed of other games. What is different is the riveting nature of the game’s central image.
In the US market the game has an “M” (“mature”) rating, giving the publisher plausible deniability in the event of lawsuits. Despite that, the game is aimed firmly at high school children. Without going into too much detail about the game mechanics, the parts of the game that don’t involve shooting yourself in the head involve becoming popular at high school. This portion of the game plays like any number of Japanese games in the “dating sim” genre. I view this as another indication of the target audience of the game: teenagers. The game also has a brutally punishing save system where you have to slog ahead for a long period of time in order to reach a save point. Only people without responsibility — kids — can tolerate such broken save systems. So this is a game labeled as being for adults which is really intended for children. The world already believes that all videogames are for kids. We don’t need this sort of mislabeling helping the idea along.
Some may argue with my assertion that the game is intended for the teenage market. But the alternative hypothesis is that Atlus believes there is a huge desire in the 18-24 demographic for a game where players get to pretend to go back to high school and be popular. That, if true, is disturbing on a completely different axis.
The game is liberally larded with Jungian jargon, retrofitted into Japanese pop culture giant robot sensibilities. (This is a fairly common occurrence when East meets West; think of it as the inverse of Edward Said’s conception of Orientalism. Western cultural notions are often appropriated for anime for exotic flavor, e.g., Christianity is often used whenever a plot calls for a gothic milieu.)
In game terms, the protagonists fight (given-as-evil) “shadows” through a power called “persona”. When battling a shadow, the characters may take out a gun and shoot themselves in the head (extinguishing the ego?), thus summoning a masked spirit, or “persona”, who then whacks the shadow on the head a few times, or burns it, or freezes it, what have you. I’m only a few hours in, so I don’t know how the game’s plot will play out. In purely Jungian terms, the objective of the game is a bit perverse. One would properly describe the persona according to Jung as an outward-facing construct, while the shadow is a part of the self that exerts control subtly, albeit pervasively. Interactions with one’s shadow can be complex, but most would say that trying to simply overpower it by whacking it over the head will more likely lead to constant unhappiness, rather than self-discovery.
Self-discovery, though, seems less a concern of Persona 3 than does style. Teenagers have already grabbed on to Persona 3′s irresistable combination of high school angst, OCD collectability and guns with both hands: you can already find Persona 3 hentai (mildly or deeply pornographic comics) all over the net. I suppose I should be glad that the sexism in the game itself, while present, is not quite as bad as it could be.
Persona 3 is problematic commercial art. To be blunt, if I lived with a depressed teenager (aka “any teenager”), I would do everything in my power to prevent him or her from even learning of Persona 3′s very existence. That such an exercise would be futile is beside the point.
Difficult, challenging, or transgressive art is not something to be reviled. Just because I am troubled by the game’s central image is no reason to denigrate it. But whether the game’s creators intended it as challenging art or merely the cheap exploitation of grief is not a tangential question. It is the central question. I can admire love as an abstract ideal, and still be repulsed by the 30 year old man who gropes at a high school student. I admire the boldness and stark power of Persona 3′s visuals, but see behind those visuals a carelessly groping hand.
A hand that doesn’t care who it hurts on its way to your wallet.
Pete,
I don’t find the presence of Persona 3 Porn to be a compelling argument for the popularity or commonality of the game – the power of Rule 34 guarantees it.
That stated, the games in the Megaten series have always traded on this kind of shock value, and generally for no particularly good reason within the storyline.
I’ve played through the game a fair bit, and truth be told, I mostly found it tedious. It wasn’t a game that offended me like GoW because, after a while, the fact that the characters are using a fake gun to shoot themselves in the head is buried under the standard RPG silliness (oh look! a dog!) and the incredibly tedious dungeon gameplay. The people who designed these games assume that you don’t mind losing 4-5 hours of gameplay at a time.
There are interesting moments in the game, primarily connected with the social links – several of which are interesting and surprisingly melancholy, if relatively short-lived, but the central narrative is cookie-cutter JRPG/Anime stuff.
Let me annotate that.
I think it’s necessary for art to be powerful to make an impression, and I don’t think Persona makes that impression. Sure, you’re a silent young man who shoots himself in order to free the voices in his head and fight the monsters that only he and his friends can see, but the central gameplay is so inordinately tedious, as well as the enormous weeaboo factor in the localization (to be fair, you are playing a character who lives in Japan, but still), I seriously wonder about the games accessibility.
I found the first few hours in the random dungeons pretty slow going too. And it’s all the same old SMT creatures and fusing mechanics. We’ll see if it gets better.
I like the art though.
“But the alternative hypothesis is that Atlus believes there is a huge desire in the 18-24 demographic for a game where players get to pretend to go back to high school and be popular. That, if true, is disturbing on a completely different axis.”
There is a huge desire in the 18-24 (or even later) demographic for games where players get to pretend to go back to high school and be popular. Especially among those who would buy this game in both Japan and the US.
Um, sorry for another off-topic comment (feel free to obliterate), but now it’s your ATOM feed that is broken…
Cheers,
–Jonathan
It’s awesome how WordPress magically makes this stuff work so that I don’t have to worry about stupid XML minutiae.
Oh wait. IT DOESN’T.
That’s disgusting. How can any retailer sell such a horribly tasteless game with a clear conscience?
What about you get to the end of the game. The story is quite deep and thought-provoking. The save point can be accessed every time you go to the dorm and Tatarus, which is very often and not brutal (or whatever).
Many of your comments are very subjective.
Man, this sounds like senseless bashing that one does to an alien totally unknown to him.
Well, one can always talk things about something which they’ve ever barely known. Like they say, don’t judge a book by its cover.
Think out of the box, they may do it all without exact explanation. But that’s how human’s mind expands- by thinking of why things are so. All this time most people has been slacking of and would rather ask somebody who knows rather than thinking to get the answers. Not knowing they could be fooled, and be tricked to believe that good stuff are bad ones, and vice versa.
Besides, if you think this game is bad enough, take a look at the nature of the other games around you as deeply. You’ll surprise yourself of the hidden lies you’ll find. This game, it only makes things clearer.
And I don’t blame it on other publishers as well, games ought to be different. This we call, variation.
This sounds like some sort of concerned Soccer Mom wrote it
“I TELL YOU JACK THOMPSONS CORRECT ABOUT EVERYTHING GAMES ARE SATAN”
and what does pornography have to do with anything? Anyone who knows anything about Japanese animated pornography knows that EVERYTHING gets at least one hentai pic. If a games popular enough, a show, etc.
Hey, there are rule 34 pics of Kermit the Frog, I guess that’s a good enough argument against that satanic show. Cause, you know, the makers of the show drew those pi-OH WAIT A SEC HURR
Oh, and I find it freakin’ hilarious that I stumbled upon this page looking for P3 hentai
“The game also has a brutally punishing save system where you have to slog ahead for a long period of time in order to reach a save point.”
Um….what? There are two saving points that can easily be accessed. One is when you first enter Tartarus, second is in the dorm.
Anyway, this in itself sounds like any old bash. Yes, this game depicts suicide in many different senses. But still it is different. This game is not the only game that has messages deep within it, so I don’t know why this game in particular seems to be getting bashed every where I turn.
Look the way I see this is, it’s not the companies fault, it’s the parents who buy it for their kids. I mean, that’s the point of the M rating right?
On the subject of Hentai……..there is Hentai….for ALOT of things. Almost EVERY manga/anime that I look up art for….there has to be at least one hentai image. It’s something that cannot be stopped in my opinion.
[...] That has some interesting consequences. First, it means I tend to dream about whatever game I was last playing (perhaps this is why I was so hard on Persona 3). Second, it means that to a fairly good approximation, I can estimate how good a game is by how late I stay up. [...]
I’m not going to argue much. I’m just going to point out that putting dating type sims into a game doesn’t make it for younger gamers. I’ve lived in Japan for awhile. I’ve noticed many things here. One of them is that…. dating sims are ussaully bought by the middle age range of men to older men. I’ve rarely if ever seen anyone below 20-22 buy a dating sim.
That being said. Japan does have a high suicide rate this is true(hell, I was in the front car of a train that had someone jump in front of it just yesterday) Not alot of gun related suicides though. It’s easy to buy guns but not ammo here. (Guns are in freakin hobby stores) So, that form of suicide probably wasn’t considered that big of a deal on this end.
The American me understands your arguments for that seriously wakatta. But, the Japanese me doesn’t really get it. (The part of my brain that thinks in Japanese when I speak Japanese)
As for save points. The games nothing. Personally I was never unfortunate enough to get killed while traversing the dungeon. I just always made it to the next lift went back to the first floor and saved(hell, you get all of your hp back that way anyways!)
Later if you play an extra 5 hours the games incrediably broken. Just get Lucifer and satan (Equip Lucifer he has Victory cry) You can kill everything including the last boss in one hit.
On a story point of view it was beautiful at points. I won’t say where but I shed a few tears. Then again, Japan seems to know what buttons to push to make me shed a few.
Welp. I’m tired and i’m running in the Ekiden sometime soon. So, i’m gone! Oyasuminasai!
This is cute.
While I don’t really Agree with the author on his standpoint, I find some of arguments abit lacking.
While it is true that such mediums generally inspire fan hentai, it is still Fan. I don’t think its fair to accuse the muse for insipring the artist. If it is so, then I believe that a great many of teenagers should be arrested for having improper thoughts on (Inser subjct here)
Another thought on the supposed violence, have you noticed that there are games like God of war and Gears of war? Chainsawing an enermy or depacitating a foe is still violence, it just imposed on an alien that is unfortuante to be a foe
I like to say more but then I’ll be spoilling the story for everyone so toddy tinks. And I want my cookie after this
Shake: I feel validated by your Jack Thompson reference. Way to not understand what I was saying.
Jonna: Wow, you sure are in Japan. Yep. In any event, I actually think the plot of the game in general, and the use of Jungian archetypes in particular, is particularly well done. That’s severable from the ethical questions I raise, except to the extent that if the game was clumsy and ham-handed, I probably wouldn’t even be talking about it.
Lord Na Nat: Implicit in my article is the belief that depicting the suicide of teenagers in a game targeted at teenagers is qualitatively different than other depictions of violence. If you’re arguing that all depictions of violence are functionally equivalent, I think you’re mistaken.
Ahem. Let me address this article as I love this game, and I just turned 20. First, I have a theory pertaining to the Evoker, or gun as you decided to call it, I believe that it does not actually shoot a bullet or anything for that matter. I believe the very thought of putting what looks like a gun to your head and pulling the trigger is what evokes the Persona, hence the name for the item-Evoker. Anyway, it can’t be called suicide in my opinion because there is no blood. Second, as I said I just turned 20, which means that I just got out of my teens, and I see no reason why even a depressed teenager couldn’t play this game, providing they could tell reality from fantasy, I know because I was a depressed teen. (Now I’m a depressed adult haha.) Third, sure it is kind of boring running through the levels of Tartarus, the dungeon, but thats not what I find fun, I’m more into the Social Link part of the game, however there is some good to be gained from leveling in the dungeon, especially to avoid experience farming aka grinding, right before the full moon.
I’m also glad that other people have picked up on the Jung references in the game, the Persona especially remind me of his theory of the Shadow, but as the enemies are called Shadows they, for obvious reasons, couldn’t use the namesake and so called it instead Persona(e).
And I suppose I’ll address the hentai as well. To start a Bill Hicks quote, “…no one knows what pornography is. Supreme Court says that pornography is ‘any act that has no artistic merit and causes sexual thought.’” The way I see it, since the hentai is usually fan created, it does have artistic merit. Would you look at the Venus de Milo and say it has no artistic merit? I doubt it. Anyway, the point is you can’t stop hentai, or any “pornography” for that matter, because its human nature, we find sex pleasing and even a substitute for sex-such as pornography-is pleasing to us.
Anyway, as I stated at the beginning, I love this game, and am no closer to suicide than any normal person would be.
As for save points. The games nothing. Personally I was never unfortunate enough to get killed while traversing the dungeon. I just always made it to the next lift went back to the first floor and saved(hell, you get all of your hp back that way anyways!)
I do the same thing, although I have been unfortunate enough to die. But I normally just run to the boss floor and warp back down to the first level and save then warp back up.
[Comment deleted by editor according to the grammar and spelling rule laid out here.]
[Comment deleted by the editor according to the grammar and spelling rule laid out here.]
Perhaps the most dangerous thing about feeling suicidal is that other people treat the sufferer like a walking contagion. Long ago, when I was twelve, I recall having the mother of two sympathetic daughters tell me never to come near her family again. The reason: that I had confessed to contemplating suicide. I hadn’t done anything else — she was simply afraid my depression was contagious.
I used to have a friend with Borderline Personality Disorder. People with BPD are often poster-victims for neglected suicide risk. Until recently, they were the most common psychiatric patients to be consigned to a revolving door of referrals: because the recovery rate is quite low, most professional shrinks didn’t want to come near them. Mental health pros were interested in maintaining a decent success ratio. You want to talk about consigning teens to the graveyard? Think less about controversial dark games and more about professionals who deny teens help. Think about “positive” parents and teachers who tell despairing teens to get over it.
For many, dark music, poetry and games rarely trigger suicidal thoughts. On the contrary: those confirm that others have had similar thoughts and, therefore, the sufferer isn’t alone. Dark art becomes as consoling as the writings of St. John of the Cross: Despair at nothingness, at the “dark night of the soul,” presupposes a second stage of redemption. Considering that possibility can be more positive for sufferers than is commonly thought.
When I would dwell on dark thoughts as a kid, I wasn’t provoked by someone in a cartoon holding a gun to his own head. What upset me was the idea that *no one else* had thought of holding a gun to his head: That everyone else was happy while I felt miserable. The other day on television, I saw an interview with a woman who’d tried to jump off a bridge but was grabbed by an officer at the last moment: The thing that had set her off was hearing her mother say, “Snap out of it. You’re just having a bad day.”
Which brings me back to Persona 3. In my weakest childhood moments, this game wouldn’t have been a danger to me, but it would have been seen that way by people who treated suicidal thoughts as an infectious disease. Those people, not the game, would have been the true danger.
Had I played the game as a kid, I’d have been grateful for the matter-of-fact tone of the demon-summoning technique. I’d have appreciated the unstated connection between having to be someone you’re not in high school and banishing the limitations of your own personality by conjuring someone stronger.
I’d also have appreciated the way the game talks you through the nightmare of high school: This isn’t Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where school authorities consider you a potential delinquent or straight-up homicidal criminal. It’s a game that reassures you’ll get through the private hell of coping with demons (to be faced solo or with the few who comprise your team) and the pony show of public school. It says you’ll come out stronger for having suffered through it.
If I’d played Persona 3 as a kid, I’d have learned a few valuable lessons about interacting with other people, about what works and what doesn’t in social contexts. Far from considering it a danger, I view P3 as beneficial to the depressed. The real danger is being told not to think or talk about sadness, until the despairing person feels trapped and trivialized. Intolerant people drive teens to kill themselves, not the team that created Persona 3.
I suck at RPGs but had no issues whatsoever with the save system of Persona 3. I haven’t found an easier save system beyond playing old games using emulators that allow saves at will.
Far from being another “typical SMT RPG”, this one addressed many complaints about earlier games. Persona 3 covers new ground in terms of the save points, integration of a Sim-style social game to create variety, and the voluntary aspect of choosing to fight at given times: The old complaint, that the user can’t turn a corner or stand still for twenty seconds without being forced into battle, doesn’t apply. P3 is in fact the easiest RPG I’ve ever played. It is a source of consolation, light catharsis and synthetic friendships, not bleak despair.
Finally: For some of us, the tone and imagery of SMT are not “sensationalistic” but reassuringly familiar. Some of us prefer Billie Holiday to Louis Armstrong, Shiva to Lord Krishna, nocturnal walks through empty cities to afternoon romps in a verdant park. Every expression of a dark aesthetic does not necessarily result in tragedy or even a lapse of taste. There is costumed black metal and there are plays by Samuel Beckett. There is Marilyn Manson and there is Mahler. There is Joe Coleman and there is Hieronymus Bosch.
I forget something you hardly find the save point in Tartarus?Are you a new gamer or something…It need me less than 15 minute to jump to other device and save my game…And I’m still the slowest in my friends…They only need 3 days toplay it to the end and I need a week…Maybe you should try the easy mode so you could die and alive again for 10 or 12 times(Sorry I forget how many)
There are two types of people in the world: people who have lives, and people who think that waiting 15 minutes to be able to save a game isn’t that long.
You, PersonaLover, are the second type of person.
I will say that I agree over the save point issue.
During the 2nd “ordeal” in the game, I did not have enough levels to beat the Emperor or Emperess, and they killed me. Because the last time you could save the game was one day prior, I had to start again from a day ago, and I had to go back through maybe 20-30 minutes of ( speeding through, mind you ) dialogue and pointless running around that I had already done. The game doesn’t give you an option to skip all of this, so it was mandantory to continue.
All this, without being able to save once, because there was no break in the cutscenes to use the Dorm Lounge, or even the entrance to Tartarus. I was lucky that my PS2 never overheats, because I had to leave it *several times* amidst all that.
I was finally able to save after the boss battle and all the dialogue that followed, but it was a ridiculous amount of time to wait to save the game.. Well over 15 minutes, I assure you.
Peterb:
It seems to me that your fifteen minutes’ save rule is being applied inconsistently, since some of the games you’ve liked in the past have had similar points in their progress — particularly RPGs. Even games like Ico and Okami don’t allow you to save whenever you like in the beginning. Besides, you’re also denigrating nearly every survival horror game in the process, including RE 0-4, Fatal Frame 1-3 and the Silent Hill series. Most classic horror games tend to have wide-spaced save points throughout, whereas the battle you complain of occurs exactly once in Persona, and probably doesn’t come into play for a good number of gamers — I’m not questioning your aptitude but rather your wider application of a moment of bad luck. I myself will freely admit to being a late and clumsy gamer, yet I have not experienced the save issue of which you complain.
As for your “life vs. no life” distinction: I find it startling that the most common dismissal of gamers by non-gamers — that they have “no lives” and are willing to “waste time” playing games — is being used by you, a gamer, against others. I’d have thought you of all people would defend the commonly disputed value of gamers’ second lives. Suggesting that entire strata of games are *a waste of time for every user* due to remote save points is unkind. Isn’t it possible that your most significant objections to Persona 3 lie elsewhere, and that it is perhaps unnecessary to denounce one of “the two types of people in the world”?
I’d have to agree with the last poster. I’m in the middle of playing this game, and while it may be standard jrpg fare, it is well done and the integration of story and gameplay through the social links is an interesting development.
dude, i’m a teenager and i play this game on a daily basis, and as much as it might surprise you, i have never had the urge to go and shoot myself in the head. i could understand your concern if there was some blood involved, but since there is absolutely no gore involved i don’t understand how you can so strongly criticize the game, also considering that you’re only a few hours into the game yourself. therefore i see this as an empty argument. try finishing the game before writing something like this, and don’t assume that every teenager is as mentally unstable as to go shoot themselves after seeing it in a game, as you think. period.
~sighs~
I’m 22, big fan of the game. My freind is 24, also plays the game. Frankly, I can’t see how this would appeal to people much under the age of 16, which at that age they should be able to tell the diffrence between reality and fantasy, and if they can’t, they shouldn’t be in the gene pool anyways. The story is very complex, and entertaining, and a suprising amount of depth for a video game. As for the fact there’s porn of it, that comment isn’t realative, as a previous commenter said, there’s porn of evreything. Yes, the image of a kid blowing his brains out is very disturbing, that’s part of what makes shin megami tensei games so interesting though, they’re darker bent. Next thing you know, you’ll be saying how Nocturne promotes devil worshiping by letting you side with Lucifer.
Hmmm, other points to make.
Save system, not broken. You can head back to Tartarus’ main floor within 30 miniutes if you run past the enemies, and it gives you the option to warp back before every forced boss. Also you can save in the “real world” if you so choose after 5 or 10 min. of talking to people. I work a full time job at wal-mart (that’s 48 hours a week) and I still had time to beat the game twice, even with sleeping 8 hours a day and leaving my house during the weekend.
i think that persona 3 is absolutely the best game i have ever played. in fact i am playing it right now and have bee for the past 26 hours…
i have played through loads of rpgs and i am a big fan of final fantasy. and i know im gonna get alot of crap from this comment, but i think this game truly surpasses that of any final fantasy game. i recommend that you all go out and purchase a copy!
-Sandmann-
[...] I finished the main storyline of the first Disgaea game, and then switched to the second game. It’s time to talk about it a bit. But first, let me tell you a little something I’ve noticed about our web traffic. A few months ago I wrote a fairly in-depth and critical review of Persona 3 called Ferris Bueller’s Day Offing Himself. Tweaking the nose of the world a little bit, I gave the article the slug “Persona 3 Hentai”, because of a throwaway comment late in the review. [...]
I have some disagreements. for instance you say “developed as an excuse”. I wonder if you have ever programed besides web design. programing is hard and quality programing like in this game is expensive. so is getting writers of this caliber and artists and matierials. I don’t think that any game this well made was any type of “excuse”.
Secondly I’m recently out of high school and I belive that my prom was one of the best days of my life. Therefore, yes I belive that many people would love to go back to high school especially when just out and facing the world and all it’s demons. There is nothing wrong with wanting to expeirance the best time of your life again (so long as they don’t become hikikomori)
finaly porn, I have in the past visited porn sites and I can tell you that they have every thing incuding that wierd pink haired chick from the E-surance comercials. so if having a porn makes something evil then you should toss your final fantasy, Starcraft, all Disney cartoons, and any anime or manga.
Oh, yeah I forgot in the phrase “Persona 3 hentai (mildly or deeply pornographic comics)” the word hentai is incorect the word should be Doushini (Hentai indicates male female paring, Yaoi male male, and Yuri female feamle)
I hope you don’t censor me for saying this, but if you’re going to delete people’s comments because they descend into ad hominem, then perhaps you shouldn’t be doing the exact same thing. You aren’t going to get people to read your next article by disparaging them when they disagree with you about save systems, nor will you win sympathy by characterizing suicide survivors who stopped by to make thoughtful arguments as de facto perverts in search of grainy derivative hentai. Judging from the responses posted, most of your new traffic wouldn’t google, care about or remember the artwork you’ve mentioned. You seem to be placing far too much faith in the idea that people in search of graphic hentai would bother reading a game review, let alone, responding in detail.
The reason for the prodigious number of comments is this: a lot of people happen to like Persona 3. The game is far more popular than you realize and has also won awards. Self-righteous ire over P3′s conjuring technique is something that really annoys fans — you could call it a *triggering* issue. I myself was googling Persona 3, which I’d been playing, and saw your deliberately confrontational title. It bothered me just enough to cause me to read what you had to say. Your uncharitable dismissal of fans and respondents disappointed me beyond the article itself, and made me respond, if only to ask you to show more respect.
I think you’re on shaky ground attacking the morals of the people who created P3. First, you’re not in a position to judge strangers’ unstated motives for creating art (and here’s where we might differ — I consider games works of art as well as entertainment). Second, the image that disturbs you is clearly meant for the enormous number of players who don’t view the image that way. Third, you’d be on firmer ground attacking Rule of Rose, another game that was misconstrued as immoral. Very few liked Rule of Rose (though I’ll admit to loving the dissonant classical soundtrack) — but even in that case, faux-moral criticisms were misguided. The criticisms should have focused on dodgy game mechanics, not invented motives and implications that stemmed from confusion, unfamiliarity and ad hominem barking.
I also disagree with the idea that soulless greed drives the people who script and program controversial games. I would argue it’s likelier they find developing such games cathartic — just as Wilde did writing Salome — if the statement didn’t, again, involve ascribing sentiments and motives to total strangers.
If your dismissive comments about the traffic from your P3 review are any indication, you seem unaware that presumptions of a web content hierarchy are as misleading as those of individual entitlement. Some of the people whom you’ve condescend to pigeonhole might well be award-winning editors and writers who happened to stop by because of the subject. I can verify that’s true in at least one case.
JLN,
If I was deleting comments based solely because they were ad hominem there would be far fewer comments on this thread. Rather, I’ve only deleted those comments whose atrocious spelling and grammar make them unpleasant to read. That’s the standard here.
I fundamentally disagree with your premise that I am “not in a position to judge strangers’ unstated motives for creating art.” As both a consumer and critic of course I am in a position to judge works of art — or commerce — and to opine or hypothesize about the motives of the creators. In fact, that’s one of the central questions that arises when faced with problematic commercial art: why this? Why did the creators choose to create this work, rather than something else? Why these images? Why this theme?
Now, one can of course come to different conclusions about the answers to these questions. I conclude that Persona 3′s theme was chosen largely because of cynicism and fashion. Others conclude that it is a subtle and incisive Jungian analysis tool that helps teenagers survive their own personal demons. I don’t criticize anyone who reaches a different answer. I do, however, criticize those, like yourself, who suggest that it is somehow improper, illegitimate, or wrong to even ask these questions. If you indeed consider games to be art, and not simply entertainment, then questions like these are not merely permissible. They are necessary.
Stepping away from the questions of art, and moving back into the realm of mere entertainment, I will continue to disparage anyone, anywhere, anytime, who suggests that it is even remotely acceptable for a game to make the player wait 15 to 30 minutes before they can save their game. That’s simply not a debatable point: save systems like that are pathological, and anyone who supports or encourages developers to create them is the enemy of all game players everywhere.
Thanks for your comments.
I love this game. It’s really pathetic to go ahead and bash a game that you don’t really know the full of. I think that EVERYONE knows that a gun can’t make a persona/spirit or whatever come out of your head. The game gives you a warning not to play on coincidences and events related to anything in your life that can trigger an emotional rage. Sure, there may be “dating” and hanging out with people in the game, but it’s not there just to look pretty. The Arcanas help you with your Personas. About the 15 minute save periods… Um, I think your game is broken. It’s quite easy to find the save points, and I usually sit their for 30 seconds (not even that) waiting for it save. It’s only difficult if you’re in Tartartus and can’t find the portals. About the porn thing, I really don’t care. Every cartoon/game has a porno somewhere. The game is rated “M” for a reason. It can be violent, yes, but at that it’s all fiction.
“I’m only a few hours in, so I don’t know how the game’s plot will play out.”
Then don’t write a review. You should at least get to a good point in the game where you can make a thorough comment. Many people who have bought this game and talked about it actually think it’s anti-suicide. Just letting you know ^.^
> It’s quite easy to find the save points, and I usually sit their for 30
> seconds (not even that) waiting for it save. It’s only difficult if you’re
> in Tartartus and can’t find the portals.
That’s precisely my point. “It’s easy and convenient, except for when it is a royal pain” isn’t a stellar defense.
I’m happy that you liked the game. I didn’t. That is not to say that there is nothing good about it, or that I’m surprised that people find it compelling. It is compelling, while at the same time being problematic. To borrow a phrase, I think that Persona 3 is like rotten mackerel by moonlight — it both shines and stinks.
Regarding your comments about the legitimacy of writing a review, we’ll simply have to disagree. If I were reviewing a restaurant, and they served me a plate of rotten mackerel, I wouldn’t feel compelled to choke down the whole plate before warning other people that I had a bad meal.
As a young man in high school myself, and a quite avid fan of the shock, play, and down right everything factor of the Megaten series, I found this particular installment to be quite fufilling on the story level, and if anything, lacking in the art department when compared to Nocturne which was quite lush in landscape and detail.
I can wholeheartedly take into consideration where you are coming from when mentioning the underlying feeling that the game capitalizes on scuicide by explaining the situation with teenagers in Japan these days. However, if anything, the obscurities that seem to take those of intellect and non aback, if anything in my mind, MASK the true depth of the ocean it hides beneath itself, rather then being the true intention.
A treasure trove of metaphors can surface, walking hand-in-hand with themes from the game.
For example: Shooting oneself to unleash a persona.
It’s killing the bodily facade of your basic existence to show your true will in manifestation . In actuality, it’s like using your pure will to fight for you.
Turning beliefe in oneself into an awesome power coupled with whom they truly are as a person inside.
Sevral issues can speak for that one as later in the game, faith is mentioned by some of the characters as their reason to fight becomes nothing short of their will to live, either with reason or to find reason as believers in themselves.
I also believe that the main character’s ability to produce multiple personas speaks for itself as well.
As the main character in my mind is a reflection of the player, real human beings do not have the luxury (or are saved by the curse) of having a set extremist identities like those we see all too often in stories of all kinds.
The fact that you posses multitudes of creatures speaks that as you grow, whom you are as a person will always change with every moment. It is up to you, how the character grows and shapes with each passing second as it is up to you in the life you lead, and I hope you love.
Gameplay? Oh god all the enemies were like, the same. Bosses were fun at first, yet then failed to be a challenge afterward towards the second half of the game’s year. Saving was all too easy, ranking s. links was amazing. Underlying own tidbits of the world around you’s beliefes of all things from parental ties to coping with dying.
Also reflecting their that one’s will can carry with it the will and affection of those whose lives played significance in yours as yours in theirs.
This game plays strongly on will, faith, friendship, and inevibilaty (Or however you spell it. Ha, I don’t do much academicly, my apologies).
And althoughit’s morals seem to hide a darker picture,
I belive under that darker picture, lies an ocean of idealogy and possibility to chew on.
So the next time you see your friends, give them a hug please.
I’ll be really quick on this.
As a persona fan myself it is obvious were I’ll stand on this issue. My personal basis to art; be it a game, be it a movie, or be it music; Is that it should never be banned in any form. Art is Art. It’s a piece of something left for people to explore and find the true beauty of. And in the case of persona 3 I think it’s safe to say that it wasn’t deliberately malicious in it’s art. The authors are expressing themselves in the form of something (suicide) that few would dare venture into.
If someone was really stupid enough to kill themselves over an expression of ones art it isn’t our place to blame the creator of the art, But the environment in which the kid was raised. Whats a catalyst to suicide for one person is a light in dark times to another.
That is the beauty of art…
Mr. Peterb,
If you can’t find the portals in tartarus then either you are bad enough at this game that you ought to just hang it up already, or either your game or mine is mis-programed. I have not yet been stuck in Tartarus but once when I just barely escaped being wiped out by Death because I tryed to fight. I finised the game now and belive that if it happend so often I would have had more trouble in this area.
Thank You,
Jack Warn
I swear, games are a work of art. It’s an expression of the creators personal self onto a canvas. Art is a powerful medium, and can touch and change the way that many people think. Just because someone sees a peice of art that has something to do with suicide, doesn’t mean they want everyone to go outside with a gun at night and kill themselves.
>”I swear, games are a work of art. It’s an expression of the creators personal self onto a canvas.”
Man, in that case John Romero must be one fucked up guy.
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I was going to make a sarcastic reply, but then I noticed that you posted this on September 2007.
However, I’d like to point out that this game is about as much about suicide as Hello Kitty is about blue dogs from hell mauling innocent kittens.
I think you get the message.
Just go get hit by a bus, nobody likes you
Hell hath no fury like that of people searching google images for “persona 3 hentai.”
I like the way that instead of taking the time to understand the game you have done strait to the “YOU SHOOT YOUR SELF IN THE HEAD!!!! THIS IS EVIL I TELLS YA!!!!!!”. You should probably note that it’s a pretty good game, in fact great game, and even a little understanding and some common sense would tell you that P3 and suicide are completely different.
As for the hentai, I suppose your can’t control what people do in there spare time, you seam to like ranting, they like to live (draw) their fantasies, Live with it.
I should post referrer logs next to each commenter. That would be fun.
I disagreed with this review completely. But I will not hate you as a person, nor will I hate your beliefs, nor will I hate your thoughts and feelings. I may not like them, but I am more than a few degrees away from hating them.
As mentioned above this game is not a game about suicide. I don’t even think it’s a game about psychology. I think it’s a game about people. Given horrifying situation and a bizzare power to fight it it talks about ordinary people. The core of the game is about people. Tartarus is important to the story and it is the way in which the characters are brought together, the shadows are important and are another way the characters are brought together, but neither of them are what the game is about in my mind.
Death is something important in the game, but I don’t think death is glorified. A major character dies over the course of the game and people deal with the ramifications. The death isn’t glorified but treated realistically. People cry, people are hurt emotionally, people get angry, all very realistic things, and none of them very happy things.
I can see how you might think that the game is a glorification of takings ones own life, but I look at it and see something different. Maybe it’s the context of playing through the game several times, but I don’t see it that way. I see it as nothing more than an eye-grabber. A trailer. To judge the whole thing by a trailer is seem silly to me.
Lastly you take a couple of cheap shots which I think should be addressed. For the save system to each his own, but to call anyone who doesn’t like anytime saving a person with no life seems rather like an ad hominem attack. For the hentai content I’m afraid there’s porn for everything on the internet. It’s called rule 34, to say a game is bad for the porn is to say there is no good game.
Spare us the moral superiority act, please.
1. Google “Persona 3″. Your hentai image is at the top, which is why you’re seeing all of those referrer entries in your webserver logs.
2. My first thought: “ftw, Google is linking to hentai stores in their top images now? that seems like it’s against their own terms and just a little messed up”.
3. Clicked to validate above impression. Relieved to see that it was a blog.
4. Became similarly annoyed with the suicide crusade contained within, but others have beaten that horse to death already and the only thing I will add is that there is porn of just about every fantasy game and anime series ever released. It takes an incredibly unpopular series *not* to have it, so complaining about it being a source of porn is just a little deluded.