I just finished Persona 4 Golden...
Major Projection / Light Spoilers follow.
It’s July, 2021.
I just quit my job at an insurance adjustment company (long story, ask me about it sometime), took a long planned trip with my then-girlfriend (now fiancé), and began to reacquaint myself with the long and unpredictable road that is unemployment (there and back again). With nothing but free time on my hands and a pandemic that wasn’t officially over, I ventured back into video games for the first time in quite awhile. I had this one game that I purchased a long time ago but I never really dug into it or maybe I did but I forgotten about it. That game was Persona 5.
Flash forward six months later, I finished the game with over 100 hours recorded. It was an RPG journey unlike anything I’ve ever played before. I can positively say that it changed my life for the better. It gave me the much needed catharsis that I found lacking in most American entertainment because it focused primarily on the individualistic struggle of healing from personal traumas, both big and small, then growing and evolving as a collective, stronger than ever before. It is one of the rare games that incentivizes empathy, understanding, and redemption rather than just indulging the player in pure power fantasy fulfillment.
It is also one of the few pieces of modern media that exposes powerful institutions (whether it be law enforcement, schools, or corporations) as nothing more than a competition of self serving narcissists who continue blindly performing acts of evil only because they fear loss of employment and stature. It doesn’t matter that the protagonists in the game technically never break a law in their actions and ultimately served the greater good by manipulating evil people to admit their crimes. The only thing that matters is whether or not powerful institutions appear good to the general public. In this way, Persona 5 separates itself from other superhero narratives by questioning if we should find our own definitions of justice over those that the government tries to force us to accept.
The game was so thoughtful about these concepts that I ultimately bought Persona 5 Royal for the Switch, restarted the whole game (no new game plus), and finished it again this year in 2023. Every now and then I’m tempted to play through a third time. It has definitely cemented itself as my #1 favorite game of all time.
As you can see,
Persona 4 Golden had a lot to live up to. I was told early on that you didn’t need to play these games in sequential order because very little carries over from game to game. They’re like the Final Fantasy games in that regard (though much better!). I was also made privy to the fact that most people in the fandom prefer 4 to 5. There are many videos on this. At the same time, Persona 4 was released over a decade ago and the Golden version was a Playstation Portable Vita exclusive so that certainly adds a lot of salt to these evaluations. Some advise to play 4 before 5 so expectations don’t get screwed up. Too late!
In a lot of ways, the Zero Punctuation review of 4 is blisteringly accurate. It’s 5 but less. The fandom of 4 over 5 appears, on the surface, to largely be due to nostalgia. The random generated dungeons makes dungeon crawling a slog. Not every social link adds benefit to battles. The combat is even more simplistic and not nearly as flashy. 5 improved on the gameplay in nearly every way. And yet, I can’t completely dismiss the game out of hand for one big reason.
Let’s back up. Persona 4 Golden tells the story of a young man named Yu, a transfer student from the city, as he goes to live in the rural town of Inaba with his uncle, Ryotaro, and his cousin, Nanako, due to his parents traveling outside the country for work. Upon his arrival, a series of grisly murders occurs which puts the entire place in shock. One night, Yu discovers that his television transforms into a portal to another world called the “Midnight Channel” that shows random people throughout the town. The next day, those people disappear. Thinking this channel is connected to the murders, he bands together with a group of students who have also made this realization as they venture into the portal to save the next victim of the serial killer.
That’s, more or less, the gist of the game’s premise. On the surface, it is quite unique. Most RPGs aren’t about small towns but about a chosen one who must travel to many different dungeons to unite the world’s elements with a band of misfits in their effort to eliminate the villain who wants to be a God. By contrast, Persona 4 is anime Scooby Doo, just with a talking stuffed animal bear instead of dog with a speech impediment. As many have noted, Persona 4 is the happiest game about a serial killer. Personally, I would call it the gayest game about a serial killer because it works with its two definitions: gay meaning happy and gay meaning someone who belongs with the LGBTQ community. This is actually the secret, real realization a lot of people play the game: every single main character in the game has some form of queer coding with them.
The secondary story of Persona 4 Golden lies within the dungeons of the Midnight Channel. For the majority of the game, the kidnapped victims that this Scooby Gang saves become friends or party members that the player can use in battle. Like Persona 5, the dungeons themselves become manifestations of these victims’ inner psyches. The boss for each of these dungeons are the physical manifestations of the parts of the victims that they deny within themselves. For an example, Kanji is an overtly masculine gangster type character but his shadow is the complete opposite: an effeminate man who has an obsession with steamy bathhouses. Therefore, his dungeon is a bathhouse.
Now some fans believe Kanji is the exception and not the rule. Yet almost shadow manifestation of the main party has some sort of queer implication.
Yosuke - it’s revealed that his crush on a woman was partly for show.
Chie - it’s revealed there is a jealous rage over feeling Yukiko’s attractiveness.
Yukiko - it’s revealed there is an explicit confirmation of viewing Chie as one of three romantic options for her.
Rise - it’s revealed that she represses the expression of her sexuality because of shame.
*Deep Sigh*
And that leaves me with both Teddie and Naota, two characters that are the most difficult to justify under the queer coding interpretation because both bump up against the homosexual repression that Japan, the government institution, imposes. As a white American with little knowledge to how those in Japan live, I can only make surface level observations based on secondhand documentation regarding the matter. The main assumption one can make, however, is that there is far more oppression regarding it which stems from the national ban of homosexual marriages and certain restrictions regarding transgenderism that continues to this day.
While I wouldn’t say the comparison is 1:1, Teddie’s evolution from teddy bear to an actual real life human being certainly feels like a coded transitioning. Like Morgana in Persona 5, Teddie is a being of the Midnight Channel yet there’s a certain point where he makes battle with his shadow manifestation that he arrives in the real world. The shadow Teddie has to fight centers around his identity. Is he real or is he just part of the Midnight Channel? Once defeated, Teddie makes his way into the real world and in a shocking twist, takes off the head of the costume, revealing a very effeminate looking boy inside. In popular trans culture, the term “egg” denotes someone who has yet to transition. You tell me. What does Teddie’s suit look like? An egg.
On the other hand, we have Naota, a character I believe everyone in the queer community wants to love but can’t due to the arc the writers put… sigh… her in. At the beginning of the game, Naota is a minor character widely assumed to be a man by the entire crew. Yet once Naota’s dungeon is revealed, it’s shown that she’s actually a woman that feels like she should be a man because she doesn’t feel like she would be taken seriously as a female detective. Her shadow wants to transform Naota into a man to erase their insecurities. The ensuing battle is about stopping a character from taking a body altercation procedure. While there’s plenty of debate over whether or not Naota is truly a trans coded character within the fan community, it still felt wrong to complete this dungeon given that the game so strongly tells the player that the character is a man early on.
And yet, I can’t easily dismiss Persona 4 Golden out of the Queer Canon so easily. BioWare games have a long history of allowing the main character to pursue gay relationships but these scenes mostly play out as subplots and rarely do they figure into the main story. While the characters in Persona 4 Golden never explicitly come out as queer, their struggles to overcome personal traumas regarding their gender expression will always resonate deeper to me than a story largely about saving the universe from an ancient alien race with military grade equipment that just so happens to have a gay or two in the squad. As queer people, we often live within multiple paradoxes, coding ourselves straight to outside society while living a secret life with our friends and family. As my new favorite bisexual coded character Kanji puts it, “It ain’t a matter of guys or chicks… I’m just scared shitless of being rejected.” Indeed.
Additional Thoughts:
Since I couldn’t romance Kanji (maxed him the fastest I could though), I ended up romancing Rise which annoyed my fiancé. Yes, yes, Rise is incredibly sexually and romantically aggressive towards the protagonist which makes romancing her semi-embarrassing but I found this characterization mostly refreshing because women characters in media often code their romantic attraction or seem embarrassed to even experience sexual interest. Not so with Risette. She gives Mae West a run for her money in the ever increasingly hilarious and aggressive attempts to make everyone know that Yu is hers. While she may be the most coded straight character in the game, there are points where she will compliment another woman’s beauty almost too well. In truth, I would argue every character in this game is bisexual.
Yes, even Yosuke. While Yosuke annoys early on with some homophobic comments, there’s a point late in the game where Teddie starts living with him and they fight like an old married couple. Perhaps they just don’t know it yet?
Speaking of “perhaps they just don’t know it yet”… The Chie / Yukiko “friendship” gave me a lot of Ann / Shiho “friendship” vibes. With Persona 5, so much of Ann’s confidant focused on Shiho that it often felt like you were the third wheel of the relationship. It’s the same with Chie and Yukiko. There’s close then there’s “mentioning the other person in every scene they’re in” close. While there are options to romance both, I never could’ve bought that either of them wouldn’t treat me as a beard. They seem mutually obsessed. “Don’t you push them! They’ve got to work on that for themselves.”
Oh, you wanted me to talk about the actual game?
75 Hours to beat on first go around. I customized the difficulty early on in one setting: an experience multiplier. I hate grinding so this level of customization was welcome. I doubt I will do a new game plus.
The pacing is the big issues. With Royal, there were only few dips. With Golden, I felt there were, at times, huge gaps of nothing to do but spend time with social links. A perk for some is the small town feel of the game’s location but I definitely got bored of the same five places quick. Guess I’m a city boy through and through!
It will never fail to amaze me that the primary antagonist in 5 has connections to law enforcement while in 4 you literally live with a police officer and he’s one of the most moralistic characters in the game. What a flip!
My party generally consisted of Yukiko, Kanji, and Chie. Late in the game, I traded out Chie for Yosuke even though I like Yosuke least of the cast.
Favorite Party Member Social Link: Kanji, Least: Naota. It’s not that I dislike Naota, I just didn’t care for the mystery the social link took me. On the other hand, Kanji’s social link expanded on the character in ways that made me love him even more. Such a sweetie!
Favorite Non Party Member Social Link: Naoki, Least Favorite: Marie. Like Kasumi in Royal, Marie is an added character. Unlike Kasumi, Marie feels completely shoehorned and doesn’t really feel tied into the main storyline at all until the endgame bonus dungeons. She’s not a particularly memorable character and her angsty poetry in the Velvet Room was always grating. On the other hand, you have Naoki who is the brother of a murdered victim at the game. In his social link, you get to know him at first as a standoffish young man trying to find meaning in the wake of his sister’s death. It culminates in one of the most tearjerking scenes in a game where he expresses his frustrations over not knowing how to grieve properly. It’s random characters like his that reminds you of how great the writing can be.
Social Links I didn’t Max out: The Fox (damn Beach Guardian!), Ai, Eri, Hisano. I didn’t realize Hisano was only on Sundays. I didn’t care much for Ai or Eri. Maybe someday!
Favorite Dungeon: Void Quest / Least Favorite Dungeon: Hollow Forest. If I didn’t care much for her social link, you shouldn’t be surprised I didn’t like Hollow Forest either. It’s difficult to choose a least favorite dungeon. Most are randomly generated and they all tend to blend together after a while. I only really liked the Void Quest because of how its 16 bit nature fits in with the psyche of the character.
The music! Wow! I almost forgot to talk about the music! While it doesn’t hit the peaks of 5, I can tell you I’ve had “Shadow World” (if you can watch that opening cinematic without being charmed, I don’t want to know you!), “Backside of TV” (perfect pump up music), and “Signs of Love” on repeat. I will live a happy life if I never have to hear “Your Affection” and “Reach Out to Truth” again though. I may have heard the battle theme of Persona 5 a thousand times already but I never got as tired of it as I did with “Reach Out to Truth” and all its variations.
Final Thoughts
Even though I’d rate this game a solid 8/10, I can firmly say that it has cemented my status as a forever Persona fan. I’m overjoyed to have finally played it if only for its magnificent writing. In only two entries, the Persona games have accurately presented everyday lives and attitudes with their stories than any other RPG I have ever played. I eagerly await Persona 3 Reload.