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It's clear he's suffering from internalised homophobia - self-hatred due to his sexuality. Its teen protagonists are on a mission to assist characters with self-acceptance by - of all things - exploring a dungeon of the mind that reflects their repressed inner-desires and subconscious demons. The Persona games thrive on psychoanalysis and purport to tackle tough subject matters. Playing through his story arc is deeply uncomfortable. He's just portrayed using harmful stereotypes that are at best awkward and at worst downright homophobic. He's aggressive, unlikeable, and a delinquent. Kanji is a fellow student who has dropped out of school to beat up the local biker gang. Speaking of societal norms, let's discuss Kanji. Just two examples of the frequent misogyny present in dialogue I chose neither and my character's courage increased: it does take courage to not fit societal norms, after all. That's made explicit when male friend Yosuke directly asks the player which girl he'd rather date, as if fancying at least one of them is inevitable. The two girls the hero befriends are heavily stereotyped between the quiet pretty one and the outspoken nerdy one - it's clear which is considered more desirable. They're almost constantly hit on, be it by their friends or even their creepy teachers. Female characters exist almost always under a male gaze, their worth directly relating to their looks. It's the poor representation that has truly soured my time with the game, however. Yet throughout my time with P4G so far, I can't shake the feeling of overfamiliarity. And the j-pop music, as always, is pure joy. The smaller scale feels more manageable too. The smalltown Japan setting and murder mystery story offer a more intimate slice of life vibe away from P5's hectic vision of Tokyo.

It's even got the same weird Velvet Room where your Persona powers are manipulated.

#PERSONA 4SHADOW WORLD FULL#

The game unfolds in a strict calendar format, each day full of choice: dungeon crawling, shopping, socialising, and more. You form bonds with your fellow schoolmates - the jock, the pretty one, the feisty one - who each discover the powers of their own Persona in a parallel world contained within technology (here a TV, in P5 a mobile phone). You play as a young man who moves to a new school in a new area of mysterious happenings. It's not beyond criticism from fresh eyes in fact, this is an opportunity to reflect on the past and appreciate how far representation in games has come.Īs with other games in the series, P4G follows the same dungeon-crawling JRPG and social simulation structure for a formulaic experience. But after the success of Persona 5, this release of P4G is bringing the game to a new (more global) audience. After all, it's a product of its time and of its culture. It may seem unfair to critique a Japanese game from over a decade ago for having outdated views. This isn't a fine red wine, but a bottle of sparkling that's gone flat. Yet with its outdated stereotypes and dialogue filled with misogyny and homophobia, P4G has not aged well.

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Persona Series - Announce Trailer | Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, PC, Nintendo Switchįirst released in 2008 and followed by the Golden version on PS Vita in 2012, this launch is something of a retro re-release. Working backwards, I jumped into P4G - a game many consider to be a high point in the series.

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It also left me intrigued about its predecessors, which are finally now available beyond PlayStation with the release of Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden on Switch and Xbox. It instantly became one of my favourites. Its mix of social management and JRPG was like nothing I'd experienced, its soundtrack was infectious, its teen drama thrilling. I'd never previously played a game in the Persona (or Shin Megami Tensei) series. Previously it was Breath of the Wild and The Witcher 3. Each year, there's often one game that dominates my time for a hundred or so hours.

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