#i think about how akechi must have felt standing in front of ren and that brief second where he pointed his gun at ren

[calamity-jam]

Déjà vu-

[it-will-not-last-the-night]

PQ2-Persona 3 Characters

I play this game slowly for a number of reasons: (1) I like drawing games out because I enjoy them more that way and (2) I played it intermittently, put it down when FE3H came out, then picked it up again, then got DLC for TW3K and put it down again etc. etc. I find it an easy game to put down and get back into.

However, I am now at the end, only Enlil remains and the Velvet Rangers. Since I want to complete the game fully I’m now doing the monotonous and boring task of farming the Reaper to get to Lv 89 with Ren so I can Wild Growth my core party to his Level, get Huang Di, and finish off the Velvet Rangers. Seriously though, who thought I’d reach a point where I’m bullying the poor Reaper and getting bored of the fight? He doesn’t even get me halfway to a full level now!

Anyway. So, with the end approaching, I thought I’d do for the P3 cast what I did for the P4 cast. I decided in the end to actually not watch/read anything about P3 or P4 till I finish PQ2, to form opinions based around it purely from PQ2, then once I’m done with it I’ll go watch LP’s of P3 and P4 to see how wrong (or right!) I got things.

Without further ado my feelings towards the P3 cast solely as they are presented in PQ2:

Exceptions:

I’m starting us off with exceptions. What are exceptions? Exceptions are characters who, for whatever reason, I feel their are circumstances that make them difficult for me to really discuss as a fully-fleshed character. They aren’t necessarily bad, but something about them means I don’t really see them as a fully rounded or developed character like the rest.

P3 Protagonist: Like the P4 Protagonist and Ren I just struggle to form any feelings or attachments to this character. I’ve said before I *suck* at self-insertion. I just do. In FE3H my least favourite character is Byleth, wish I could get rid of them, as I find the relationships between characters with more detailed and fleshed out characteristics and dialogue far more interesting. The P3 Protagonist isn’t bad but, compared to the rest, just feels shallow and uninteresting. He also shares the same problem as all four Protagonists in that I am sick and tired of how much their own teams have to constantly shill them like they’re the greatest thing ever. Ugh. It’s the most annoying thing to me about these self-insert characters, everyone has to stop every ten minutes to remind the player how they’re better than everyone and worship the ground they walk on. I hate it. Anyway; so, yeah, ultimately I find the P3 Protagonist, like Ren and the P4 Protagonist, just not as fully developed or realized in PQ2, and so see them as an exception.

Koromaru: He’s a dog. He’s cute, fun, a great mascot, but he doesn’t have detailed characteristics or interesting personality and dynamics with the other members. But he’s a dog, so, that’s not strange. So I see this as an exception.

Favourite:

These are the P3 Characters who I enjoyed most of all in PQ2.

P3 Female Protagonist: So can someone explain to me why the creators decided to give the Female Protagonist alone a detailed personality and demeanour? Not to mention something like double the amount of spoken dialogue as the other protagonists? Unlike Ren and the other two male Protagonists who barely say much at all and are difficult to define personality-wise beyond ‘cool, loved by all, sometimes make sarcastic remarks’ the Female Protagonist is heavily fleshed out: she’s an energetic and over-enthusiastic type, the ‘charge in head’s first’ type who doesn’t show much in the way of the stoic ‘cool’ calm of the others, and is very effusive and evocative in her mannerisms. She’s dealing with an internal feeling of isolation and inferiority, which she tries to hide from others, and is highly sociable in her engagement with her peers. She was a lot of fun and makes a big impact early with her ‘let me dress up as a policewoman and then karate chop this guard out cold’ routine. Her interactions with Futaba early on are great, almost like an older siser, although sadly those do taper off. Junpei and Yukari have quite good interactions with her as well, the most consistent people involved in her ‘am I out of place’ feelings, and I enjoyed that. I was surprised how there is so little interaction between her and her male counterpart though, would have thought that would be a good well of inspiration. 

Mitsuru: So what I love about Mitsuru is that she and Makoto are not just clones of each other. With Mitsuru also being a ‘older, colder, intelligent, authoritative’ figure I feared that the two would be very similar. But they aren’t. Mitsuru is vastly more secure in herself and confident than Makoto, who still has severe issues with her self-esteem. Indeed Mitsuru is actually kind of awesome in how confident she is. Similarly whilst Makoto is far more an advisor Mitsuru, quite honestly, comes across as if actually SHE leads the P3 cast and the protagonists are just their trump cards. Mitsuru almost always calls every shot for her team and makes the decisions, with their own respective protagonists usually just providing power. I do also enjoy that Mitsuru seems not to have the ‘I’m smart so the stupid member of our team I will always harass’ trait as her critiques of Junpei tend to purely focus on him not taking their situation to seriously and never go to the point of insulting his intelligence as Morganna does with Ryuji in the vanilla game and Royal. I also really liked Mitsuru’s interactions with Junpei. I know he has a girlfriend, he says so in the game, but I see nothing of her so I’d be lying if I didn’t say I somewhat ship the two after her nervousness inviting him to have tea with her and his desperation to protect her when he found out how hard she was trying to get along with him.

Junpei: Junpei has one thing that Ryuji and Yosuke do not have: confidence. Though Ryuji and Yosuke both front confidence it’s often incredibly easy to see the weak points in their facade and to deflate them. Junpei is able to far better stand his ground even when he’s being belittled. He is definitely more reckless than the two as a result, confidence is a double-edged sword, but he’s learned better than them the lesson of feeling good about himself. I do love how Ren can consistently support his ‘Greatest Detective Ever’ declaration and basically took every chance to do so. He luckily seems to lack any of the perversion tendencies, although as I’ve said in PQ2 the same is true of basically everyone, although I do sorta wish we got a bit more on his girlfriend if she’s so important to him. I get because she won’t appear and you won’t see her the game doesn’t want to waste time on a character we learn nothing about, but at certain points it felt off that Junpei doesn’t comment on her at all. 

Interesting:

These are characters I found interesting, easily as interesting as the ones above, but for personal reasons just don’t like quite as much.

Yukari: Oh boy, Yukari. Let’s start with my problem with her before I move on to why I find her so interesting. Put simply Yukari is mean. Whilst with both Ryuji and Yosuke I was pleased to see that despite being the ‘bro’ characters, PQ2 avoided constantly haranguing on them. Not so for Yukari and Junpei, yeesh! Junpei can barely open his mouth without Yukari insulting him, sometimes really rather severely. My problem is that she often insults Junpei just cause he’s too boisterous, or  confident. It just gets...well it gets like Ryuji in the vanilla game or Royal, it feels mean-spirited, particularly since Junpei never reacts by laughing or quipping back, but always by just deflating and sorta whimpering. I didn’t like it. With that said Yukari is still a very interesting character too me because she has an incredibly well-defined character. She is intelligent, emotionally so, perceptive to other’s feelings and has a very sharp wit and tongue, both to put down others and help them. Her interactions with the P3 Female Protagonist are interesting and she is often very insightful actually. I will also confess, to a slight extent, the sheer extent of her nastiness towards Junpei did make me, somewhat, feel as if the two must at least be close, they rarely ever say anything without the other chiming in, so I can see a bit of myself shipping it...but as a terrible mistake the two swear to never tell anyone else and eventually realize is just overall unhealthy for them. 

Ken: Ken plays a pretty well-worn archetype and he plays it fine: the earnest young boy with an edge, wise-beyond-his-years in some senses, but wet-behind-the-ears in others, with a strong hero complex tainted by a bit of an extreme edge. Ken is interesting but less fun to me just because he is somewhat predictable in the role he fulfills, which just isn’t my personal preference. I think he has amazing chemistry, and potential, with Akechi and Futaba and wish he got to interact more with both. His interactions with Ryuji, Ann and Morganna in their Special Ticket together is also absolutely great and again I wish him and Ryuji had more consistent interaction over the course of the game. But a lot of Ken’s interactions come down to Koromaru, which is fine, just not exactly thrilling. I do think Ken is adorable though, he’s very well-meaning and clearly very hard-working, and I’m a bit surprised that some more of the compassionate PTs, such as Ann, don’t actually regularly comment on or find him endearing. 

Aigis: So I feel like Aigis can come across to players of PQ2 as uncomplicated but that’s only at a surface glance. The thing with Aigis is that she clearly HAS already overcome her primary character conflict, her feelings about being an artificial construct and the meaning of her existence. Throughout the third dungeon she expounds heavily on the conclusions she’s already come too. For many a character completing their character arc becomes boring, but not for me. I found Aigis fascinating and LOVED a robot who, rather than repeating the old and tired song-and-dance of ‘do I feel? do I will?’ already has her answers and also avoids the cliche of ‘robots have no emotions’ by, in her own way, being very emotional. 

Fuuka: I enjoyed Fuuka quite a bit, and find her character a nice counterpart to Rise’s and Futaba’s. Although on the surface she seems to be the ‘shy, shrinking violet’ style of character this isn’t really true. She’s soft-spoken, by comparison to most, yes, but she’s not really shy. What she is, is the more calm and analytical of the three Navigators, less prone to exuberant emotional outbursts, but at the same time clearly more innately compassionate than the other two who are more prone to teasing or mocking. I felt her established interest in technology and mechanisms wasn’t integrated as fully as it could have been, alas perhaps because Futaba seemed to occupy more of that role, but did find that, if you look closely, Fuuka actually does offer some of the best advice to Hikari, and is consistently, along with Ryuji and Futaba, Hikari’s most verbal and ardent supporter and defender.

Uninteresting:

First, note, this does not mean I dislike the characters, I like them all, but these are characters who, in PQ2, I found the least interesting.

Akihiko: I feel so bad for him. So PQ2 really does avoid, for the most part, reducing it’s characters just to gags but Akihiko, man, they really do that with him. He basically only ever says one of two things: (1) I want to fight X (2) Protein-joke. It gets...old. I feel sorry for him because I feel he has potential there but the game seems determined to never explore it. He does have a VERY fun interaction with Chie and Makoto, all three I enjoyed and I can easily see Akihiko as Chie’s mentor and teacher, the two blend together well and have fun chemistry. His interactions with Makoto are also nice since it reveals his deepest character, as he is the one who tells Makoto to acknowledge herself more and sometimes realize that there is more to existence than regimented preparation. I enjoyed his chaotic energy, despite seeming a bit like a leader and an authority figure he’s actually very chaotic and impulsive, living in a more ‘go as the current takes you’ way which makes him adaptable and reactive. Now if only they’d used that for more than protein-related jokes. 

Shinjiro: Poor Shinjiro feels to me like he fell into the trap Kanji avoided. His main problem is just he spends so much time brooding and making tiny statements that we don’t get a feel for him. His other problem is that his most consistent dialogue partner is Akihiko and every single one of their conversations, almost, breaks down into: Akihiko says something about protein or fighting, Shinjiro calls him dumb, repeat. Shinjiro clearly has wisdom and common sense, but he seems to restrain himself from actually imparting it compared to the likes of Makoto, Haru, Ryuji, Naoto or Akechi. The result is he makes less of an impact because he’s the character of the main cast who most visibly feels like he’s withholding himself from the group. He’s like Akechi but more so. Akechi also, in the game, can come across as if he’s minimizing his interactions, but he doesn’t do it quite as much as Shinjiro.