#also yosuke.... i like hearing my friends talk about yosuke his characters a very fun one for me even if i never took the time 2 personally

[crescentfool]

ohh the joy of videos and streams... i like listening to people talk about things they like/think about it’s very contagious... 🥺

[razeluxe]

Razeluxe’s Top Ten Male Characters

So I’ve been thinking about doing a particular list for my favorite characters across anime and games for quite a while and with some advice I decided to break it into my favorite male and favorite female characters. Most people that know me can probably guess at my top three favorites but if you don’t know me... well you ‘bout to learn lol. This was harder than I thought to compile...enjoy my fanboying of the boys lol.

By the by, I’ll do my best to keep spoilers to a minimum.

10) Apollo Justice (Phoenix Wright Series)

I’ve played only two games that this character was in (Apollo Justice and Dual Destinies, slowly working through Spirit of Justice) and this character particularly in Dual Destinies struck me even more than Edgeworth who is another amazing character. Apollo has an amazing spirit and it was only through playing Dual Destinies that I really got to understand Mr. ‘I’m Fine’ and his stupid ‘Here comes Justice’ puns. I feel his original game didn’t allow him to shine (still a great entry in the Ace Attorney series I don’t care what anyone says) and Dual Destinies allows him the development he deserves. He gets hurt during a trial and it allows a deep dive of his character even if his personality shifts for a while. Damn he’s savage. He’s considered the underdog in the Wright Anything Agency but he’s to me the hardest working person there who is also the most factual in court.

9) Gokudera (Katekyo Hitman Reborn)

Or as I like to call him, Scowludera since he’s scowling like 90% of the time. This Ichigo ripoff’s character development is insane. And I think that trend follows most if not all the characters in this list. His relationship with his sister is interesting and he’s pretty explosive in terms of personality and intelligence. His fights are all really interesting too, he has some of my favorite interactions in the series thus far (haven’t read the post anime manga chapters yet sadly, but he’s more than earned this spot on this list). He butts heads with people a lot and he can be ignorant but he grows from his experience and you get to see it bit by bit. This dude is loyal to the bone. RIP if you aren’t Tsuna or Reborn. Also, I’d like to shout out this anime as one of the few to do the shounen genre proper justice. Go watch it. Also his sister Bianchi is <3. Oh wait. Male list. Oops. Can we also talk about his weapon? Not gonna say spoilers but that thing is dope and probably one of the best ever designed weapons. And his kitty Uri <3

8) Joshua Bright (Trails in the Sky)

This will be short as I don’t want to spoil anything, but Joshua is a very easy character for me to connect to personally. His feelings, actions, development probably relates more to me than a lot of characters on this list. He’s got good people around him...I’m very happy for his ship and support it 120%. Also the Trails Series, both Sky and Cold Steel are probably my favorite series of anything period. Go play it. There is more to this character that meets the eye and has broken my heart more than once ;_;

7) Neku Sakuraba (The World Ends With You)

Neku Neku Neku. Another very relatable character for me (see the theme here? lol) He initially shuts out people and over time, through his experience in the Reapers Game, he starts to open up and bring people into his circle. He goes through some crap, like a lot of trauma. When you learn of him it’s no wonder he wound up disliking people and society. He’s extremely creative and that creativity manifests itself in different ways. Kinda like me. It’s worth mentioning I used to roleplay this character back in the day, the very first canon character I used to write for. 

6) Shulk (Xenoblade Chronicles)

One of the only blonde’s on this list. Shulk is a character that is driven by revenge but eventually changes. He goes through some pretty traumatic stuff that I absolutely will not spoil. His personality when he encounters a certain characters shifts big time and it’s kind of scary considering how early you see this. Also he gets points for being a notably intelligent character. I mean, the dude has his own lab...and is able to fix and adjust stuff. He’s really a great and well balanced character despite all the crap he goes through. Also I used to make fun of this character and dislike him a little bit, but then I grew up. 

         The list gets real starting...now. Not that it was fake before. :o

5) Jaden Yuki (Yu-Gi-Oh! GX)

Anyone who has actually watched the entirety of GX might know why he’s here. His character development in the latter seasons so unreal and interesting. I’m not spoiling crap but there is a lot more to the character than meets the eye. Like a lot lot. Over the course of the series he loses his innocent eyes and his personality changes a lot...His character is probably one I can relate to in terms of the reasons for his actions, the way he gets down about himself, the way he acts in the final season...it hits me hard...he’s too dang relatable...just like..

4) Rean Schwarzer (Trails of Cold Steel)

Surprise surprise. Rean is here. -hears crickets- Guess you’re not surprised. I wonder why. I think I relate to this character more than anyone else on this list. Except number one. Number one is in his own league. Rean is a character who generally carries a happy disposition...he has a unique power but you can see he is actively scared of it. It’s something I actively deal with...he’s so scared of himself that he puts distance between family and friends. He never feels he’s good enough. He’s made headway through this, but...

One thing that’s extremely interesting about this character is his selflessness. You may think this is driven to the ground in character stereotypes but for Rean it’s different...his selfless has been described as abnormal by characters in game, and it’s not for positive reasons...Rean deals with some real unhealthy stuff. This is getting long.

As of this post Cold Steel 4 comes out in one month and I’m extremely worried for his character. If you’ve played 3 then you’ll know why. Also if you haven’t played the Trails series, go play it. No buts. Heck I’ll even buy the game(s) for you if I can.

--

Oh look we’re at the top three. I want to say that while numbers two and three here are pretty interchangeable, these characters have been in my top three for over a decade and a half and I don’t see this changing anytime soon. Rean I love you but you have your work cut out if you ever want to breach the top 3. I wanna post a few honorable mentions here. They didn’t get into Smash but they do get Mii Costumes at least! -shot-

Davis Motomiya (Digimon Adventure 02) 

This character was everything I was when I was a kid. The way he tries everything to woo Kari is too cute. Also his unwavering faith in Ken. Also Davis Cries Veemon.

9S (Nier Automata)

Not mentioning any spoilers. Just watch this character and see how his vision of the world changes over time.

Okabe Rintaro (Steins; Gate) 

Okabe’s shift from his ‘persona’ as things get real and his efforts to fix everything is too relatable for me ;_;

Yosuke Hanamura (Persona 4) 

No, I do not ship him with Yu. They’re great buddies for sure, and he’s pretty cool. Really likable character for me personally save for a few moments in the game...he’s also the main in the Arena games. “Let’s do this, Jiraiya!” He’s so cool lol.

                    Top 3 time. Fiercely dedicated to these guys.

3) Robin (Teen Titans Go! 2003)

Robin is such a raw character that carries his past and tries so hard to move from it yet it embodies him to his core. He has since gained a softer side from forming a team, and has been doing normal teenager stuff...which is good for him. However at times that Batman side impacts him so hard that he can only concentrate on his mission, and starts shutting out everyone and everything to do things himself. It actively gets in the way of his interactions. He deals a lot with moving on from failure and acknowledging his friends more, which he does get better at over time. He is also represented by the color red. My favorite color. He’s badass and yet carries so much crap. I connect to this character a lot even now. Third canon character I ever wrote for.

2 Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia)

I love Lloyd. I love his voice, I love his attacks, I love his stupid double sword logic. He says wielding two swords makes him twice as powerful lol. I love his development. I love his idealism and how it matures over time. I love everything about Lloyd. It was legit love at first sight. I remember being 15-16 and seeing him on that Gamecube boxart and saying “I wanna play that guy” Most people I feel (guys in particular) probably looked up to certain characters growing up as a child/teen. Lloyd was mine.

1. Zidane Tribal (Final Fantasy IX)

While it was love at first sight for Lloyd, that was not the case for number one on this list. I was 13 when I first played FFIX. Zidane upon encountering him, I always thought he was a cool character, but he was nothing special.  Even at Zidane’s lowest point I thought he was an okay character at best. I had not finished the game.

Fast forward a few years and I decide to play FFIX again, this time determined to finish it. I had went through some things, grew up a bit before turning this game on. This damn bandit...I remember writing this bit years ago: “His infamous mantra labeled above describes him well, but under his ability to console others with a smile, to cheer people up and meet them at their point of need with his abundant optimism lies a blonde who masks his pain and keeps his issues to himself. Despite his many friends and buddies he harbors a deep loneliness that, like his problems, he keeps to himself. One would have to look carefully to notice his character flaws for Zidane does an impressive job of hiding these problems. Whether it be through his energy, his theatrics, or focusing on other people, Zidane can cover things up quite well.”

Zidane has an absurd amount of depth to his character that I was never able to comprehend as a kid, beneath his flirting, his playful attitude, he hides a lot of feelings, a lot of anger, a lot of sadness. It used to boggle me how he’s able to uphold his sense of virtue despite what goes on in his life and the end of disc 3 answers this for me. It goes without mentioning that this was the second canon character I’ve ever written for, and I still love writing him. I could and write walls of text about how Zidane is so amazing, a chivalrous thief, a lover and a flirt but I think I can let you go lol. Hit me up if you really want to hear me ramble about any these characters, also play FF9.

...So I wrote all of that and forgot to write about Zidane’s ship...have to give it its own paragraph because I love these two together and she does wonders for Zidane as a whole as does he to her. She’s a princess and he’s a thief, they take their time to show them together through different things, different ordeals...particularly the ordeals. Its interesting seeing them both at their worst moments and the many funny moments..Man, that boat scene gets me every time...If I ever write a top ten couples list this couple would no doubt be in the top two if not number one. And I’d probably write way more than this about them because they’re great. Also they’re canon. A healthy canon. Also Dagger’s hot. Oh wait wrong list.

Okay finally done. Not editing this anymore :P

[crazy-talk]

As promised, here’s a little large compilation sort of thing of little moments and memories from SBFP that you folks have submitted. I really appreciate everything that you’ve all submitted, it’s pretty clear that SBFP helped and entertained a whole lot of people - in equal amounts.

Here’s some SBFP moments:

Grand Wizard Wakka

The Shitstorm VII Woolie haunting plan

“What a mysterious game.”

MY HOUSE

“Wait, what’s my objectives?” “You don’t haaave any objectives!”

Qui Gon Chi

“Whah happuh?” “das whah happuh!”

“No, shut up though.”

The Baby

“Shut the fuck up about Face/Off!”

“Bleetzboll...”

The Sadness Trilogy

“KIDS LOVE THE FOCKIN’ DEVIL!”

Pat thinking he’s dying because he sat on a chocolate bar

Kenpachi Ramasama

Shit-kids

“Whut deh fuhk? Is he using duh bät room?”

Mr. Shakedown/Kenny/Quint/Eric Sparrow

TAR-KUS! TAR-KUS! TAR-KUS!

“Love is just chemicals.”

Pat eating candy alone in a closet

Matt throwing the fire axe

“Oh no, I make’da bad game!”

“Hey, is that the script?”

“JAAASON!”

“It’s fine.”

The RE2 valve noise

“Yeyeyeye!”

Woolie’s atomic purple Gameboy

“Eyy, what’s goin’ on, man? You ready to play?”

And some SBFP memories. Some of these may be a bit emotionally heavy so feel free to skip this part:

the sbfp lp of yakuza 0 got me and my best friend into the yakuza series. we watched it together and we still laugh about matt falling to pieces over "never-before-seen results" - Anon

the best friends have had such an influence on my speech patterns that i've infected people who've never watched them before. half of my friend group says super big [x] and porked up now - Anon

SBFP introduced me to so many games that ended up becoming personal favorites of mine, like Deadly Premonition and the Silent Hill series. Their videos became a way for me to spend time with some of my own best friends as well! -  captainofthestars

theres one particular moment that will always resonate with me - in their devil may cry lets play, i cant remember if it was 1 or 3, they talk about someone in the comments who mentioned that they had to beat devil may cry with items due to having a physical disability of some kind, i cant remember which. they talked about how it was awesome that he managed to even beat the game like that, and, personally, as someone who struggles with motorskills issues this made me very happy, as a devil may cry fan. theres a lot of other great moments from the tbfp, both funny and genuine that made me happy, but this one in particular stuck with me a lot. -  krillfingers

I'll never stop making "pull out king" jokes thanks to sbfp - venerabledreadnought

I remember the first Shitstorm that made me actually have to get up and sit in a brightly lit room with other people in it, Anatomy. It's become a Halloween tradition to watch it every year since, though watching a whole bunch of Shitstorm also became one. As someone who started watching at their second machinma ep, it's not a lie to say that they made up the entirety of my teenage years. I will miss the channel dearly, but I look forward to the future. -  duke-nitro

My friends and I have been watching The Zaibatsu for so long that we have accidentally adopted a bunch of their phrases like going “yeahyeahyeahyeahyeah” or saying someone “go down.” Also, despite us not knowing each other when we became fans, we all somehow began with their Man vs Wild let’s play and I even made friends with one of them because I quoted something from it at work. Favorite moment probably has to be the entire Omikron playthrough, I can’t pick a single moment. It was a beautiful trainwreck start to finish and I still put on the playlist from time to time while I’m doing other things. I swear I could gently fall asleep to the sounds of Pat screaming about the shooter segments. shogun-ceanataur

Persona 4 and Kenpachi Ramasama were my favourite. I found the name itself hilarious, but how they kept on referring to him as the full name in different little bits and tones never failed to make me laugh. That “See you later, fuckers!” part from when you see Yosuke was also hilarious. I’m not sure if that video is the oeigin, but it’s why I’ve integrated that phrase into my everyday life. Goddamn what a fun, memorable episode. - whatthehellisthisevenfor

tbfp got me through being homeless in my car twice. every time that I wanted to give up, to just stop trying, i'd turn on whatever new video they had out and it brightened up my life. my mom, who was with me, came to love them to, she used to wait to hear them to relax. i have so many memories of that time, and i don't fully relax or even eat on long days until I've turned their videos on. my favorite quote is still "mistakes into miracles". its a rly motivating quote imo. -  c0l0c4k3s

I always loved the Silent Hill 2 LP. I never played it when it came out - all I knew was that it was a horror game, and I hated horror at the time. But when the LP came around, I knew a bit more about the game and I was intrigued. Seeing the game, meeting the characters, hearing Pat disect the story and themes for Matt, I loved it all. I was fascinated, and still am. I will still watch the LP every few months, and I call SH2 one of my favorite games, even though I still haven’t played it.Thanks, SBFP, for all the great moments and the great memories. I wish you all well. - iamthewanderingbard

The best friends are what got me so invested in the Dark souls games, and what motivated me to get through DS2. Even if I say 'You see what i mean' unironically a lot, and go 'You. Did it.' -  awkwardmuses

I got into Super Best Friends from a post on the Twin Perfect forum, that linked to the Silent Hill Downpour lp, and never looked back. Their let's plays brought me so much joy back when I wasn't in the best living or health situation, and continue to do so. My favourite let's plays have to be Eternal Darkness and the Shitstorms; I always go back to those when depression hits, or for any reasons. I'll miss them together, but I'll always have those delicious delicious memories. -  mrjaffesxeldritchtwin

The Best Friends Play are the reason I end so many sentences with "though". I first found them when a friend recommended the Best Sisters Play MLP animations, and I've loved them ever since. I know it's used as a joke, but I really believe they've earned the title of HYPEST GAMEPLAY ON YOUTUBE. I love all of their David Cage playthroughs, and I adore how many plot-points they guess during Beyond: Two Souls. I love how, when they play a game they really love, they show so much knowledge and care. -  mads-in-zero

It was incredibly amusing and oddly touching that the Zaibatsu created this hate circle of David Cage and his godawful games. Even before Detroit’s release, the best friends AND the fanbase were ready to hate it because as a collective, we just latched onto that one thing to hate/make fun of. And we go all out on it together like some fucked up family, and I love it. -  missinghmmingbird

I can’t help but shrug off every minor inconvenience and major issue in my life with “it’s fine” thanks to Gun Jumper Liam. Thanks to Matt and Woolie supporting Skullgirls like no one else on the internet, I really got into it and fighting games as a whole. I’m not good at them, but oh boy do I love them.And if it wasn’t for Pat, I don’t think I’d ever have touched a Yakuza or Persona game.These guys affected my life more than any other individual or group on the internet ever really has. -  dklordg

The first Best Friends video I ever watched was Portal 2. That short LP had me in stitches. I'd never laughed so hard. I've been a huge fan since then. These guys where the ones that introduced me to LPs and made me realize that you can have fun watching other people bumble through games. TheSw1tcher has been one of my favorite channels on YouTube since I began watching. It gave me something to look forward to. I got through high school, and essentially grew up, watching these videos. There are so many catchphrases and memes I will never forget and will always make me smile. I absolutely say stuff like “whah happun?” and “shit-kids” all the time. The Deadly Premonition and Detroit: Become Human playthroughs are wonderful gems in my eyes. It’s amazing how a group of guys can get so many people to collectively love and bash certain games. We’re all on the same page, having a blast like a huge group of friends at a slumber party. Matt, Pat, Woolie, Liam, Billy, and everyone who involved themselves with the Super Best Friends are the absolute best. They gave me a chance to relax and laugh along with some familiar voices. Although it's sad they are going their separate ways, I totally respect that fact. They have my love and support. I wish them nothing but success and happiness moving forward. I'll be watching! And a note to my fellow fans: This has been a wild ride. I'm glad I got to enjoy it with you. You are all fantastic people. -  fablesamongus

[characteroulette]

Hey PQ was pretty good!

so I’m having trouble getting into PQ2 because of several factors, so I thought I’d write a half-think piece, half-essay on why I think the first PQ gets more flak than it deserves. So here’s that.

------

I genuinely don't understand why, when talking about Persona Q, people are always saying things along the lines of, "The gameplay was good, but the characters were trite and the story wasn't that great." Like, as a fan of the Persona series, I genuinely don't understand that assessment.

Not saying PQ is flawless, oh no. There are PLENTY of things in PQ that I have an axe to grind with (the small door scene with the P4 gang, for one), but the overall story? The characters? They're both fine. Good, even, dare I say. And here's my argument as to why:

The returning Persona series characters (from 3 and 4) in PQ do a good job of representing their games and their own personalities, even if a little more light-hearted than their source material,

AND

The story is genuinely in-line with the rest of the Persona/SMT series, even if it ultimately doesn't matter due to time shenanigans (and I'm okay with that).

These are my two points. Just those two. Because these are the two most contested parts of PQ, as far as I can hear, since we all agree that the gameplay is the real breadwinner here hahaha

Anyway.

First, let's talk about the returning characters, since they seem to be the ones who matter most. The P4 cast are generally less griped about (save Chie and Teddie) and I believe this is largely due to the brighter, more hopeful tone of P4 as a whole. (Aaand, in my opinion, they're done a MUCH BIGGER disservice in the Arena games, but no one ever talks about that so let's not bother with those right now.)

P4 was a game about making friends, the hijinx that come from that, and finding the truth about a string of murders and confronting the worst parts of yourself in a harsher world in the process! And it executes this with the appropriate amount of balance between serious moments and comedic relief. The theme colour for the whole game is bright yellow/gold, a happier and more friendly colour which helps remind you that this game is all in good fun.

(Side note here: I honestly think that P5 really failed in this respect, despite my liking its tone slightly more. I just personally like darker-themed games, but P5 was a little too dark and oppressive right out the gate, with hardly a friendly face, which helps make your gradually growing group of friends much more appreciated but also a harder atmosphere for jokes to really land well. Most of the 'funny' sequences felt very undeserved and really dragged because uh guys we literally just fought a rapist, an abusive father figure, and some other fucked-up shit. Can we please acknowledge that a bit more instead of pretending it never happened by laughing at the expense of Ann's autonomy of her body? Especially when she was a target of said rapist??) But that's its own discussion for later.

Really, the fact that most of the P4 gang get out of this with little criticism shows how accepted their caricatures have become. I guess? At least, except for Teddie and Chie.

Teddie being a wannabe Casanova must've been a huge hit with the Japanese audience, because it's just the hill he's going to die on for the writers. There was more to Teddie than his hitting on the girls in P4, believe it or not! (And there's a whole thing about it being brought on by him mimicking the type of behaviour he saw Yukiko's shadow exhibiting, which has a lot of really interesting undertones, but it makes him more swappable with Junpei, so whatever, I guess.) Meanwhile, Chie's not as meat-crazy, either, but I guess it's a better trait for them to roll with than her (cut in the translation) glossed-over sexism.

Both work fine, however, and aren't really too annoying enough to be that egregious. (Though they both go right up to the line sometimes. Teddie more so, but none of the girls playing along really helps show how gross his actions are. Most of the time.)

No, the real complaints I see directed at the characters being 'too cartoonish' are usually reserved for the P3 gang.

P3 is, really, such a bizarre game to go back to now when compared to its two successors. It's dark and hopeless, like P5, but formulaic and mystery, like P4. It's actually a natural progression when looking at its two/three older siblings (both P2s are bleak. As. Hell!), but, at least to me, it's the odd duck of the bunch, being the first to implement this winning formula of being caught in a time limit of a school year and managing spending time exploring this other world. It adds Social Links and social stats with this new time limit and this idea that the Persona and Shadows you fight don't just happen out on the streets in 'normal' circumstances for everyone to see. It pretty much went from an RPG to a management game with RPG elements.

And its emotional, impactful story, like P5, had a lot of tonal whiplash due to the attempts at comedy!

I feel like a lot of people forget this about P3 (and maybe I think more about it because I haven't actually beaten the whole game yet myself), but the story is actually a goddamn mess of tonal confusion. You got kids shooting themselves in the heads and a Social Link dealing with a classmate's crush on his teacher. You got wacky foreign exchange student and kids taking experimental drugs to suppress their Persona and slowly poisoning themselves to death as a side effect. The protagonist is an orphan who lost his parents in a huge, plot-relevant accident... But he's able to date every single girl at the same time and be the most wish fulfillment charming guy if the player so desires.

P3 being messy isn't a bad thing. P4, P5, and even P2 and PQ are all a little messy in their own rights, too. But because P3 was a lot of fans' first in the series, and PQ is just a spin-off, it gets way more flak for this than I feel it deserves.

(I mean, hey. Both P3 and P4 have those classic anime scenes of the boys walking in on the girls while at a hot springs. All PQ's got is an awkward group date scene and the implication that Yosuke and Kanji kissed each other while getting knocked out.) (They all. Have. Problems.)

And I know a lot of this comes down to personal preference. I'm not saying you're wrong for liking P3 or P4 more than PQ. I'm just saying I feel like PQ is often wrongly accused of being worse and less well-written when, really, they're all pretty much on par with each other. (And someone on the team really doesn't understand how to handle large casts of characters sharing the same space...)

But, personally, from everything I've seen from P3, I don't like the way most of the characters get presented to me in the source material. Junpei is way more insufferable in P3 than in PQ and Yukari is way more uninteresting in P3 than in PQ. Really, PQ helped me appreciate these characters more than P3 itself did. And, yes, they're more funny when they're trying to be, too. Because PQ is set up better for comedy than the 'remember you are mortal' tone of P3.

(Which makes dramatic moments hit all the harder when they happen) HEY check that segue! It's time to talk about the story and the two original characters of the game!

So, second point: people say the story isn't very good. To which I wanna ask... "Did you stop playing before defeating the fourth Boss?" Because it really sounds like, to me, everyone who says that didn't actually finish the game and reach all that juicy character development that happens for both sides around the fourth dungeon, where all the issues they've been building up (like Yukari's issue with Mitsuru for the P3 side and Kanji and Ken's awkwardness in the P4 side) start getting resolved in a satisfying way. And it comes with a reveal for the two characters we've been getting to know, Zen and Rei, as well.

(And, from here on in, there be spoilers. You've been warned.)

The two new characters to this game are Zen and Rei, who were in this place before the P3 or P4 gangs were called to the scene. Zen is quiet and a bit unsettlingly dense, but devoted to Rei, who is bubbly and full of life, but terrified of the dungeons you have to traverse. The two have been in this place for (what's implied to be) a very long time and enlist the help of the P3 and P4 teams in order to find a way out through defeating the bosses of each Labyrinth/dungeon. Simple enough, as it also helps the P3 and P4 team's goal of getting out. With each new dungeon, it feels more and more like something about Zen and Rei aren't quite right, but the length of the dungeon and all the team chats help you put it out of your mind each time. Rei can even get kinda annoying with her loudness and big appetite if you don't find her cute (which: how dare you. But yeah, I get it).

And then, at the end of a fiery festival fourth dungeon, you find yourself in a dark tomb at the bottom level. The boss awaiting you is Rei's shadow (a nice callback to the way P4 works) whom she still doesn't accept after you defeat it.

All the locks are gone and the P3 and P4 teams can return to their worlds if they wanted. Except Rei gets kidnapped after Zen reveals that Rei has been dead all along and it was him who trapped them here. It was he who created this place and even he who called both teams here.

And this was a plot twist that I friggin' loved.

It definitely had more impact on me because Zen and Rei easily became my favourites out of the whole cast, to the point of having them on my team for the whole game, but to find out such a fucked up twist is wild! (Seriously! Go watch the cutscene and tell me it isn't super fucked up!) You can say the P3 and P4 twists were shocking (or P5s I guess), but for my money, this is the best reversal of expectations I'd ever seen in a Persona game. In any game, really!

Zen was, in effect, the villain the whole time. His true identity as Chronos, God of time, makes sense with displacing the teams from their own times and the time here being erased once you reach the end. His own power that he sealed away growing impatient and taking matters into its own hands by drawing the teams to this haven displaced from time also makes perfect sense! And the entire climb through the last dungeon is his redemption arc and it makes for a super emotionally investing final dungeon all the way. (Which is great, because I hate every single one of the enemies that appear in this god-forsaken place.) (Even P4 and P5 can't really boast that, I felt very little investment through Izanami's dungeon and Baldabaoth's distortion.)

Of course, if you found Zen and Rei to be annoying and pointless, I can see how this would fall flat for you. The fact that they hinged such an emotional climax on these new characters, characters that don't even matter outside of this game!, was such a risky move. Especially when you consider this is just a fanservice game made basically under the promise of seeing the P3 team interact with the P4 team. But, for me, it really paid off.

And whatever complaints you had with the P3 or P4 characters, I feel like the resolutions to those character moments I mentioned earlier get explored even further during the climb through the final dungeon. From the P3 gang coming together to finally communicate with one another to the P4 gang reconfirming their bonds with one another, it's a really investing and emotional journey. I do wish the writing had been this tight and impactful through more of the game, but I believe it's worth it in the end.

Perhaps this moment comes too late in the game, though. I can definitely see others giving up before reaching this point due to the repetitive nature of the dungeons and the tidbits of character development that are meant to build up to this moment that can be too sparsely placed. (But, really, it's the same from P3 to P5, Social Links don't really add much variety when they can be just as repetitive and boring, just saying. Especially when you get caught in waiting to rank up hell, ugh.) For me, however, this really sealed the deal on this game being an incredible experience that I adored from start to finish. 7/10. Final score.

....

....

(7 outta 10?? Not perfect??) Well, it's not perfect. Japan's blatant homophobia and sexism really ruins a lot of scenes for me. I'm super salty especially about how the fake marriage scenes are handled so differently from the girl choices to the boy choices. (But you just argued in its favour for 2000 words!) Listen. ALL the Persona games wouldn't receive perfect scores for me for this aspect alone. There are a lot of other factors as well, but they vary from title to title and PQ in particular is guilty of spending too much time focusing on Teddie and Junpei being girl-crazy. And Marie is in this game more than she really should be. UGH.

But I digress.

In conclusion, this game's story and characters are better than most give it credit for. Hopefully, my argument helped you see why I believe this and why I think claiming that both aspects are just 'bad' is lazy.

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen’s Rambles About Persona 4 Arena

So... back in my RWBY Rambling I said that I really wasn’t going to like May since I’d be doing my breakdown and retrospective on the Blazblue series for the release of Blazblue Cross Tag Battle. Well it turns out I suck at keeping a schedule when it comes to these Ramblings, because I still need to talk about Persona 4 Arena and Under Night In-Birth. Sorry for the wait folks, I just haven’t had anything to say about these two series until now. It was hard to figure out a good way to articulate how I feel about these two games. After a bit of thinking I now know how I want to tackle these series, so I’ll get started with Persona 4 Arena first then move onto Under Night at a later date. 

With all that said, hello Persona 4 and Blazblue fanbase, I’m Allen X. I write fanfics, fan lyrics to video game songs I like, and occasionally write out an opinion piece or two when I’m in the mood. 

I’ve been a big fan of the Persona series for a few years now, with Persona 4 Arena  being the main thing that drew me into the series. Since then I’ve played Persona 3 FES, Persona 4, and Persona 5, even dipping in SMT: Devil Survivor 2 just for the sake of trying what the SMT universe had to offer, and reading through the manga adaptation of SMT: Devil Survivor 1. For those of you not familiar with the Persona 4 game and are curious about it... well, I’m sadly not going to explain the plot or story, but I do recommend watching the anime, Persona 4 the Animation if you want a crash course in what that game is about and not spend 60+ hours on a JRPG.

In any case, let’s get that Synopsis out of the way. I’m gonna’ be a little cheap this time around and copy the wiki page if that’s alright with you all. If I were to give a true synopsis of Persona 4 Arena I’d be spoiling Persona 4 and Persona 3. So then:

The game takes place two months after the events of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 as well as two years after the Persona 3 FES's "The Answer" storyline. Like Persona 4, Persona 4 Arena takes place in the fictional, rural Japanese town of Inaba. However, most of the events occur in the TV world, a dimension that reflects people's feelings. In this game, the world takes the form of Inaba's Yasogami High School, which is divided in multiple areas that serve as arenas.

As Yu returns to visit Inaba for Golden Week, he and the others witness a commercial on the Midnight Channel for a fighting tournament, the "P-1 Grand Prix", hosted by what appears to be their friend Teddie. The tournament not only involves them, but also their companions Kanji Tatsumi and Naoto Shirogane. With their friends Rise Kujikawa, Kanji and Teddie missing, and Naoto absent, Yu, Yosuke, Chie and Yukiko decide to investigate. The following day, they enter the TV and find themselves stuck in a world resembling Yasogami High School.

So yeah, it’s literally a Persona 4 fighting game with some Persona 3 characters thrown in. I’d talk a little bit about Ultimax, but again I don’t want to fill this Rambling with spoilers

That done, I’ll move onto...

My History

Like I said, Persona 4 Arena was my first true dive into the series in terms of a financial purchase, but I’ve been familiar with Persona 4 since it first came out on the PS2 (God, I’m getting old). Yes, it looks like we’re two for two in terms of drama and fandom outcry not being what initially drew me to Persona 4 Arena and Persona 4 as a whole. 

I actually got into Persona 4 when let’s plays of the original game was coming out. I mostly saw the clips and cutscenes of the game and was able to piece together enough about the plot to understand and enjoy it, but I was fully hooked when the anime came up, Persona 4 the Animation. I had a PS2 and PS3 at the time, but I really didn’t want to buy the game since the PS3 was starting to gain more prevalence and I was saving for other games. I found the anime it to be a great adaptation for the game, to the point where I can safely say if you don’t know about the story Persona 4 the anime is a great way to get caught up if you don’t want to spend 60+ hours playing the original game.

I bought Persona 4 Arena a little after it released in the West, and I found it to be one of the more accessible fighting games at the time, especially for anime air-dashers and for Arc System Works games in general. I had Blazblue at the time, but I sucked at it and just spammed revolver combos or Noel’s drive to get by, but Persona 4 Arena helped me get a better handle on how fighting games work.

Which brings me to...

The Appeal

I’ll be honest, this game doesn’t really have much appeal unless you’re a Persona fan. This game heavily references both Persona 4 and Persona 3 with how characters fight, a lot of flavor text that happened between characters, how a lot of the UI is displayed, and (most important of all) its story. I feel the same way about Dragonball FightererZ,  this game is a love letter to Persona 4 and Persona 3 fans, but unless you like those two games there isn’t much to care about. I think outside of a love for the series the only other real appeal is the accessibility. Before DBFZ came out, Persona 4 Arena was probably the most accessible Arc System Works fighting game out there. There was an auto combo system for new player to use, but there were also some more complex systems to it too, liking properly using EX moves and EX supers, managing Awakening Mode, properly using strong and Persona attacks in your combos do a large amount of damage, and so on.

Though, it I were to give a personal appeal of the Persona 4 Arena, namely for Ultimax, it’d be Golden Arena Mode, an RPG-esque mode that lets you gain experience, level up your character, and gave you wicked-powerful buffs as you get stronger. It was a great call back to Blazblue arena, and something pray get’s put into Cross Tag Battle somehow.

So all in all, not much I can say to sell Persona 4 Arena to people that have never played a Persona game. In any case, I’ll be moving onto...

My Mains

What kind of Fighting Game Retrospective would this be if I didn’t talk about who I mainly play? Just a quick explanation before I go on. When I play a fighting game, I usually have two to three mains, and about 4 subs. The main reason being in case someone gets extremely nerfed and become unplayable in a competitive sense. Now I rarely play top tier characters for this reason, but... well, they nerfed Answer in Guilty Gear for some God-forsaken reason, so I think I was right to have Ram and Chipp on the side. The reason I have so many subs is because I play these games on a more casual level, and I like experiment with just about everyone... except the grappler characters... sorry Kanji.

But anyway, here are my Persona 4 Arena Mains

Yosuke is basically the ninja of the game, and as you will see in future Ramblings, I usually main toward the ninja, the only games I haven’t would be Under Night In-Birth where I sub Seth, Virtua Fighter were I just haven’t touched Kagemaru yet, and... that’s really it. Yosuke is “Mixups the Character”. He has a move for just about every situation and can easily confuse his opponents. A warping sweep, kunai throws, his moonsault, God’s gift to all Yosuke mains, Tentrafoo, and Sukaja. And honestly, this is probably the most fun I’ve heard Yuri Lowenthal have voicing the guy. He sounds so energetic. 

Along with the ninja, I always main who I believe is “Best Girl” of that series. Now that’s a very subjective matter, I know, but I’ll just say that Chie is a rushdown-heavy character that I could get down with. I think this was my first time hearing Erin Fitzgerald’s voice too, and what a way to do it. I think she sounds great as Chie, at least for the fighting games. I’ll save my critique of Persona 4 for a later date, but her Power Charge ability and God Hand can one-shot just about any opponent. She’s a bit of a glass cannon as a result, but God what a cannon.

So... SHO Minazuki. I really like his playstyle, mostly because I don’t have to worry about his Persona breaking since he doesn’t have one. He’s rushdown-heavy like Chie, but he’s a little more risk-reward. His all-out attack has a weird hitbox, but other than getting around that I have a lot of fun playing him. I like him, I like him a lot.

I also subbed Yukari, Marie, Teddie, and Sho MINAZUKI, but these are my three mains.

So, with my main’s out of the way, I’m going go straight into...

The Conclusion

I sorry this Rambling isn’t like the monster the RWBY Rambling was, but I’m honestly very apathetic to Persona 4 Arena as a fighting game. As a Persona game I’ve got some issues with how it writes some of it’s characters and how contrived the story feels, but over I find it to be a solid game in general and worth getting if you’re a fan of Persona. 

[doctor-bus]

sometimes you just gotta go off and write a lengthy, messy rant about how Ryuji and Yosuke are very different characters despite their similarities (heavy disclaimer: I’m not very far in p4g yet, only around June and rank 5 with Yosuke. I have a lot more to work with regarding Ryuji, and will likely have to update this once I finish the game and my information is more complete) 

hm. I kept hearing people say that Ryuji and Yosuke were basically the same character when I played p5 the first time, and I was like “oh okay, I’m gonna adore Yosuke then” but now that I’ve seen him??? I don’t think they’re all that similar. Not even because I don’t particularly like Yosuke (as far as I am. But who knows, maybe he’ll make a stellar comeback?), I just think they’re very different????

like yeah, they’re both the protag’s (unfortunately) thirsty, woman-chasing best friend with questionable grades, generally upbeat personalities, and they’re both used frequently for slapstick/comic relief, but other than that they don’t have all that much in common I don’t think? 

Yosuke’s more level-headed and easygoing so far as the point I’m at, and while Ryuji is fun and loves HAVING fun, I wouldn’t say he’s easygoing or chill? Fitting given that he’s the chariot, he seemingly can’t sit still and has to be working on something at any given time. He’s not academically successful or focused, but he always seems to be working on SOMETHING, such as physical training or thief work. He’s the one who does the most digging for info, other than Mishima, and while he’s not usually successful he’s always talking about being on the hunt. Additionally, he’s full of way too much energy to be considered chill. He’s always shouting in over-excitement or fury. Yosuke does absolutely have some righteous fury going on too, but it seems to be more of a simmer than an inferno? He’s furious, sure, and especially so about what happened to Saki since it was so close to home. But he’s also seemingly more inclined to put that anger towards solving the case analytically than he is to blowing up about it. He’s the one who connects dots (so far), and is very invested in finding connections between the various cases. He seems to be a strong driving force behind unraveling the mystery, at least in early game. Vs Ryuji, who absolutely has a strong drive to do what’s right and protect people but is slower on the supernatural uptake.

Not to mention that they operate very differently. Yosuke strikes me as decently socially smooth despite his butt-monkey role, he’s good at de-escalating and making compromises. Sure, he may get himself stuck in trash cans and fumble over grades, but when he’s talking he’s pretty composed and eloquent? On the other hand, Ryuji very much is not. Ryuji’s much more prone to blundering and shoving his foot in his mouth or jumping right to “protect first, ask questions later”. They’re both hopeless in harassing women romantic ventures, played for comic relief, but in their day to day Ryuji’s a lot clumsier with his social interactions in general. When he tries to smooth out social interactions gone bad, he usually just makes them worse. His method of problem solving is to get mad at injustice and protect the people around him, either physically or by yelling at whoever is messing with them. Yosuke on the other hand seems a lot more prone to verbal de-escalation, he seemingly tries to talk through disagreements and find compromises. He’s the first one to jump in and try to stop kidnapped individuals from setting off their shadows, in that he’s thus far been the one who consistently says “don’t say it!” when someone is about to say “you’re not me”. If anything, I’d say they have opposite strengths and weaknesses in that regard. Ryuji’s assertive and quick to speak/act, but clumsy and sometimes thoughtless about it. Yosuke seems like he thinks through his words more and thus they come out more smoothly, but he’s also a bit easier to push around.

Also, they’re both risking their lives for others, and there IS a note of selfishness both in their reasons to do so (Ryuji hunting glory, Yosuke staving off boredom), but so far Ryuji seems to have a stronger protective streak in general? (running into traffic to save Makoto, getting the lifeboat, all the times he’s physically stepped in front of the other thieves in Strikers when things got dicey, ect). He’s, again, more prone to take actions NOW and think about it later. This isn’t to say that Yosuke isn’t protective, just that he seems more collected about it, fitting of his Magician arcana. I HAVE heard it said that he’s brash closer to the end of the game, but I’m not there yet and haven’t seen it for myself.

Though again, I’m not super far in persona 4 golden yet, let alone any of the other p4 games. I could be ENTIRELY wrong about Yosuke. But even so, from what I’ve seen, him and Ryuji are VERY different characters. If anything, Ryuji is closer in personality to Kanji and Chie than Yosuke I think. They may fill a similar role in the story and have a lot of similarities, but fundamentally I still think that they’re VERY different characters.

Anyway, I’d be interested to hear other opinions on this if anyone else reads all this nonsense (so long as they’re polite lmao, don’t come @ me like “you’ve got brainworms and are stupid and wrong about everything, go die,” I’ll just block you)

especially if you have evidence supporting/disproving my thoughts from other games, bc realistically I’m probably not gonna play the other games lol (though maybe go easy on the spoilers for p4, I know a LOT and have a LOT spoiled but I’d like to keep at least some surprises)

[sophiescarlet]

my anime boston recap

i told a few people i’d write this, so here. warning, it’s long as fuck.

rebecca black - friday

while waiting for artists’ alley to open, i sat in a corner and watched people go by and saw a group cosplaying the main characters from the extremely underrecognized game the arcana, which was awesome and i totally would have asked for a picture but i’m way too shy. even though i’ve asked cosplayers for pictures before but i seem to have regressed in that sense...

i also saw (and this happened throughout the con) a bunch of hot, fit, really thin girls, which made me feel gay (as expected) but also really envious and sad and insecure about my body. cause i wish i looked more like them.

i also saw two girls cosplaying snow halation!honoka and kotori from love live, and the honoka had a giant honk nesoberi that i totally envy, and then right afterward a hate na heartbeat!eli and nozomi came around the corner and they were the coolest. i wish i’d had the guts to ask them for a picture too.

finally i went to artists’ alley and i got to buy a print from one of my favorite persona 5 fan artists but unfortunately she didn’t have the postcard set i wanted to buy. BUT right across was another fan artist whose stuff i really like so i bought a BUNCH of her prints - one of each of the p5 girls for me, and an extra makoto for my friend - and she came over to thank me and we chatted a little and it was nice. i am fucking determined to befriend some of these people and now at least one of them knows who i am.

i went to a panel on “fandom as coping” presented by a social worker which was really cool. she talked about how even though she’s a social worker, she still went through a severely suicidal period this past year and survived because of yuri on ice. i left partway through because then she turned it over to the audience to share our stories and i didn’t need to hear from a bunch of people talking about bad things that had happened to them.

the next thing i went to, after hanging around the vendors for a while, was tara platt’s (mitsuru and elizabeth from persona 3) q&a. she was really cool, and i actually managed to ask her a question, which was which one she preferred. (she said she can’t choose a favorite, but had more fun with elizabeth.)

i went to a presentation by sunrise, the studio that made love live among other things, but it was boring and i left early again because they were talking about gundam and other action stuff i don’t care about.

i’d planned on going to johnny yong bosch’s (makoto from free, kitamura from toradora, yu and adachi from p4) q&a, but it had a hella long line and it was obvious i wasn’t going to get in since the room wasn’t going to accommodate that many people. so i went over to a panel greg ayres (kaoru from ouran, nagisa from free, monokuma from the danganronpa anime) was doing on “it gets better.” come to find out he is openly bi! and is good friends with his ex who’s a trans woman and confronted her family about misgendering her! he is my new fav ngl and a far cry from hikaru’s va whom i met at tora-con a few years ago and was kind of an ego. it was a conversation sort of panel and we talked about a lot of stuff around queerness and bullying. i had to leave that one early too, but wished i could have stayed for the whole thing. also, there was a girl across the aisle from me who mentioned she was trans, and at one point i happened to catch her looking at me, and i think she was checking me out! sadly, i did not run into her again.

the reason i had to leave early was to get johnny’s autograph. he was really cool and i totes wish i could’ve gone to his q&a. since i don’t actually have any free! or toradora! or p4 merch, i had him sign my p3/p5 dancing game since it did at least come with p4 dancing as a free download. he took his daughter with him to the con which i find adorable though i have to wonder how bored she was sitting there for an hour and a half while he signed autographs.

katy perry - last friday night

at this point, i had a couple hours to kill, so i walked out to newbury comics in the hopes they’d have the bananarama vinyl reissues from the british record store day. they didn’t (though weirdly they did have the shakespears sister one), but they had kacey musgraves’ golden hour on sale, and i’ve been waffling on buying that for ages, so i finally snapped it up. then i went back to the mall where the con (sort of) was and got some godiva ice cream, which was even more overpriced than you’d expect but still very good.

so my last agenda item for the day was yuri lowenthal’s (makoto/minato from p3, yosuke from p4) q&a, which tara crashed because they’re married, which i love because it means that mitsuru is irl the canon waifu. once again i managed to ask a question, which was which p3 girl he’d like to have minato end up with, which made everyone laugh, and of course he said “i want to preserve my marriage, so either mitsuru or elizabeth.”

then i went home and felt like death.

i don’t know any songs that have “saturday morning” in the title

i took an uber to the con for saturday because the T was being replaced with a shuttle bus and i decided i’d rather pay $17 each way for a 15-minute trip than $2.50 each way for a 90-minute trip.

i went to a panel on “idols in anime” that was kind of interesting but i didn’t take much away from it, other than that i should maybe watch revue starlight. but then i went to a panel on “diversity in the magical girl genre” that was really cool. it was hosted by a queer latina woman and she talked about racial, gender, sexual, and ability diversity. it was interesting because she has a very negative view of yuuki yuuna, which i can certainly understand but don’t really share. but it was a great panel and i feel like i learned a lot. one neat idea she had was that what comes across as queerbaiting (or whatever-baiting) to western audiences can be really progressive representation in japan, and vice versa.

after that i went to another panel on “magical girl fashion” and literally got up and left because i couldn’t stand how wrong the presenter was.

i’d missed out both days on the free autograph passes for yuri and tara, so i went to their paid session, which to make a long story short was an absolute fucking disaster, and i ended up making a complaint, during which i cried in front of the con’s assistant director. so there’s something i can check off my bucket list. i also met the director, who came over to reassure me they were fixing things and said, “i keep saying i need a machete to take off people’s heads this year.” so obviously i immediately liked her! in the end, i did get their autographs (on the same p3d/p5d game) for fifty fucking dollars... i’d been expecting more like thirty. and they didn’t even personalize them. sad trombone noise. they were nice though.

then i rushed over to the free autographs and saw kara edwards (chihiro in the danganronpa anime) and had her autograph a wall scroll i’d bought from a vendor. i wish i could’ve gone to her q&a because she seemed sweet.

and right after THAT, i got in line for tara sands (a bunch of pokemon) and had her sign a manga volume i bought for my friend. she was also awesome and i really wish i could have gone to her q&a because we had this exchange:

me: this is for my friend who’s a huge bulbasaur fan

sands: oh, you’re such a good friend!

me: i know. and i won’t let them forget it.

sands: [laughs] that’s good! keep it up, i like your style!

i then went to greg’s q&a, which was fun. he mentioned that while recording the audio commentary for ouran, caitlin glass (haruhi) and todd haberkorn (hikaru) got really uncomfortable during one of the twincest scenes and started talking about anything else they could so they wouldn’t have to talk about the twincest, and in the commentary you can just hear greg laugh a little because he’d made himself laugh by thinking of saying “i just think it’s hot” but kept himself from saying it out loud. the hero we deserve tbh.

whigfield - saturday night (i actually don’t like that song btw)

at this point, it was time for the 18+ panels to start, so i went to one where yuri, tara platt, lisa ortiz (idk her), and billy kametz (same) did in-character readings of various scripts. they did a couple of star wars ones which obviously did nothing for me, except that tara did bb-8 in a christopher walken voice, which was fucking hysterical. the other one i remember was lisa doing a southern belle voice narrating the notebook, with yuri as sasuke (i think) as noah, and billy as lelouch (?) as ally. but the best one, of course, was the last one, which was the iocane powder scene from the princess bride, performed by yuri as spider-cop (iirc) as the sicilian and tara as elizabeth as westley. it was AMAZING.

then i went to greg’s 18+ panel where he recounted risqué stories like when his mom wanted to watch an anime where his character has anal sex. i remember it being hilarious but unfortunately don’t remember any specifics other than him affectionately calling his lawyer the C-word and a story about beating up an asshat in the o’hare airport after asshat broke a jigglypuff ornament his friend made him.

blondie - sunday girl

so having stayed out past 11:30 for greg’s panel the night before, and forgetting to take melatonin before bed... i actually couldn’t wake up sunday morning so didn’t end up going back to the con at all. which was really sad and disappointing as it meant i missed getting greg’s autograph, a panel on autism in anime fandom, and the voice actor roundtable panel, all of which i really wanted. so after finally getting up at 2:30pm i spent the rest of the day super depressed and mad at myself and just sad and disappointed.

the end.

[cluelesskstuff]

How Yosuke Hanamura broke my heart

It’s incomplete, but I had to get this out of my system:

How Yosuke Hanamura broke my heart

Persona 4 is a funny game. It is also a long game, and that allows the social simulation aspect of it to really work, allows you to feel at home with the characters, through charm and repetition - grumpy Dojima, overly energetic Chie, confused heart of gold Kanji. Through little bits of interaction, day by in-game day, you at some point start to realise that when this is over, you might actually miss them. All of them. 

And then there is Yosuke. 

You play Persona 4 as Souji, a quite detached guy moving in from the city, hand on his hip, jacket slung over his shoulder, and while you, the player, grow fond of the game's characters, Souji always feels like he doesn't quite belong. He is the leader, the one who pulls the strings, the one grown up far beyond their age, with the world's weight on their shoulders. 

You juggle realtionships, help people out, they call you senpai, sensei - and then there is Yosuke. 

Yosuke, who somehow, magically, manages to transcent Persona 4's charming but game-y relationship system and becomes something else. Yosuke, who calls you Partner, and rings you up at night asking about your dreams or which girl you like. Yosuke, who does and says so many silly things that you never quite know what to expect - Yosuke, who ultimately breaks the boundaries of Persona 4 and makes Souji/Yosuke the most unexpectedly real-feeling relationship within a video game that I've ever encountered. 

I don't know what I thought when I first laid eyes on him, it's likely that it was something along the lines of "Hey, this is quite cool-looking for an anime video game guy. Nice headphones."

Then, in quick succession, things happened that made it clear that Yosuke was many things - heartbroken, repressed, funny, lazy, loyal, competitive, insecure, reckless - and that there was something building between him and Souji that seemed like a stunningly natural depiction of friendship. Somehow, this is rare - a video game showing two guys becoming friends, a process that just like falling in love requires making first moves, and opening up, and getting comfortable with each other. It seemed like Yosuke was the person in the cast that always wanted to know a little more, the one to push Souji a little bit, willing to ask stupid questions just to get a reaction, and unlike the other characters, he seemed to always act out of a desire to be level with Souji, to break through the calm, collected, leader-shell of his and address the human being inside. 

Now, that alone would be a remarkable thing for a video game to depict, and worthy of high praise. What complicates things is that Yosuke, no matter how much he might deny it, seems like the most obvious case of a closeted gay person the world has ever seen. 

When I started playing Persona 4, I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into, through reading about it and actually having played a bit in the past. I also knew about the game's realtionship system, and was aware, or thought I was, that you could only get romantically involved with girls. Thus, when the game started to tease the possibility of a gay option, I raised an eyebrow, then another one, and then I lost my marbles. 

When it started, the closeness between Souji and Yosuke had already been established, and since I'm a sucker for guys not actually hating each other, I started to favour Yosuke a little bit - choosing him to eat lunch with on the roof, studying together, spending afternoons at the Junes food court, talking in the soft glow of the sun on the Samegawa river bank. When Yosuke asked which girl I liked, I chose "neither", cheekily, thinking I was playing the metagame, when the next midnight channel story twist came up, I bet each time that Yosuke would be the one to call Souji, outraged, worried, flustered, and each time when the phone rang and it was indeed him, I smiled to myself. But surely it was all in my head - I was starting to ship it, but it was just a fun little thing to do, to spare a thought here and there and layer it on top of these two characters whose interactions I enjoyed way more than expected. 

Then, these little moments started happening - the group sitting together at Junes' and Yosuke remarking how good Partner is with his hands, a comment that might not even have stuck out so much if weren't for the fact that immediately after saying it, Yosuke became a hot mess of backpedalling embarrassment. His insistence to know whether Souji had a crush on somebody, and who it was, despite the awkwardness. His remarks about inviting a third person to their activities, "or else people might think we're gay." And ultimately, the sheer time the game devoted to the Souji/Yosuke relationship - way more than any of the other characters got.

Persona 4's social link system is fairly rigid. You choose to spend time with people, and if things go well, and even sometimes if they don't, it raises your relationship level with said person, allowing you to climb the social link ranks, which has gameplay and combat benefits and also allows you, in some cases, to pursue a romance. What is remarkable about Yosuke is that the game spends a significant amount of time showing interactions between Yosuke and Souji outside of this system, building their relationship beyond the confines of you walking up to a person after school and answering "yes" to their proposal of hanging out. This not only serves to create a markedly more natural and complex relationship, it also sets Yosuke apart from the other characters - he is the one to choose to interact with Souji while the other characters can only wait to be chosen. 

And then Kanji entered the picture, Yosuke freaked out completely and I looked on, amazed at the fact that this game would dare to introduce a gay character, who, despite being closeted, met up with dates after school and whose dungeon was, of all things, a gay bathhouse, with sexual content that wasn't even the slightest bit concealed. Of all the characters, Yosuke reacted most strongly to this, outright refusing to enter and making a big fuss about being afraid of Kanji taking advantage of him. 

It culminated in the camping trip - Kanji, Yosuke, Souji sharing a tent - a scenario that could have been used very easily for a gay romance movie of questionable quality, full of the usual tropes of late night talks, denial, confrontation and very real confusion on my part of where exactly this was going - the game laid on the armored gay homophobia on Yosuke so thick that it seemed almost impossible to read what was going on in any other way. Combined with the unusual qualities that had been established in the realtionship before Kanji joined the group, it started to feel like an entire plot was going on behind the scenes, inexplicit yet persistent and increasingly impossible to ignore. 

A few in-game days after that camping trip, Yosuke broke another boundary the game had set up to this point - he visited Souji's home. More importantly, his room, a place that up until then you, the player, had always been alone in. The conversation that followed, in that intimate space, can't adequately be described as subtext anymore, it's text, and very gay text at that. I was streaming the game at the time, and I bet if that session's video was still up, you'd hear my breath hitch in surprise when Yosuke, no homo Yosuke, asked about Souji's porn stash and teasingly, suggestively stated he'd find it while Souji was out of the room. That was only the top of the iceberg, the whole scene and its context hit me like a 10 ton truck - could it be real? Was there really, explicitly something going on? The fact that I, after learning through research that there was no gay option, felt the need to double check after that scene, to make sure there wasn't one, should speak volumes. 

That's when I learned of the fact that Yosuke very likely was a gay option, that there were unused text and voice lines left over on the game's disk that turned the inexplicit explicit, both in english and japanese, suggesting the developer changed their mind after the localization was done, i.e. very late in the game's development. Only, they had ripped out very little, leaving in tons of sublte and not so subtle parts of the relationship, and that was when I realised that Persona 4, beyond being one of the best games I have ever played, would also have the potential to make me very sad, and very angry.

It wasn't just that gay rights had been dear to my heart for as long as I could remember. It wasn't just that the progression of Souji and Yosuke's relationship eclipsed any other possible pairing in the lineup by miles in terms of complexity and depth and just feeling right. It was the loss of an incredible story being told, a story that would have been unique in the history of video games - the story of two fully realised, multi-faceted male characters that you, as a player, like, falling in love, and dealing with the fact that they both happen to be guys, with all the issues that might bring in a society where homophobia and hate are still so prevalent. 

While this has been done in movies to great success in recent times, mainstream video games haven't dared to show male homosexual relationships in positive light and up front and center. Persona 4 does dare to spend significant time on very progressive subjects, including homosexuality and transgender issues, but it falters and pulls back just on the brink of being truly groundbreaking, which, to anybody playing the game with an open mind, can only scream injustice both in a worldly and in an in-game sense. 

The level 9 rank of Yosuke's social link progression has the two of you standing on a hill overlooking the town of Inaba. Yosuke'd probably call it a village, and the two of you talk about coming to terms with your place in the world, literally and figuratively. It's autumn, and the evening sun plays with the coloured leaves on the trees - it's a beautiful spot, a wistful song is playing, and despite the Playstation 2's aged graphics you can't help but marvel a little. You've never been to this spot before, you think Yosuke probably brought you here, and you wonder if there are any other locations in the town you know so well by now that you haven't seen.

"There is still nothing here," Yosuke says, meaning Inaba, a place he resented for the longest time, "but I have family, and friends...and you."

I sat in front of the TV for a long time, the soft piano notes of the song playing making me ache, and then I realised that while Yosuke Hanamura was denied the chance to become part of video games' first positively framed gay male relationship, he had acomplished one thing:

Yosuke Hanamura broke my heart.