The strength of heart required to face oneself

This is post #200, and I thought I should do something good with it. So I’m finally writing this post. Except now I know I don’t need to write as much as I planned. But that’s the end of this whole thing, so let me start at the beginning.

        I finally finished Persona 4 this summer, and I started over and played through the beginning a bit. I was really inspired to write an amazing essay for Destructoid about the game, the journey of the main player, and just the themes of the game in general. If I were to do that, though, I’d have to replay the game and get quotes and refresh my memory on things to talk about, so I lost the will for it. But I’ll write a little bit and introduce the game. I don’t remember how much this stuff featured in Persona 3, and I have no idea how much (if at all) it’s featured in Persona 1 and Persona 2.

        Everyone in the Persona games has a basic alignment with one of the Tarot deck Arcana, and the main character is always aligned with The Fool. Igor, the master of the Velvet Room who opens your powers to you and guides you on your journey, describes The Fool as “zero,” “empty yet full of infinite potential,” one who could become anything at the end of their journey through life. What this means is that you can be whoever, and whatever, you want to be throughout the game - taking whatever personality you need at the moment to help other people out. As the infinite potential goes, your character is the only one with the ability to “change” Arcana in such a way - everyone else is restricted to their innate Arcana, but your main character simply starts as the Fool and can change Arcana like one changes a mask.

        Everyone also has an innate Persona that represents their inner strength, which is aligned with their Arcana. Some people go blindly through their lives, never coming to terms with the strength they have inside. Perhaps they’re carried along by negative emotions, and never able to overcome them. Maybe they’re too apathetic to reach their own potential. Throughout the game, you change masks as you need in order to help other people reach that potential. It’s just a part of your journey through life. You don’t take any credit, you don’t make a big fuss about it, you just stand aside and support them so they can do what they need to do. With your general social links, you just help people along and at Rank 10 things are more or less resolved.

        It gets a lot better with your party members, because they also unlock the powers of their Personas. Igor describes the power of Persona as (something like) a mask worn to face the hardships of life. Persona 3 had a different system for unlocking Personas, but in Persona 4 everyone had to face a dark, mutated version of their Persona in order to unlock their inner strength. This dark Persona represents the big conflict in their life, something they need to overcome in order to get on with their lives. A weak person might give in, but to accept their problems and acknowledge that this darkness is a part of who they are represents true strength. After facing this part of themselves, they unlock the power of their Persona, and join your party. It might not be perfect, but now they have the strength to face their problems - the strength of heart to face themselves.

        So I thought to myself that I ought to write about a problem in my life that I might not have otherwise faced, and challenge everyone to find the strength of heart to face themselves - if they haven’t already. At first I wanted to write about the breakdown of my relationship with Britt, then the end of my relationship with her (which didn’t end up happening - we’re all fine now), then about my general status with girls. Then I thought about it some more last night, and I thought about the problems the characters in Persona 4 had, and I realized that to claim I needed to face myself would be stupid. I’ve already done that. My big challenge, the jump I needed to make, was the initial overcoming of my depression and associated problems. I’ve already done that. Sure, I’m not perfect yet, but neither were your party members in Persona 4. They still had growing to do, and so do I. That’s just how it is.

        I’ll need a few more level-ups before I’m as good as I’ll get. Maybe at Rank 10 (maxed social link in Persona ¾) I’ll get a shiny evolution. But I’ve already reached Rank 1 (just after facing themselves), and I’m working my way up. So yes, I’ve found the strength of heart to face myself. Have you?

SOMETHING FOR SUNDAY

It’s like the Sunday Something, but slightly in advance. Yay! I just can’t contain my excitement for you to be excited about these things that are exciting. Plus I hate a cluttered bookmarks toolbar. that’s why Read It Later is perfect for me, because I never have to remind myself of the things I’m not doing.

        Extra Credits via Escapist Magazine - Brilliant, absolutely brilliant series of videos. They’re about six minutes in length each, and if you watch three in a row every day or something you should plow through them in no time. They are all worth watching, because each examines a worthwhile issue in an enlightening way. Let me backtrack - basically a couple of people with experience in different parts of the industry make a brief video each week talking about some aspect or another of video games. Some highlights include God of War 1 as a Greek tragedy, the psychological basis of any proper survival horror game, and the term “gamer.”

        I planned on only watching a few today, and ended up watching every single one. There’s only 15 actual episodes, with a few PAX 2010 videos you should probably watch and a few you may not bother to watch. They’re as good as any podcast or essay you might find on a gaming blog, but a fraction of the length.

        Winter Voices: Avalanche - An episodic strategy RPG, the first episode of which is currently available on Steam for $5. Further episodes are supposed to released every week, but it looks like they have a vague definition of “week.” At any rate, RPS tells you a lot of what you need to know about the game, and why you may or may not want to spend $5 on it. In terms of gameplay, the battles are metaphorical representations of you taking on your inner demons, your skills are coping mechanisms like Denial or Imaginary Friend. The game has some horrible flaws, but for $5? You’re not risking much.

        I have bought it, but I have yet to play it. I want to enjoy the games that I play, and I don’t want to waste my time with a bad game - hence why I tend to avoid flash games these days. I hope, though, that the premise and everything else can overcome the poor gameplay, and more than that I hope the gameplay gets better in later instalments. If it does, and you’re not convinced on this one, believe me - you’ll find out, and then you can buy Episode 4 and it’ll be great.

        “Another clever aspect of the combat is your character’s Memory statistic. When you’re allocating stat points after you’ve levelled up, you can increase your memory to boost the rate at which you gain experience (because you learn more from each talk and encounter), but it also causes the demons you wrestle with to grow in strength (your sad memories gain clarity).

        All it amounts to is a completely seamless dynamic difficulty slider. Want more skills and more complex battles? Crank up your memory. Or is your character breaking down as she runs out of energy during every single fight? If so, you leave your memory well alone. You try and forget.”

        God, this game deserves its own post. If that last paragraph isn’t some amazing game design, I don’t know what is.

        Touch screen material to run out by 2020 - That article contains a link to a much, much longer gizmodo article which I wouldn’t recommend unless you really like rocks and stuff, but the single sentence “modern touch screens are made with a rare material, which will only last until 2020 if we’re lucky” is all you really need to know. It’s a great reminder of how we treat our planet, though. How long have we really been getting into this touch screen stuff? I doubt the DS uses this particular material, but I’m sure the iPhone and your Droid phones and all that stuff uses it. So, at best a few years. And we’re tearing through this incredibly limited resource like there’s no tomorrow. Suddenly the post-apocalyptic world of your choice is ushered in by the demise of the amazing touch screen.

        You enjoying that iPhone? I really hope so. There’s only a billion of them in existence. Very rare. Rare enough to kill for.

Fantasy University

Once, I posted an e-mail from Kingdom of Loathing. Now, I post a letter from Fantasy University.

Imagine if KoL were made by the Facebook-generation.

Ready?

“Congratulations!

        Your application to Fantasy University has been accepted!

        We are looking forward to having yet another bright young mind take advantage of the unending knowledge of the country’s finest and foremost Adventuring College (that we know of)!

        We hope you are looking forward to the challenges presented by a Class-A Adventuring Education, and hope that you will meet any and all challenges with the same kind of fervor and optimism we exhibited in preparing this form letter!

        Before you are actually accepted, there is one formality that will be taken care of by this magical letter. It contains a disclaimer form that must be accepted before enrollment becomes final.

        Agreement: I, Demi Victus, do solemnly swear that I will do my best to uphold the traditions and integrity of Fantasy University and will always remember that I become the property of Fantasy University and that any accidents or punishments that may befall me up to and including death, dismemberment, depression, apathy, illness, decapitation (real or imagined), fraud, theft, delusions, nightmares, food poisoning, Rapture, stolen organs, borrowed organs, hallucinations, leg trauma, lupus, being burned alive, water torture, tickle torture, plain old torture, spasms, night sweats, day sweats, pant sweats, restless leg syndrome, restless elbow syndrome, poverty, canings, heat stroke, heat exhaustion, plain stroke, extortion, blackmail (which is technically different from extortion), blindness, deafness, loss of an ear, loss of one or more shoes, dew crotch, being forced to watch bad comedians (you know, the really bad ones where half of you wants to feel sorry for them, but the other half can’t stop laughing at how awful they are), and jury duty are all considered perks of the University and must be enjoyed as such. Furthermore, it remains the right of the University to… Geez, does anyone even read this crap? I spend 24 hours a day down here in this well, shackled to this printing press, writing up legal documents for you people BY HAND, and for what? A few half-hearted chuckles? My humor is all I have to give, and I try so hard, but what’s it all amount to? You’re never going read this anyway, and that’s okay. My wife will probably run off with some romance novelist, who she’ll fall in love with after he writes her into every single one of his best sellers. That’s cool, I’ll chill down here, with the rats, and the constant trickle of dank sewer water. No really guys, it’s fine. I’ll just keep making you laugh throughout this entire game, as you never once question where such brilliant humor stems from. You’ll never realize that every joke you read is really told by one lonely guy trapped in the bottom of a well, and that’s a fate I’m willing to accept. Bye forever.”