The
Last Generation of gaming saw me log more hours into my DS and PSP than
on my Wii and Playstation 3. On the go gaming just made more sense with
busy weekends, and a two hour commute each day for five days a week.
The ten or so JRPGs I bought for my PS3 and Wii for the most part remain
untouched. Of the handful I played, Final Fantasy XIII and Eternal Sonata disappointed me while Costume Quest
brought Halloween to life, and the joy of inedible candy into my heart.
While I have some gems waiting to be played on my consoles, I needed to
not look very far to get my JRPG fix as both the DS and PSP were
willing to cater to those needs. Square had a strong presence in that
regard but when thinking about the Last Generation of gaming for JRPGs
and SRPGs, it's clear that there's one company in particular that has
become a force to be reckoned with.
For all that Square failed to provide
me in terms of console gaming for the previous generation; the same
cannot be said for what I received on the portables. Bringing entries of
the Dragon Quest series to the DS was much appreciated. The older titles were new to me, with Dragon Quest V being one of the most intriguing, messed up games in terms of story I’ve had the good fortune of playing. Dragon Quest IX tugged at my heart strings in its individual tales while playing with my emotions at the end. The Kingdom Hearts series had some lukewarm entries but it also had a great one in Birth by Sleep. The World Ends With You, Crisis Core, Final Fantasy: The Four Heroes of Light and the amazing Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together all made appearances. A few of these are some of the best games to ever grace my library.
Yet for some reason it’s sometimes easy for me to 'forget' all that Square has done.
Perhaps
that's due to the fact that I have a shoddy memory - a very plausible
possibility! But perhaps too it's that there’s one constant in a name
that always seems to surface whenever I think about gripping and
exciting content in my recent forays into JRPGs and SRPGs. That name
being Atlus.
Through
positive reviews of a couple of games, buzz and word of mouth I found
Atlus. While I did start a play through of FES on the PS2, it was not
until I replayed Persona 3 to completion on the PSP, and Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor on the DS, that Atlus captured my interest in a big way. Persona 3
seemed simplistic in theory: playing the role of a mostly ordinary high
school student in Japan and fighting demons. However, it was that
deceptively very basic mechanic that appealed to my interest and
obsession with anime and Japanese culture.
The games
of course, are so much more than that. They are a slice of life
presentation that gets injected with style, and features darker, adult
themes while tapping into the realm of folklore and the supernatural.
Entering into secret, alternate realities of their own world late at night in Persona 3 or while fighting for survival during the end times of an Apocalypse between angels and demons in Devil Survivor
… there was no "fantasy" setting on the surface but what hid beneath
was always a mystery to solve or a reflection of the insanity in the
human mind. The ‘mysteries’ laid the groundwork for the larger picture:
which was the journey that forced your characters to question their own
morals, tested their faith and revealed human nature to err on the side
of darkness while confronting personal truths and the resolve to strive
for what was ‘right’.
It's the underlying journeys of each of the characters that the games present so well. Specifically for Persona 3 and subsequently Persona 4 -
the idea to take ordinary characters that awaken their true
personalities hidden behind masks of what is socially acceptable; and
then have these characters confront their fears and acknowledge their
real intentions, however dark and selfish they may be - crafted stories
built around strong characterizations that are easy to relate to.
Persona 3 and Devil Survivor
were stories dressed up as nightmares fueled by the terrible nature of
humans and the underhanded things humans are capable of (even albeit
brought on by greater forces at play). The games were also nightmares
in storytelling in which the unexplained quickly turned to an urban
legend or depicted doomsday scenarios.
The modern
settings and sensibilities for ‘real’ world mysteries is a deviation
from Square’s fantasy worlds filled with wonder and beauty. Atlus
instead gave us halls of a high school, a schedule to follow, after
school activities to participate in and friendships to progress almost
naturally - and of my choosing. The benefits for maintaining and
progressing relationships were all up to me. If I liked a person, then I
could further their personal story and get to know them better. The
incentive would be having a stronger person in combat but I could leave
them to their own devices and if I did not care enough then I could
forever leave bonus aspects of their personalities and their
relationships with me (the main character) locked.
In comparison, Square set up my friendships to follow the story closely. Whether I liked or disliked my comrade in Hope from Final Fantasy XIII,
for example - that’s not the point. His story would be told and I had
to experience it. It’s all part of the narrative and one that works for
any game or book. Atlus also had a central story to follow with set
stories for each of its characters to progress the larger narrative.
But with Atlus it could feel as though I was playing the main character
as a blank slate. It’s not by any means a new mechanic, and very much
operates like a dating sim. This is where the bonus side stories were
prevalent to get to know the people in your school, members of your
party and become friends. It was unnecessary if only to unlock
higher-leveled demons but it also furthered your own character
development.
It's that
feeling of control that Atlus does well: the feeling that I am this
person and I can build these relationships on my own terms. This S-Link
(relationship building mechanic) in Persona 3 and enhanced and developed to be even more in depth in Persona 4, provided
an interesting way to bond with your party members. Additionally, each
character was given complex, real world situations and/or insecurities
that anyone could relate to and thus making interpersonal relationships
more believable.
Taking
these ideas of grounding characters in believable, social interactions
and adding wrenches into what is considered acceptable for social norms
was taken a step further in Catherine. In the 2011 game, Atlus made a very real connection to players by tapping into a story of morals and questioning human’s lustful desires to be traded for safety in an ordinary life and relationship.
Atlus seems
unafraid of going in a direction that is dark in tone. They’re unafraid
of delving scarily close to the portrayals of religious cults roaming
the streets of Tokyo as with Devil Survivor heralding the End
of Days and the often erratic behaviour that could follow. They create
murder mysteries that enter into the minds of serial killers or playing
into humans' irrational fears. The games can often visually appear and
feel gritty with great characterizations of each of its players while
still injecting just the right amount of impeccable comedic timing when
necessary.
That's not
to say that at the end of it all, their games do not still fall into the
category of having your character fight against the greater forces in
seemingly impossible odds but it's the journeys to the end that are
written on a more personal, real world level that are appealing and feel
refreshing for a JRPG.
Upon my
reflection on my experiences with Atlus and Square in recent memory; it
could often feel as though Atlus when into a completely opposite
direction of a 'typical' Square game in their Final Fantasy series.
That's
generally true but there were a couple of games I played in the last
generation that show that that's not always the case.
As
previously stated, I had quite the fun with some of the DS and PSP games
Square gave me. There was one game in particular that crossed my mind
for that feeling of familiarity to a Persona game or even Devil Survivor - even if only partially superficially in that the setting for the game was a take on modern Japan - and that was Square Enix's 2007 action role-playing game, The World Ends With You. But why did that game receive the praise it did? There are countless reasons
but one of them for me, was that it brought a similar morals and
faith-in-humanity story into the modern world with 'ordinary' teenage
kids as its players.
While I certainly look to Square for a different
type of JRPG experience for the most part, The World Ends With You felt a welcome change from the company at that time.
There's no snoozing on Atlus when it comes to a traditional, fantasy story as well; and for me, this can be seen in Radiant Historia.
With its time travel mechanics, the tale was centered around alternate
realities based heavily on the choices as decided by its main
character. The choices were mostly the kind that never felt that either
of your options was particularly wrong in any given situation. Indeed,
each world had its own positive or negative consequences as a result of
your decision making but each choice led you to believe that you were doing what was best for that given scenario.
The world was set in a traditional, grand narrative of the hardships
and hard choices to be made in war - a timeless theme and a pliable one.
And thus for now, Atlus seems to be capable of doing it all.
Finally and worth mentioning because it's one aspect for me that just cannot be overlooked, is that of the music.
Musically, what Shoji Meguro did for Persona 3 and 4
is in keeping with the modern themes and being relevant to topics of
current cultural interest. The music reflects edgy styles, while
maintaining urgency and an air of mystery when necessary. The music is
clever, fitting and does not have to be a sweeping epic piece to reflect
a grand journey. The journeys for personal growth are down to earth;
and the music can feel very much a soundtrack for everyday life. For Catherine,
some of the tracks layered classical pieces with modern instruments and
beats. I often lovingly referred to those tracks as a “bastardization”
of classical music. Truthfully, they're crafted to just be nothing
short of amazing and inspired. Some Persona tracks do this
quite well too - taking angelic chorus lines that become infused like
its demons with heavy guitar riffs or drum beats of alternative rock.
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