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Tazmily Village - N4A Chat Thread - September 2020


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I can think of one JRPG character whose entire premise and identity has been totally undermined by his iconic look and huge sword. 

 

Cloud.  

 

When power fantasies come into play, they can totally ruin a character's motivations and so on. Projecting oneself onto a character who has different justifications than one's own can be counter-something. Cloud is seen more as a muscly sword user than a person with complex emotions nowadays. Especially for those who have played the game and seen Cloud for who he really is. 

  

And, if the context for why Joker needs to fight is undercut by his power and looks, that will ruin what he meant/means to some people, including me.  

 

Going on a rant, so look or not. I don't care.

 

 

Joker doesn't stop people only because they're rotten adults. These rotten adults have made other lives miserable,  if you have seen the way most of the law enforcement and government has branded Joker a criminal, it's not like they're going to listen to him or his friends. HAVE YOU SEEN THE OPENING INTRO SEQUENCES?! He has to take a different measure. And it's a video game, so the reality of the world in Shibuya and the real version are different. The game flat out tells you that in the beginning that "THIS STORY IS A WORK OF FICTION". But, of course, not all of the adults see Joker as a bad person. His uncle, his homeroom teacher, and the class president and her lawyer sister at the beginning think he's bad news, but when they get to meet him more, they realize he's not a bad person. Just like real life, not all adults are rotten. 

Sure, the game is relatable the those who have been judged and accused for something they didn't do or without proper context. And, admittedly, there is THAT. But, tell me this one thing: if the game didn't have all those rotten adults, in what way could the cast have been changed? I think the cast was intentionally made to stand out from the SEES and Investigation Team. If you don't like Persona 5 because it antagonizes adults, play Persona 3 or 4 then, and see who interesting and different their bosses are. Maybe Persona 5 had to play to that theme of rebellion because it needed to not be a rehash of 3 and 5. Then, what would the bosses be? We already had people fighting their own true selves, and there were a lot of shadows in 3, so what would be the next course of action? I feel like it was a twist of Persona 4's ideas, of externalizing their problems, instead of internalizing. Most of the casts of these games have been teenagers, so what would be the one thing they could blame for their problems? Of course, none of the students hate all of their teachers. Ms. Kawakami is a fine example. 

And if you don't like this, there's the other Shin Megami Tensei games. From my standpoint, it was fun to beat up those rotten adults because they do horrible things which similarly have happened in real life. But, if you've never played to the end of the game, Sae says that "it's up to us to fix our own mistakes with our own hands" or likewise. Reality will later set in by the end of these games. And, thus is life. It might be cruel and unfair, but we move forward to hope for a better future. 

Joker never did this because he wanted to have the power. He just wanted to help and save people in trouble. Look back to when Kamoshida and his guards beat up Ryuji and Joker in the first few hours. Even the butterfly says "truly, this is an unjust game". And look at how when Joker is in the Velvet Room. He's in his own mind, treated as a criminal. He doesn't desire power. He desires freedom. 

And, that's what the playable characters need. Joker, to be free to talk to other people. Ann, to be free from the rumors and gossip of being with a jerk. Ryuji, free from the negative gossip of leaving the track team. Yusuke, freedom of expressing oneself. Makoto, freedom of standing out from her sister's shadow and freedom of what she wants and needs to do. Futaba, freedom of finally going outside and seeing the world for what it is. Haru, freedom of choosing her own life. With Morgana, his development is a case of amnesia. And, there are others who need to be free as well. Of course, when they get to Hawaii, the power gets to their heads. But, they realize when they're backed into a corner after the Burger Boss mission, that maybe they were kind of selfish. They genuinely want to help. Even if the law isn't on their side. And order. The last boss fight with Yaldabaoth is basically chaos and freedom vs. law and restriction. Totally symbolic, even if it's too on the nose.      

And besides, other RPGs have a ragtag team of misfits who want to rid the world of corrupted people and so on for different reasons, with some people joining their cause eventually. Why does Persona 5 get treated like it's a bad thing? And, Batman clearly goes against the law sometimes to save the world from bad guys, who also are corrupt adults as well, but he's heralded as a hero. Same for Superman when he takes on a mutli-conglomerate billionare. Why give THEM preferential treatment, when the Phantom Thieves are really doing the same thing?! 

  

Have I made sense? I don't know.

Edited by Link, the Hero of Dreams
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5 hours ago, Tyranogre said:

 

But... how is that a bad thing?y;

 

Power fantasies are one of the basic cornerstones of not only video games, but fiction as a whole.

Just because power fantasies are commonplace doesn't make them good.  Power fantasies can absolutely be bad when they reinforce negative or problematic behavior, and male otaku escapist fantasy certainly has embedded itself in plenty of negative ways especially in story-driven games and JRPGs.  JRPGs do a good job of writing charming albeit cliched characters, but boy howdy do a lot of them have awful storytelling.  Even games I enjoy like Nier Automata can reek of sentimentality or stilted and melodramatic writing. y;

 

Also cis people set California on fire again and all their shit is spilling over into Oregon, it's raining ash here at 1am.

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5 hours ago, Edie Napier said:

Just because power fantasies are commonplace doesn't make them good.  Power fantasies can absolutely be bad when they reinforce negative or problematic behavior, and male otaku escapist fantasy certainly has embedded itself in plenty of negative ways especially in story-driven games and JRPGs.  JRPGs do a good job of writing charming albeit cliched characters, but boy howdy do a lot of them have awful storytelling.  Even games I enjoy like Nier Automata can reek of sentimentality or stilted and melodramatic writing. y;

 

Also cis people set California on fire again and all their shit is spilling over into Oregon, it's raining ash here at 1am.

 

Oh gosh, I've heard the gender reveal one. Whoever did that one call go straight to Hades' world. 

 

But, new Hyrule Warriors game about the Calamity that happened 100 years before BOTW. Interesting. 

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Hurray for random Zelda announcement! :D 

 

I know this is random but feel like sharing... Lately I have been trying to divulge myself of some Beanie Babies from way back in the day. Did a bunch of research, got a professional guide, took a bunch of photos, sorted them into a list of different sets and put them up for sale.
 

Made a fun bet with my wife that I would be able sell them faster than she could sell our old rusty van. Of course it’s a silly bet (one is obviously more useful than the other) but the van had been on the market for months with no takers, so I figured, why not? Well... I lost that bet. So yay, but also, aww...

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"Last October, in Iowa, an idea for a fun gender reveal party went south when the family unintentionally built a pipe bomb. When the device went off, it wasn't just blue or pink gun powder that exploded, but the entire pipe did as well, sending shrapnel flying."

 

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Edited by Pichi
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4 hours ago, Tyranogre said:

How do I summon that Persona that looks like a giant penis?

  

In order to get it in Persona 5, you take each enemy down with their own weaknesses, making sure the last one doesn't die, you hold it at gunpoint, and you do a little talking minigame, where Joker can recruit as one of his 8-12 wildcard personas. All you have to do is switch it out from there. Or you can fuse other personas to get it, I think. 

 

In Persona 4 Golden, it comes as a random shuffle time card. Which I think is stupid. 

Edited by Link, the Hero of Dreams
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9 minutes ago, Link, the Hero of Dreams said:

  

In order to get it in Persona 5, you take each enemy down with their own weaknesses, making sure the last one doesn't die, you hold it at gunpoint, and you do a little talking minigame, where Joker can recruit as one of his 8-12 wildcard personas. All you have to do is switch it out from there. Or you can fuse other personas to get it, I think. 

 

In Persona 4 Golden, it comes as a random shuffle time card. Which I think is stupid. 

 

What about 3 FES?

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Funny we're talking about Persona. I decided to go back and finish off Persona 4 Golden (I dropped the game after the appears-to-be but actually isn't final boss) before going into Persona 5 Royal..I'm in the mood for games with an anime aesthetic and because of my joycon situation effectively locked to the PS4 and Vita, and well, Persona fits that bill and it helps that Royal was on sale.

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