But where Persona 3 builds a melancholy narrative around a savior figure and Persona 5 advocates for rebelling against broken systems, Persona 4 focuses on finding peace through self-acceptance and understanding friends. It comes together with Persona 3 and 5 to form something of a trilogy-loosely connected games offering a different perspective on the troubled world we’ve inherited. There’s an interiority to Persona 4, an introspectiveness that remains unmatched by any other game I’ve played. And of course, I turned to my partner and teased him about his fondness for temperamental women. Like me, she positioned herself as a protector of her much quieter longtime best friend, Yukiko. Like me, she tended to be silly and speak without thinking. Like me, she had a hot temper and was prone to violence. From Chie Satonaka’s very first moment on-screen, I related to everything. “Like” turned out to be an understatement.
I’d never even heard of the Persona series until my then-boyfriend (now fiance) suggested I play Persona 4 on his Playstation 2 shortly after I had moved to Seattle. I love story-driven games, but my reflexes and response times are crap, I don’t have the patience to keep redoing boss fights, and my parents wouldn’t allow anything other than Gameboys in the house when I was growing up. To be fair, I don’t play a lot of video games. No video game has ever hit me quite as hard as Persona 4 did. Editor’s Note: Due to the contradictory messaging of Naoto’s arc, the author has chosen to use they/them pronouns throughout.ĬONTENT WARNING for discussions of queerphobia and sexual assault.