Playing Persona 2 I felt a yearning for my least aware playstation memories.
An essay on nostalgia and video games that explore the impact of childhood trauma on individuals as they grow up.
An empty swingset swings and a woman wearing a zippered jacket with two hearts stands to the side The swingset swings and a golden butterfly lifts itself from a full barrel of trash. From on high, a view of Seven Sisters High School and its dormant clocktower. Descending still, In the standard uniform clothed, a blond-haired blue-eyed woman, looks up from a classroom window and smiles. Floating over a puddle and floating up a little further Two men near a fence seem to have settled a dispute Their colors and lines allegiant to Kasugayama High School. The swingset swings, a man holds a pink aster close to the heart Wearing the light blue garukan styled uniform of those two men before. A man on a motorbike rolls up, the swingset swings, on its seat the pink aster rests at the mercy of its vehicle’s motion. The rider stands by, the swingset swings. The aster falls Its petals fall and shatter. The rider speeds off into scenic Sumaru City.
I remember the first time I played Tekken 2 with my uncle. Flames, hard angles, .wav audio files, and the need to uncover the mystery combination of button presses to best my now adversarial uncle. This being the same age that I first saw my cousin playing Final Fantasy VII with its steampunk opening and emphatic industrial tones. The cool colors mixed with the darker tones, a signature dread. Persona 2: Innocent Sin exists in this space between the coldness of that opening and the energetic blaze of Tekken’s tale of revenge. I played Persona 2: Innocent Sin much later in life. Accessed through emulation with text translation not available upon release. And further removed still, through an emulator of the Playstation game console. Presented with the option of the PSP remaster at the same time I opted for the fan translation of the Playstation original with mods. This version of my experience included resolution and texture updates that accommodate modern tastes for visual clarity at the expense of the blurred ambiguity of period appropriate hardware. Gone is the hum of tube television scanlines. I would not be playing this huddled on the floor of my bedroom. Now far removed from stealing hours of the night and early morning from myself for myself. When Innocent Sin came out I would have still been in grade school, trying my best not to lose my temper at the AI in NFL Blitz 2000. Also at this time Toonami existed in the late night slot of Cartoon Network’s programming hours. Soon to be combined with Adult Swim. A late night block that introduced me to my first experience with cartoons preceded with a warning for mature content. I fell in love with the cyberpunk noir of Cowboy Bebop. Its characters laden with worrisome histories and unhealthy coping mechanisms. I grew up a product of divorce, or as we liked to call it “a blended family”. The crew of the Bebop resembled a sort of blend I could relate to maybe. Or at least escape into. Mature themes.
Your father seems to think that whatever happens in his house is okay to bring into mine.
You always have worse behavior when you come back
Nobody cares more for you than your mother
How are the boys doing?
Did you want to try that?
We’re going to stay here for a night. Want some pretzels?
I will not allow you to treat my mother that way.
You do say? You don’t say? You do say?
What was the message of the movie?
What did we learn today?
My father and I watched a lot of action movies on the weekends. A charismatic salesperson at the local “toys r us” had convinced my father that the Sega Saturn was “gonna be the way to go.” The Sega Saturn, a console for which the 2D/3D tension made for a comfortable landing spot of not fully one or the other role playing games. A system also known for sporting two dedicated processing chips: one for 3D modeling, the other for 2D sprite-work. Sega has a lot of flaws. They’d be the first to admit that I think. In this era nothing could stop them. Successes in arcade machines, Sonic branding, and loads of talented game studios under their umbrella. Atlus being the admirable object of our analysis. Before making the Persona series, Atlus made tracks on the NES with their first installment of the Shin Megami Tensei series, 1987’s Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei. Here at the scene of the crime familiar actors hold space. Jack Frost makes its debut. The jesterly snow creature grins. Now the mascot of Atlus, who would go on to appear in all titles since. Shin Megami Tensei has its roots in literature being a gamification of Aya Nishitani’s trilogy of novels. Who for some inscrutable reason does not have a wikipedia entry of his own. Ultimate evil again is our target. We follow the ingenuity gone wrong of high schoolers who more or less open a portal to Hell and become demon fighters of the devils summoned from there.
Persona 2: Innocent Sin is a tale of revenge though its means are different than those of Tekken’s. We are dealing with young folks, high schoolers and not quite complete adults, connected by a strange bond and even stranger circumstances. The Persona series of games revolve around this age group. In these games, characters confront the worst sides of themselves. Sometimes they overcome their resistance to their worst qualities. Other times they succumb to their demons. These demons are represented as combatable monsters, or shadows, during which characters awaken to their true selves, their personas. These personas are monsters themselves in the form of friendly avatars of our desire to overcome. What we overcome, this is the central thought of which each event rotates around. Each member of the cast has something holding them back from pursuing ultimate purpose. Nobody arrives whole.
After the opening cinematic we follow the story of the motorbike rider from the intro: Tatsuya Suou. Tatsuya attends Seven Sisters High school and is the son of a disgraced police officer. Tatsuya awakens to his power by means of our primary antagonist Joker, another persona user. Joker is responsible for motivating our actions throughout our playtime. Battles and conflict pour over Sumaru City as we follow the story of killings brought about by Joker and accomplices. We enlist the help of our friends. We help them overcome the parts of themselves they cannot accept. And as they awaken to their powers, we put a stop to these murders, and uncover a more sinister plot. Our setting, Sumaru City, is radial. Each district a spoke off Rengedai where our cast first meets as children. A river connects the port town to the neighboring mountains. We travel to high schools, nightclubs, museums, record shops, and restaurants. Our party grows and so does our need for supplies. Each character in the party has their own connection to a neighborhood of Sumaru City. These are our colleagues and friends. Our familiarity with these faces is unfixed but strong. Lisa Silverman is the child of american expats. She identifies with neither the adoration her father holds for Japanese culture nor the whiteness she exudes. Lisa often speaks in slang. Cantonese slang. Lisa is obsessed with Tatsuya. She first appears on screen hiding out in the school parking lot. Tatsuya is working on his motorbike. Lisa admires from afar. Lisa also attends Seven Sisters High. Often referred to by our cast as “Ginko” or silver-girl as an insult. She does not know how to speak english. She was never taught english by her parents. Lisa wants only Tatsuya’s love and affection. Monster fighting is an excuse to be closer to him. She loves Bruce Lee films.
Eikichi Mishina is Tatsuya’s rival from the neighboring Kasugayama High School. Eikichi is the son of a proud sushi chef and renowned martial artist. Eikichi inherited some sparring tips from his father. How he puts those pointers to use is not for good. Eikichi is the kind of guy who has his own nickname and expects you to use it. Known at Kasugayama High as “Death Boss” and also known for pantsing his opponents upon defeat in combat. He fronts a band. Called “Gas Chamber”. Yikes. I don’t think he enjoys being called “Undie Boss”, behind his back. Safe to assume. Eikichi runs on charisma. Nobody in his band knows how to play instruments. When leadership of his gang is taken from him, he challenges his successor alone, cronies and all. He always has something to say. And he always looks the part.
We’re moving. Mom just got a promotion. Do you want to stay? Are you okay with this? Brothers are headed off to college. This is so exciting.
Tatsuya feels a questionable pull toward each member of the party. The cast meets at the shrine in Rengedai. We enter a nearby cave and are confronted with itchy memories of a past we are not certain of. Truths reveal themselves. The burden of which is interrupted by the newest scheme of ultimate evil upon leaving the cave. The shape of the town itself becomes more than mere analogy. Ultimate evil and its forces descend upon Sumaru City and rush its mountain tops in search of a much needed macguffin. The party gives chase, attempts to foil ultimate evil and its forces. We were never supposed to challenge ultimate evil. But we do anyway. Ultimate evil escapes and starts the engines of armageddon. During the conflict, the secrets of the cave provide salvation to even those thought most cruel to the party. Sumaru city divides into larger chunks. Astrological signs imprint swaths of the city. Temples erect in each district corresponding with the signs of our party members. Evil versions of our cast reign over these sectors. Versions we must reconcile in order to have the strength to confront and overcome ultimate evil. Redoubled and resolved, we take our newly redempted companions for one final push. We go to the macguffin place now lifting itself from its mess below. Confront ultimate evil. Confront those remaining questions we have about ourselves. Reminded of the aster from the beginning of this all. Will we shatter and fall from the center of ourselves? Or will we overcome the experiences that shaped this our final conflict and our final selves.
The night is still, the streets are quiet,
In this house lived my Love;
She left the town long before,
Yet her house is still standing in the same place.
There I also see a man standing and staring into the heavens,
Wringing his hands in violent grief.
I shudder when I behold his face;
The moon reveals to me my own likeness.
You Doppelgänger, you pale companion!
Why do you mimic my lovesickness,
That tormented me at this place
For so many nights in the past?
–Opening sequence of Persona 2: Innocent SinTekken 2 and Persona 2 came out some years apart. In 1995 and 1999 respectively, not much connects the two titles. They did not share studios. They did not share spots on the shelves of game stores. Persona 2: Innocent Sin was not released in the West. Tekken 2 is a fighting game that ruins friendships or strengthens them depending on who you are. Persona 2 does not have any multiplayer elements whatsoever. In the West we received Persona 2’s second installment: Eternal Punishment. An apt title, a straightforward warning to those who would choose to start their story there. Intended as another side of the same story, it would make some sense that that version of the story would be enough to satisfy western audiences. Let me be blunt. You are missing out if you start with the localized Persona 2: Eternal Punishment for playstation. You will be punished for everything you loved about Innocent Sin. The cast returns and our focus instead shifts to party member and consummate semi-responsible adult Maya Amano. Maya works for Kismet Publishing as the editor of the teen magazine “Coolest”. Maya is a natural leader and supernatural klutz with all things vehicular. Maya’s character is well developed and easy to understand. She is optimistic to a fault. Charismatic and caring, a true nurturer with a passion for putting things right for her friends and others in need. In Eternal Punishment, this character becomes a mostly silent protagonist. We the player choose how she interacts with the world. And in that the soul of her character diminishes to decisions made on her behalf. This mirrors the distance from herself we experience throughout this version of the story. The events play out in similar ways but with something a bit off. Each confrontation we are familiar with becomes defamiliarized without the steady guidance of Maya we were accustomed to in Innocent Sin. Additional characters from the first entry Persona: Be Your True Self make appearances. We are meant to reframe as the story is reshaped by our actions. We return to Sumaru City to find we were not the only ones changed. Tatsuya appears first at the shrine in Rengedai. His appearance and demeanor darkened and reserved. Tatsuya is no longer a regular member of our party and strikes out on his own to atone for his sin. We meet Maya at Kismet Publishing. Maya is after the scoop on the Joker murders. Tatsuya’s older brother, Katsuya, is tasked with investigating the “Joker killings.” The two converge upon Seven Sisters High School and we’re met with familiar circumstances albeit altered. The players are the same. A man with a bag on his head and a scrawled crude face conducts murders as the Joker. Maya teams up with the elder Suou brother and her best friend Ulala. We spend our time with adults in Eternal Punishment. Hanging around in internet cafes and bars. Exploring the nightlife of Sumaru City, less relatable to the younger cast of the previous entry. Listening and cultivating rumors about what might best suit the quest to stop the Joker killings. We travel to casinos, record stores, and shopping malls. We meet various rumormongers. Intent to influence the narrative of the rumors throughout the city. Baofu is revealed to be a sweaty nerd that we all knew to be the one behind the webpage. In Innocent Sin, Baofu was an amorphous moniker of the rumormonger stationed at the internet cafe. Tadashi Satomi had the good sense to predate social media presence by a good twenty years or so. Our team is made up of friends and acquaintances, former background characters in Innocent Sin.An ultimate evil stirs and we begin chase. Confronted with the suspicion that we may have already been here before. Musical themes return with new inflections. Dungeons return with alternate exits, now more circuitous and maze-like than ever. The faces of ultimate evil bearing some resemblance to the former game’s antagonists with some players switching sides this time around. New areas and old feelings, old areas and new feelings. It feels weird to want to return to a digital world with yourself intact. That person you were will never exist again. Sumaru City hovers in your mind as you retread the paths that took you to ultimate conflict. Guiding Maya and a different cast of players to final judgment feels like returning to the swingset. We lay down a narcissus this time while another rises up within us. Did we lay to rest the demons of our past? What truths remain as we sort through rumor?
The cultivation of rumors returns in Eternal Punishment. We pay off investigators to make our desires reality. Who better to turn the tale than those tasked with uncovering it. Kuzunoha Detective Agency is run by a gentle man named Daisuke Todoroki. He’s depicted Flanders-like, a piney green dress shirt and a sweater vest, his neck adorned with a bolo tie, the pendant closing the loops of the tie resembling some sort of dichotomy. Or maybe character designer Shigenori Soejima really wanted to scratch his Simpson’s itch. This was the 90s after all. Our duo of deputy detectives under Daisuke are separated this time around. Fan favorite author insert Tadashi Satomi is nowhere to be found. I guess we’ll just have to settle for pharmacy karaoke then. The story goes that he was run off by assassins. Not sure I’d let that keep me from the love of my life but you do you Tadashi. Taking control of Maya to spread rumors feels right as a member of print media she seems well-equipped to sort wheat from chaff. So we go about influencing the narrative of rumor throughout our hometown with the hopes that we might wrestle agency from fate. We visit the fortune teller to modify what we already know. Our party inches closer to fate uncovering the location of the initial Joker figure we’d been chasing. High up in the mountains at a mental ward we confront the crazed caricature. We learn more about who might be involved aside from our red herring one-eyed homonym. Tatsuya Sudou returns fiery as ever. In a real Lost Highway sort of way. So the loop continues. Investigate clues. Spread rumors to influence those hints. Track down ultimate evil.
Maya and Tatsuya share a bond of defiance. We are meant to replay the events of the previous installment in which ultimate evil takes the form of Nyarlathotep. It’s not an accident to connect cosmic horror with its influences. In Persona 2: Innocent Sin our final confrontation is with literally Hitler; if you play the playstation original. Maya is killed in this version of reality. A deal is made with our representative of ultimate good. Who has made a wager with ultimate evil on behalf of the will of humanity. If our party of friends choose to forget the bonds that make them who they are, then in another reality this event will not occur. The agreement is understood by Eikichi, Lisa, and Tatsuya. The conceit being that Tatsuya refuses to go along. In Eternal Punishment, Tatsuya’s guilty quest to assume all consequences of his sin only isolates him. He believes himself to seek atonement. He only wants to reduce the spread of misery on behalf of his “sinful” decision to continue on knowing and cherishing the relationships forged on the path to ultimate confrontation. Even after facing the worst parts of himself. Even after watching his friends do combat with their alters. Maya is the one standout. When her shadow appears, and tells her truths of her other self, she refuses to acknowledge it. We know this and help Maya uncover it. Tatsuya makes scant appearances in our conflicts operating alone and resistant to all attempts to alleviate his suffering. Much like Maya did. So here we are again in battle with the cosmic representation of humanity’s desires. Up against hurtful and violent conflict resolution. We battle ultimate evil. Now the adults are meant to reckon with their worst selves. Their secret regrets. Their fatal flaws. We confront the manifestation of concealment. The party overcomes this final challenge. Tatsuya accepts his fate and returns to the reality in which Maya does not live. Maya spots Tatsuya riding by at an intersection. They make no contact. The story goes on.
I really want to thank you for being here When I needed you I can’t express this well What did your Father do to support you? What do you mean by that? I want you to know that I will always love you No matter what.
I watched the final installment of the Venture Bros. the other night. Revisiting old friends and enemies. The convolutions of the many universes within ourselves resonated with me. I remembered when I first watched the show on those stolen from myself hours of the night. I remembered the friendships and rivalries of that time and the times that followed. Reconnected with those feelings I felt a yearning for a past self who never was but continues to live in my memory. Blood isn’t thicker than water. At least in the ways we forge the most important relationships in our lives. If you like me have chosen those closest to you, do us all a favor and don’t play Eternal Punishment. Unless you just really have to. It’s okay if you do. You still deserve love. Even if you choose to suffer.
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