[errand boy and spacy girl]In my month-end feature at Kotaku, I tried to pin down one of my favorite things about the game -- how the experiences of the protagonist within the story closely mirror the interaction of the player with the game.
I also touched on the differences between P3 and P4, and why it seems like P3 was so much darker. Anyway, see what you think -- the entire topic was a bit harder to articulate than I thought it might be, but hopefully it comes across.
We also recently published an opinion column at Gamasutra written by freelancer Samantha Xu. She spoke to a lot of sources specifically to talk about Kanji Tatsumi's sexuality in the game, which is certainly interesting.
I'm not sure I necessarily agree with all of her points -- my thought regarding the character's shadow selves is not that they are a literal expression of a factual inner self, but a depiction that illustrates how that person fears being perceived, generally.
I don't think it's possible to look at Yukiko's or Rise's shadow, for example, and embrace the idea that that's how they "want to be" or "secretly are" -- it seems instead a harsh and frightening way of exaggerating a certain core truth about themselves, or suggesting that that's how "viewers" are seeing their worst traits.
Though whether Kanji is afraid he'll look ridiculous if he accepts being gay, or is just afraid he'll be seen as gay because he likes soft things and is afraid of women, who knows. I like that the story doesn't definitively answer that question. I've heard a lot of people say it would have been "better" if they'd just made him definitively gay, but that sort of misses the point, I think, accords him more conclusive treatment than the other characters get.
In any event, both Samantha's Persona 4 article and mine are spoiler-free, so you have no excuses! Unless, of course, you're not interested in P4. That'd be a fine reason. That'd make you crazy, but hey, I don't judge. Not really.
Oh, and one more thing -- the verbose and hyper-enthusiastic Matthew Hawkins is having a Persona 4 art contest over at his blog. You can win the Social Link expansion set, if you weren't a weirdo who preordered it the day it became available like I was.
