Myriad truths

** Spoilers for Persona 4 Golden **

My journey in Persona 4 Golden has finally reached its end, with tears and laughter included after killing the last boss – the very, very last boss from the true ending. In good jrpg fashion, the game hinted at a possible outcome while there were still many events waiting around the corner. I can tell that we were reaching for the end many gameplay hours ago. First when we thought the copycat murderer was the culprit, then when we were pretty much certain that Namatame was responsible, and yet there was another one pulling the strings, until finally, the ultimate almighty entity behind the fog enveloping mankind’s wishes revealed itself in a most inconspicuous form. I’ve seen enough examples of how immersive the storytelling coming from these developers can be, and they definitely delivered a good thriller in the Persona universe and still gave us enough reasons to smile despite the trying times and uncertainty looming over Inaba.

Since I’ve played Persona 3 Reload quite recently it was hard to avoid comparing both games. I don’t mean it in detail because comparing a remake full of features that pamper our brains to infinity would be silly. Persona 4 Golden is a product of its time in comparison, and much of those quality of life features, even the graphics, aren’t to be compared to a game released this year. But the foggy atmosphere is reminiscent of that green fog from P3 that I won’t forget so soon and the people’s minds, disconnected from each other and waiting – in the case of Persona 4 – wishing – for the end of days and the forgetfulness it entails. 

These big life questions are common elements between the games and the gods are thrown into the mix to give humanity a taste of their wishes, even the gods themselves as a creation of debilitated minds and hearts sowing lies, deceit and masks that cover their true selves. It’s as if they linger there in the pool of life, waiting to answer collective prayers without any effort at moralising the individuals. Their wishes are the god’s wishes and it rests upon us, the player, to enlighten their hearts, to treasure the precious life we have together and to show them that the truth can be pursued beyond the lies spread through a TV screen or through our deepest desires born out of insecurity and loneliness. If not, Inaba and perhaps the world, would drown in eternal fog and humans would become shadows, their memories erased forever and their ignorance a call for eternal bliss. 

Our cast of characters goes through the same process, at first avoiding the truth about their deepest feelings, their insecurities and hidden desires, to then facing their true selves, with both good and bad, and receiving their Personas into their hearts. At the end of each of their dungeons they have some sort of deep realisation of their true nature and it was Naoto’s dungeon I was about to start when I finished my previous text about Persona 4. I already suspected that Naoto didn’t identify as a woman, but androgyny in videogames is real so I didn’t give it much thought. It was when she was facing her other self, the other she was fighting against, that she revealed that she was in fact a woman living as a man, which left her friends in disbelief. 

I already mentioned how Persona 4 treats themes like sexual orientation in a previous post, but this thing with Naoto was strange. She wanted to be a detective when she was very young, but the profession was exclusively male, and then there was her young age which didn’t help getting the recognition for the reasoning  skills that she so well deserved. When she was a child, being a girl detective was a cute curiosity, but when she grew up, the idea of a young woman being a detective must have brought some sexist drama she didn’t want to deal with, so she passed as a young man and focused on the investigation of the Inaba murders without worrying about how others perceived her gender and sex. Oh, the dream! How much I wished to have been born a man when I was younger (when I was younger, being born a man was the same as being born male). I would be so free, I would be an entirely different person, much more sociable for sure. I don’t know if I would be less afraid of absolutely everything, but I would definitely feel more comfortable around other men, so I understand Naoto very well. 

The strange part came a bit after, when her other self said “how could you become an ideal man when you were never male to begin with?” and then after Naoto faced herself she said “but though I will one day change from a child to an adult, I will never change from a woman to a man…” and right after “what I should yearn for… No, what I must strive for isn’t to become a man. It’s to accept myself for what I really am.” Naoto’s experience was very much like my own but the ideas didn’t frame the possibility of actually becoming a man if she so wanted, because that would touch the very issues Atlus has been struggling with. I don’t mean it in a negative way; it was very mild considering what I’ve seen before. I enjoyed the scene with Naoto and the way everyone reacted was very endearing. Kanji was the first one to accept her. Since then all interactions between them were very sweet.

After that I got my romantic scene with Chie and I have to confess that Marie was also my girlfriend. I checked a guide and both relationships didn’t collide during Valentine’s Day. I then went for the romance option with both but while I pursued the relationship with Marie for the extra content, I romanced Chie because she is my favourite character. I loved the interactions between her and Yosuke during Culture Festival Day and the crossdressing event. From there on, I used the creepy highschool girl outfit in every dungeon. Yosuke got used to his new mini skirt and his persona was amazing during the last dungeon because many shadows were weak to wind. 

After Namatame was arrested I thought the game was reaching its conclusion. When he was at the Riverside a few months ago moaning nonsense to himself it was clear that he was in great suffering. After Nanako’s kidnapping, allegedly to save her, we managed to clear the dungeon and defeat his shadow. He was under surveillance at the hospital and Nanako was very sick. She died from her mysterious health situation. The doctors couldn’t figure out what she had gotten. It was as if the contact with the TV world had infected her with the same evil as the first victims. I felt that I was approaching the end of the game so I checked a guide to see what the path to the true ending was. The true ending isn’t something you accidentally fall into. Very specific and non-intuitive dialogue choices are required to progress and get to the real culprit. If I could or couldn’t have guessed who the real culprit was without any help will forever remain a mystery. At first it even seemed a bit ridiculous and I’m almost sure he wouldn’t be my first choice.

A solid gasp

After I finished the game, I reloaded the save to see the bad ending. It was the most anti-climatic thing I’ve ever seen. Nanako remained dead, so imagine how it feels to fall into that ending right after watching her die in the hospital without the knowledge that she could come back to life. When I made my progress I was still very shocked by her death and didn’t have any idea that she could come back. Since her health situation was a question mark, the powers at hand and the connection between our group may have reawakened her spark. In practical terms, we had to avoid revenge and pick the right dialogue choices. The rest of the bad ending didn’t feel like the type of ending we are used to in japanese videogames – those endings that drag, and drag, and drag – with an epilogue and many sentimental words, and bright colours, tears and laughing and banter. That was the true ending with the golden content from Marie. Also, Kanji’s new hairstyle. 

But the bad ending didn’t lift the fog of illusion that Ameno-Sagiri mentioned during our fight. We said goodbye to our friends and left them enveloped in the fog that would eventually consume them, and with it the loss of memory, blissful ignorance and disconnect. After the point where we got the culprit and confronted him in the dungeon the game got very scripted, with no more room for further social link activity. I managed to max out every classmates’ social link except for Rise, unfortunately. I spent too much time at the start without knowing what to do and spent precious time with activities that weren’t necessary. I wonder if we can max out all social links in one playthrough. Apart from my classmates I managed to max the nurse Sayoko, Hisano which I loved, Marie for the ending, my group except for Rise and the Fox, the links that unlock with the story and not much else.

During the adorable ski trip some mysterious forces attracted our group into a shelter were we were summoned by a special character to fight inside another dungeon – the Hollow Forest – with the objective to save Marie. This dungeon was a bit hellish. We were stripped away from every single item we got and every time we started a fight our SP was halved. During the exploration we got access to treasure chests that allowed us to populate our inventory with useful items like the rings. These were useful to replenish a number of SP for every turn in battle. Besides the SP, some enemies were also a pain to deal with. We could avoid some shadows if they showed up on the map, but in certain levels we had to engage in battles whether we wanted it or not because opening a door automatically initiated a fight. Furthermore, the enemies used plenty of status effects against us with almost perfect success rate. Because of the constant ailments, exploring the dungeons was paramount to get armour to protect the party against the damage type they were weak to and also items to break enemy resistances. By the end of the dungeon we were well equipped to defeat whatever was holding its grasp on Marie. 

The existence of the Hollow Forest was related to the memory loss Marie had been struggling with since the start of the game. When she got her memories back she opted to hide herself inside the forest, shocked with the realisation of her nature as the emissary carrying the collective wishes of humanity to the Sagiri. With the fog raging inside her, and after some pressure from the group, she fell asleep, calming her mind, and setting free the fog to form Kusumi-no-Okami, an entity which was a part of Marie and one of the many aspects of her existence.

After defeating Kusumi-no-Okami and giving Marie her well deserved freedom from the boundless wishes that almost destroyed her, our group was set on discovering the real truth behind it all. After some very striking revelations we stood before Izanami, the one god that created the Sagiri and separated itself from Marie, giving her the comb that she treasured as the only connection to her existence and which was in fact a curse and a symbol of separation. The granting of those wishes further entangled the web of lies where people wanted to live, even convincing a god that illusions and expectations formed into fabricated realities were everything that humans could wish for. The images shown on the TV were the result of those expectations, and by activating the object of desire the god granted the perfect picture. Although when expectation met the desired outcome, something else changed inside the hearts of people and the very realisation of mankind’s shortcomings came to light opening gaps for more wishes and avenues for more fog. Think about it as using social networks to access only the type of content you agree with, feeding the algorithm with your conscious and unconscious will with slight variations of the same thing, forming the content inside a primordial sea of misconstrued information, deleting your perspective and ultimately your critical thinking and reasoning with time.

Izanami

Even the gods don’t believe in us, was what I thought when Izanami said “you have already exceeded what I thought humanity to be capable of.” Just because we were going for the truth as the ultimate wish worth fighting for, having to convince and even force a god to change their opinion was a bit absurd but at the same time it was interesting from a theological perspective. At least I felt that we had some agency in the books. And then when Izanami-no-Okami said “well done…!” a tear started rolling down my face.

Oh my, what a game! I’m tired and depleted as I think I’ll always be after playing a Persona game. It is, however, a good kind of exhaustion, of having played a long game with a rich and meaningful story that agitates the soul. After lifting the fog from both this world and the TV world, it was time to go home. We said goodbye to our dear friends and took the train. Some time later we visited a bright Inaba full of life, warmth and hope. Everyone changed and grew up a bit, especially our dear Kanji! As for Marie and the others you’ll have to see for yourself.

Goodbye :’)

If you’re still here, thanks for reading this! I enjoyed my time with Persona 4 Golden even though it wasn’t entirely possible to play it without interruptions. I plan to check the extra content from the Golden edition and see the anime cutscenes again. I enjoyed the concept drawings for the characters and their personas, the cover artworks, and the Jungian psychology lessons from Mr. Edogawa. I still have a lot to explore in the game and social links to complete, so I hope to be able to do another run sometime soon.

Cyberpunk: sex, romance and murder

I mostly play jrpgs, but after 100 hours of Unicorn Overlord, I needed a break. I have some games for Playstation in my backlog and I don’t normally collect for the console unless I find something at a good price or an exclusive. I bought two more Vanillaware games, Odin Sphere and Dragon’s Crown, which I intend to play later. However, I still had a copy of Cyberpunk 2077 laying around and never got to it after picking it up some months ago. I have a faint idea that the game had serious problems when it came out. If it had, it doesn’t anymore, just the occasional crash here and there. The most annoying one happened on a mission with Claire to participate on a street race. I suck at driving but, for some reason, I ride her pickup truck – aptly called Beast – fairly well. So I was in the middle of the first race and the game crashed. Then, I finished the race and won, and the game crashed. Then, I finished it in second place and the game didn’t crash. Well then, second place it is. I never experienced those crashes anymore and won the subsequent races. After we finished she asked if I’d help her kill her husband’s murderer during the last race. I obliged because I’m not in Night City to be a good person. I kill whomever I want, when I want, how I want and go to bed with everyone I fancy and pay for sex without a second thought.

In jrpgs we have to save the world to get the girl we like in the end. It’s real work and dedication. The character development is also so extensive that by the time we reach the end we have spent a while choosing the right things to say, advancing through a support level system, giving gifts, doing things together, a bit like in real life. In Night City, and also a bit like in real life, we can pay and have someone fake their interest in us. It’s the perspective from the other side. Since I’ve never paid for sex in real life, I might as well try it in a simulated environment and the experience was acceptable. I went to bed with a character after getting an sms to meet and it felt completely random because I didn’t know what was going to happen. It was that unlikeable Corpo executive woman right at the start of the game, when I was still getting my bearings. After the mission where she offered me money to retrieve a Militech drone, I didn’t accept it because I didn’t trust her intentions, and chose the less likeable dialogue options. So, by the time I got her sms, I chose the option «Shame. Was starting to like you…» not because I did but because I was being sarcastic. And then, bang, I ended up in bed with her. I enjoyed Night City.

Not long after, I was in another district ready to meet Evelyn and there were some folks on the street. A guy asked me something and I was so overwhelmed checking the menus and trying to learn the game that I said yes and paid a small fee. I honestly thought it was a mission of some kind. I went to bed with him, or I’d rather say, he went to be with me and that was it. So, I learned how it worked and approached a woman standing on the other side of the street and this time, armed with knowledge, I asked if she wanted to go with me and I paid the fee. I think I went to bed with more people but now, after some hours of gameplay, I don’t remember. In real life I have a preference for women, or I’d rather say, for people who identify as women, despite the body they were born with. One day I was talking about trans issues with my wife and I asked if she would consider staying with me if I transitioned from female to male. The question was relevant at the time because it came from a period where I had to figure myself out. She said yes, she would stay with me. She earned herself rank S++ with me without even knowing it. To those who are curious, I’m still very much a cisgender woman, however that realization didn’t come without some soul searching.

In Cyberpunk, people perform their gender freely and have all types of sexual preferences and fantasies. They also have agency, wants and needs. I met Panam and I was on a spree getting into bed with everyone in my way, or killing everyone in my way, depending on the mission. We were paying for a hotel room and she insisted on getting a room with separate beds. I still made an advance but she said no. Later down the line, another opportunity arose. I had to test the game. I made my advance and she said no again. Ok, a second no is much more awkward than the first one and by then I was just being creepy. I felt ashamed, but at the same time it’s only natural that not everyone is into us, contrary to jrpgs or L-word. Panam likes our V (it’s the name of our character) and that’s what matters. I see her as an annoying friend that’s always getting into trouble and calls me screaming for help and the help always involves me failing at stealth and killing everyone on my path and then getting scolded for it. I like Panam.

In jrpgs our character is usually a young boy. A clueless, naive boy for whom all the female characters fall for no matter what he does. Everyone says yes and the agency is on him to choose his partner. His love interest is by default in love with him. The only thing we have to do as a player is to rise in the ranks until the option to romance is prompted. In games like Persona 3 Portable we can romance several people (I’m not sure if we have to, to get max social link, but I think so – they changed that in Reload) and in Fire Emblem Three Houses we can only give our ring to one person. If the person is female she’ll always be interested in our character if we’re playing as male, as long as we get the A-support rank. In case we play as a female Byleth the same-sex romance options are more limited. If we play as a male Byleth and happen to be gay or curious, there’s only one romance option. This sends a message, doesn’t it? Or am I reading too much into things? All in all, thank the goddess that Rhea is bissexual. It was the only thing I wanted to know, since I refuse playing as a guy in jrpgs if I have the other option.

Back to Cyberpunk, no really means no, much like the no I had to give River Wards when we were having the conversation. I had no intention whatsoever in landing on a relationship with him, but the way they structured the conversation left a tightness in my chest. Still, I had to be true to myself. River is not my type. The last mission of his storyline was great and it had a good dose of creepy moments. The way his parents died when he was young was gruesome and like out of a home invasion horror movie. The mission went well, as much as things can go well in Night City, which is not much, just enough to get by. Then I jumped into another set of quests and I was hunting Cyberpsychos across the city as instructed by Regina.

By this time I’d already driven on my motorcycle collecting tarot cards. They have beautiful designs and I recommend getting all of them. However, the first cyberpsycho came before the tarot card hunt and I thought I had to kill him. After a while Regina started getting a bit passive-aggressive with me because I was killing what she saw as test subjects and it was most desirable to make a tiny bit of effort to keep them alive in order to save them. Well, I didn’t know about that! The last half of cyberpsychos were handled with care and in stealth mode or using my blades to defend from bullets, parrying melee attacks and doing counterattacks, or using quickhacks. Using defensive combat was as effective as using stealth. I had to take a break from my killing spree but the reward was nice in the end – probably could be nicer if I hadn’t killed the first half of them – a Playstation trophy popped and it’s always good when it does.

I still have the police side activities and some minor requests to do before progressing the main story but I don’t know if I’ll finish them. Before I make some progress, I have Judy’s quest to complete. I want to see where the main story goes but I also can’t get enough of Night City and its many secrets. It’s a nice game and much less buggy than Starfield which I also played for hours on end.

Games shouldn’t be this good

For the sake of our time.

Unicorn Overlord was released in March 8th and I waited a few days to get my copy for Nintendo Switch. I thought that such a cute game should be a perfect fit for the OLED screen and handheld gameplay. I wasn’t wrong and so far I only played a docked session once. The game was developed by Vanillaware and the concept phase was initiated at about the same time 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim was in production – another great game that I haven’t finished yet. It was published by Sega/Atlus and it seems that everything on the face of the Earth which bears the Atlus name is condemned to be a success.

Unicorn Overlord is a tactical rpg, but it’s not turn-based like I’m used to. It’s real-time where the actions and the order they should be taken – whom to target and in which situations – are previously set by the played into a number of units on the menu screen. Then, those units are taken into battle and the outcome takes place automatically. 13 Sentinels’ combat is a very, very simplified form of real-time strategy, but I loved it, so I had an idea about how the combat would develop in real-time. Some people mentioned Ogre Battle 64 as the predecessor of this type of combat and we can easily see the similarities between unit builds, classes, maps and interface. No matter where the inspiration is, the combat is very addictive and many late nights are a given.

This is where we can try different setups and choose each unit’s leaders

Unicorn Overlord tells the story of Alain, the son of Queen Ilenia who fell to Galerius’ rebellion in Cornia. The game starts with the battle between both Ilenia and Galerius, also known as General Valmore. Queen Ilenia asked Josef to protect little Alain while the castle was under attack and Josef took Alain to an island called Palevia, raised him and trained him into a fine soldier and future ruler. Alain would later lead the Liberation Army against the established Zenoiran Empire, and with the help of the Unicorn Ring, turn the leaders siding with the Empire into their former selves. Alain soon discovered that the ring had the power to dispel a curse altering the minds of former leaders and commanders into accepting the rule of the Zenoiran Empire.

With this knowledge in hand, Alain sets to Cornia first, to expand the Liberation Army, together with Scarlett, Josef and Lex. Scarlett is then kidnapped by Galerius and Baltro and this event starts the first story arc in Cornia. Unicorn Overlord has a lot – and I mean a lot-lot – of recruitable characters. All have backstories and Alain can unlock rapport conversations with them to learn more about their personalities and motivations. It works like a social link from Persona. If they battle together, interact at the tavern or are given gifts, they increase their rapport points. After a certain amount of points a conversation can be unlocked and accessed from a stabilized region. The funnier part is that all these characters have also rapport conversations between a selected number of other characters they’ve previously met. Considering that we travel across the nations of Cornia, Elheim, Drakenhold, Bastorias and Albion imagine the number of interactions available. It’s a lot of worldbuilding and character development.

An example of a rapport conversation between Selvie and Alain. We are all beset by spirits of the dead.

The game isn’t exactly an open-world but it doesn’t have the same linearity as other games where some areas are locked prior to story progression. The quests and side-quests are stage-based. One stage consists of a combat encounter and after clearing the encounter we liberate a city and access its facilities. However, in case we are so inclined we can access higher-level areas and there’s no barriers holding off the progression. If we desire to access Bastorias before clearing Drakenhold, for example, it’s possible to do it. If we manage to clear a level 30 encounter we can access Albion after clearing Elheim and before clearing Drakenhold – which is the nation we should visit after Cornia. I mean we should, but we don’t necessarily have to. The game adapts itself in case we visit a higher-level area first.

A combat encounter. This will be a win with some damage to my unit.

After Cornia, I decided to visit Elheim to know more about the temples and because the Great Sage was about to give a revelation. I had no idea that I was terribly underleveled – my units, not Alain – for the area and I didn’t have many options to deal with magic. However I managed to recruit some crucial characters that helped me clear the first encounters and then everything progressed naturally. By the time I got to Drakenhold I was massively overleveled for the area, therefore Drakenhold should be the first stop after Cronia’s arc to those who worry about being overleveled. Since I don’t, I also unlocked Bastorias and met some adorable furries and then I left the area to progress the story as guided by Josef. This semi-open-world flair is extremely exciting to explore for the first time, because you know that you technically shouldn’t be in certain areas but you can, and then the rest of the game reconfigures itself to accommodate those choices.

The beautiful area of Elheim – or Elfheim – as I like to call it

The same freedom we get from the traversal does also apply to the innumerable possibilities at customizing our units. Each character has a class and each class has advantages and weaknesses against other classes. Some classes synergize better than others. All the information about classes is explained through characters in the overwold outside the forts or inside the menu. It’s a bit of a learning curve but the information is easily accessible in the library where we can find which classes work better against each other. Around the forts we often get tips about class weaknesses or natural shortcomings – for example, accuracy – and which accessories help mitigate that.

In the tactics menu we can prioritize actions according to the character’s skills and in which conditions an action is taken. I haven’t fully grasped the menu and all its possibilities, but changing the priorities and conditions of certain skill use and then seeing it in action is very satisfying. Certain weapons, shields and accessories provide the character with extra skills and it’s never a bad idea to check how the introduction of new skills affects the tactical actions the character will take in battle, meaning if those actions are given the right priority or if they’re relevant for the character in question. All classes can be promoted to its upgraded form, where the character can get new and better skills as well as a new accessory slot, or a weapon slot to dual-wield.

The tactics screen with battle conditions and categories

The art style is gorgeous in all its forms. The vibrating colors, the character design, the little portraits changing during dialogue, the 2.5D overworld, the landscapes and backgrounds, the food design that leaves me salivating – it’s everything. The little cutscenes are drawn in 2D, the characters are voiced and there’s dialogue boxes. The art style is very unique to Vanillaware. Even in their other games, the art plays with perspective, with light and shadow, and with character proportions. It’s dynamic even though the characters are static because some proportions, like bigger hands and feet, give a sense of movement and reach. At the same time it doesn’t look very exaggerated; it’s just right.

The stuff of nightmares

I wasn’t expecting this game specifically. When I heard about Unicorn Overlord I was expecting something less addictive, for starters, and much less complex in its mechanics. Since I’ve only played 13 Sentinels, I’ve only gotten the visual novel part of the Vanillaware experience and I thought Unicorn Overlord would be very similar, just in another setting. I haven’t been able to put the game down since I started playing. The other games I’m currently playing are on hold and even though I already have two more Vanillaware games on their way I don’t want Unicorn Overlord to end. Brilliant game!

Soul Hackers 2, anxiety and dungeon crawling

The first time I played Soul Hackers 2 must have been about two years ago and I found the game to be very strange. It maybe wasn’t the best game to get into the Megami Tensei universe due to the wave of critique it got (it’s a bit hard to unsee that) and the first dungeons and areas weren’t inviting enough from the perspective of a new player (i.e., my perspective exactly.) The whole thing didn’t go very well. I loved Ringo and the art, but it was as far as I got. For some reason, I didn’t pay attention to the music. I played it on Xbox Game Pass and these things tend to happen when we try a new game for “free.” If we don’t get immediately captivated by the gameplay and environment, we can move on to something more palatable, so there’s little effort involved. Also, we need to account for the lack of context because everything in megaten games has a continuous set of references that can and will be lost on someone unfamiliar with the universe.

Let’s admit, Ringo is awesome

And then there’s this thing I can describe as “it’s not you, it’s me.” I react strongly against new experiences and it’s a constant struggle to counteract that. Even in the real world, if things aren’t predictable and constant, I panic. So, when I manage to get into new things it’s like a miracle and I treat those experiences like so. If I manage to overcome a challenge, I relegate it to the realm of the unbelievable. My biggest life challenge was moving to another country to work and learn another language in adult age. From my perspective this is unbelievable, a miracle. Of course, I had the help of an angel and short thereafter, the help of an army of angels, however I managed to overcome my anxieties and step into new ground making it my own to the best of my ability. This doesn’t digress too much on a micro level from experiencing a new game that’s completely detached from what I am familiar with, or a movie, or a book, or traveling.

An army of angels – Shin Megami Tensei V

Back to Soul Hackers 2 we have to fast forward a bit when I landed on my post-Persona 3 Reload situation, which was a very different one. With Persona 3 Reload I finally paid attention to the demons (the personas) and during my hesitant attempts at Shin Megami Tensei V I started comparing them just for fun. They are very similar and sometimes have different names but are instantly recognizable. They’re a joy to look at! Then the battle systems of exploring weaknesses and fusing powerful demons with a variety of skills could have been (and still are) a bit overwhelming but I adapted to it and now I’m not afraid to mess up. The games provide mechanics to correct many mistakes, at least the newer ones.

I started enjoying dungeon crawling with the new Tartarus and now the old Tartarus from Portable doesn’t bother me that much. The same happened with the dungeons from SH2. At first, they can seem barren and very boring, however when we enter the Soul Matrix and progress a little more in the story, the dungeons also develop into a puzzle of sorts and an invitation to test our spatial awareness skills. They can be very laborious in the sense that they’re long, therefore I need to clear them in the same gaming session in order to keep track of where I was and study when I should backtrack to gain access to other areas. I plan my sessions accordingly while completing all the Soul Matrix quests in the process to spare time. I only progress the main story when I don’t have anything else to do inside the Soul Matrix and when I’ve cleared all jobs given by Madame Ginko at Club Cretaceous. I enjoy this loop.

Saizo sector 3F inside the Soul Matrix is a bit crazy

In order to unlock gates in the Soul Matrix we have to increase our soul level with Arrow, Milady and Saizo by engaging into a number of activities and hangouts. By exploring the dungeons thoroughly, we gain access to objects picked up by the demons doing reconnaissance which in turn are used to unlock more hangouts. When the soul level reaches a certain threshold the gates inside the Soul Matrix can be unlocked. The Matrix also expands through main story progression. The game flow feels very natural and the story, although not as dark as Persona 3 Reload, is well told through the experiences of an older cast of characters way past high school age. It’s a breath of fresh air and I’m glad that I’m finally able to enjoy this game.

Slay the Princess (PC)

Maybe it wasn’t a very good idea to play a game about death right after playing a game about death. However, death is constantly looming, either slowly in the background or right before our eyes. It can be but a little diluted concept in the back of our minds, or it can be announced on a visit to the doctor. It can be a gamble because of our lifestyle, or it can be a gamble because of a diagnosis. It can come due to old age or earlier due to unforeseen circumstances. When people say that we should cherish the moments we have with each other it can come as a big cliche, and indeed it is. You can find the most beautiful words to describe the inevitable but, in the end, it’s very much our nature and the nature of all things living.

Try to imagine a world without death. I’ve tried it many times. It’s the realm of the impossible but we can make the exercise. How many would we be? Would we be constant for all eternity, or would more people be born? How could someone come into existence in a world where there’s eternal permanence? Would there be conflict and consequence like punishment for all eternity, without means to alleviate pain and suffering? Would there be eternal happiness in the arms of a loved one guaranteed to live forever? Would we jump into another relationship after those failed 500 years of marriage? Would there be years and the concept of time even? Would we become of another nature to adapt to a nature without renewal? Why would someone want this? There’s someone who wants this.

It’s very easy to spoil a game like Slay the Princess (StP) or any visual novel for that matter. Even games from other genres are a little difficult to write about if we don’t decide to include spoilers. Hold your thoughts about death because they will be a constant while you navigate StP. Not everything is about death, there’s more to the game and its nature, there’s loops and loops, of constant coming and going, and in the process, we witness love, violence, despair and our own reflected image in the mirror. All of it happens inside a cabin, or in another cabin in another time. The memories remain, but the path is another, although the same. StP felt more like a roguelike visual novel than a visual novel with many routes. It is in fact a visual novel with many routes and sub-routes and sub-sub-routes, but I liked to entertain the idea of a roguelike game where I was constantly dying and could come back to where I started now armed with valuable knowledge only to be surprised that nothing was how it was before.

You have to slay the princess; you just have to. And if you don’t, the world is going to end. What will you do? Look, I did everything or so I thought. I played the game for about 6 hours, and I got about three endings. If you decide to play the game the achievement bar is a good indicator of your progress. I’m at 37% therefore I haven’t seen half of the outcomes in the game. The princess is inside a cabin chained inside a basement. Your task is very straightforward, but which cabin you end up in or which princess will you find depends on your choices. It doesn’t matter if you live or die for the princess will always be communicating something. However, how do we know we have to kill the princess? We have a voice – the Narrator – that tells us to do so. But, since we go back and forth (or only forth) in this loop, how many are they?

The game is not only a quest about slaying the princess and preventing the end of the world. It’s also about the player and their journey to find their own identity. After all, we have to find a clue about why we have to kill a princess in the first place, and where to find some answers as to how to proceed towards the conclusion of our quest. It seems more complicated than it is. Even though it doesn’t look like it at first, the game has a start and an ending, and each route doesn’t take long to complete. The help of a guide for the completionists should come in handy.

Slay the Princess was created by Black Tabby Games and released in 2023 for PC. It has great art and extremely good voice acting. It was one of the indie games I looked forward to playing upon release, in 2023, but I only managed to play it now.