(originally posted February 22, 2024)

spoilers obviously

The ending didn't really land for me, especially compared to 7.

I feel like the past decade has permanently de-credited the "now that I've exposed your crimes to society, you are defeated!" trope, at least when it's punching up. True Crime VTuber cancelling one or two guys, sure, but cancelling a big international conspiracy? I dunno. Not sure the populace at large actually gives a fuck about any of this shit anymore. It's whatever.

(That said, I did like Bryce being torn down as really just some goon with delusions of grandeur. All the cult shit is just posturing and everyone knows it. I will punch this geriatric asshole in the face.)

It surely has to be on purpose that Ichiban is dealing with the Kiryu-flavor plot and Kiryu is dealing with the Ichiban-flavor plot, right? Or did they really just fuck it up that bad? The game makes a whole big deal about how Lani is Haruka 2.0 and how Ebina is Ichiban's dark mirror, and then it feels like the party accidentally splits in the opposite directions and just muddles through it while shrugging.

Definitely too much Kiryu in the game, especially since I'm coming right off Gaiden, which had a perfectly good sendoff. I like the guy, but he really didn't need to be here at all. The Life Links were nice at first but because they're optional and therefore categorically cannot affect the status quo, it felt kind of pointless in the end. Yeah Date, maybe I would have been better off without even seeing these (disclaimer: I have not played 3-6 except the first like three chapters of 5). I guess I should be glad that Ichiban got one (1) game that was actually about him.

The Eiji plotline really just slams into a brick wall and wraps up in the most hackneyed way possible because they really couldn't figure out any way to top the stuff with Masato Arakawa in 7. They explicitly in story set him up as a parallel to Masato, and then he's... just that, with no other edge or anything. I understand that the core of Ichiban's character is that he's a fundamentally good person overflowing with love for his fellow man. That's great and I love him for it, but, look, you can't just do that every time.

It works okay with Tomizawa because he's definitely a guy in over his head who didn't want to be doing shit for Yamai. It works less well with Chitose because wow she really fucked over Ichiban multiple times in some really not okay ways. (Aside: wacky the game has to establish the cops are on the Barracudas' payroll presumably because the devs don't understand that is Actually The Baseline Of How Cops Normally Are In The States)

It worked with the party of the previous game because like, I assume being homeless with a guy is a serious bonding experience, and they get the whole game to bond. They become friends over the course of the game and it feels earned that Nanba and Adachi (and even the Underworld Trio) would come running with no questions asked.

The reason it worked with Masato in 7 is because the game establishes that Ichiban took care of this dude for years. When Ichiban calls him his brother at the end, it comes from that shared offscreen history. There's weight to the idea that Ichiban can see the good in him, could always see the good in him even when Masato was at his absolute lowest point. That Ichiban never stopped loving him. When he finally relents after spending the whole game dunking on Ichiban, that shit hits.

Eiji is just some dude. Ichiban knew him for like, two weeks? To be clear: I totally believe Ichiban would extend his hand because as we understand, that's who Ichiban is. It just feels narratively impotent that Eiji accepts it and that we're meant to buy this as a hugely emotional moment (title drop and all).

When we get the reveal two thirds through that Eiji masterminded a bunch of the shit to ruin Ichiban and all that, what I was hoping for was the game to like, actually reckon with this. I wanted to see how Ichiban and the story would react to someone who categorically rejected all of the love pouring out of every hair of his afro. Of course Ichiban will always extend his hand, that's who he is. I wanted to see how he dealt with it not working out for him, and choosing to do so anyway because it was the right thing to do, perhaps even if he knew it was doomed endeavor.

Instead, same ol' "bad guy is redeemed through the power of kindness", totally unexamined. Ichiban does not appear to change at all from this experience. Perhaps he simply cannot, cursed with the position of "Recurring Protagonist" as Kiryu before him, written into a corner from which there is no escape. I don't know what I expected, but consider me tempered for any sequels.

Cool game. 4 out of 5.

other, non-spoilery thoughts

• Honolulu City Lights is a banger
• The battle system and skill inheritance is way better than the previous game
• 99% of battles were solved by spamming Burning Arrow and Bubble Bale. The other 1% were solved by Poundmates.
• The equipment menu really needs a Remove button
• Seonhee is hot
• The sicko in me thinks Sujimon Battles could use a half-step more complexity but that would actually be too much
• Dondoko Island is hell
• Let It Snow is the new high bar for Substories. Absolutely fucking incredible.
• Game lets me buy Persona tracks from the casinos but no Sakura Wars; cowards (maybe I walked past them somewhere but you'd think they'd be at the Hanafuda gambling halls)
• They have brought back so many people who supposedly died at this point that death no longer has any meaning in this series
• Zhao is so cool
• Chilchuck from Dungeon Meshi is 100% correct when he says No Inter-Party Romance
• Incredibly funny any time they make Toru Furuya speak several English sentences in a row
• I don't know how they are going to handle The Party in a hypothetical third game. Has there ever been an RPG series with party continuity over more than two games?? So much baggage accumulates. Are they going to make Nanba homeless again?
• There's no way they'd make that whole Honolulu map and then not re-use it, right? I guess we haven't been back to Onomichi yet either, but it really does make me wonder how they'd handle a third Ichiban game. (Oh wait I forgot about Judgement, I could totally see a Yagami Goes To Hawaii game actually, that'd be alright)

#games #rpg