The Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q Series's Characters' Loss of Memory

I guess it’s silly to warn for spoilers in a game that is, by now, as old as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q1 is.  I certainly don’t always extend the same courtesy to other RPGs of the same age that I rant about, or even newer ones.  But all the same, SMTPQ1’s plot twists and purpose are very dear to my heart, and I’d hate to think of them having any less impact on a player who expected them thanks to my big mouth, so, just once more, I warn you not to read this rant if you have not yet finished SMTPQ1.

Also, as a separate warning, this is definitely 1 of those rants where I’m gonna talk a lot about something as though it matters a lot when, in fact, it totally does not.  Nothing new, of course, but this time it’s even more than usual.  You’ve been warned.



I think it’s kind of crappy that none of SEES, the Investigation Team, or their associated Velvet Room attendants have any memory of the events of the first Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q game in SMTPQ2.

I ended up really loving SMTPQ1, in spite of how late into the game it was that its story really began taking off.  But I can’t deny that the fact that the casts of Persona 3 and 4 are forced, by Q1’s end, to forget the game’s events is a major stumbling block for the impact and power of the game’s message.  I mean, no matter how beautiful and emotionally, spiritually inspiring Q1’s story of finding worth in one’s life simply for having lived it, it’s still disheartening to know that the Persona characters won’t be able to take joy or comfort from that knowledge, and it’s undeniably tragic that even if they may keep her unconsciously within their hearts, Rei will be forgotten by the only friends she ever was able to make, all the people who knew her best.

Bitter a pill though it is, however, we do swallow it in SMTPQ1, because it’s an unavoidable eventuality.  It’s made clear in the game that each Persona team has been taken from the middle of their games’ courses of events; you couldn’t get the entire SEES team together otherwise, after all.  So for practicality’s sake, the characters of Persona 3 and 4 have to forget about their shared adventure by Q1’s end.  After all, it would make no sense for them to have had this huge, life-altering experience in the middle of their separate adventures, and then make no reference whatsoever to it for the rest of Persona 3 and 4’s events.  Nor would the events of Persona 3 surrounding Shinji and Ken have gone the way they did, had they remembered their time in Q1.  And were the Persona 3 cast to remember their friends in the Investigation Team (who come from a time a few years after Persona 3), it’s almost certain that they would, out of friendship, come to Inaba to help the Persona 4 cast once Persona 4’s events are in swing.

So yes, the player can accept the necessity, at the end of Q1, that the characters involved would return to their own devices with only a subconscious impression of its events, and no tangible recollection.  But why in the world did Atlus choose to extend that amnesia into the events of Persona Q2?

It accomplishes nothing for the Persona 3 and 4 casts not to have their memories of Q1’s events returned to them in Q2.  There’s no conflict of canon--like the first, SMTPQ2 occurs at a midway point of the adventures of Personas 3. 4, and 5, and at its end, all the characters return to their respective games’ stories with no conscious memories of their time in Hikari’s cinema labyrinth, so having Minato and Yu’s groups recall their former interactions together would be fine, since they’ll forget once again by the time Q2 is over.

On the contrary, forcing SEES and the Investigation Team to continue forgetting about their experiences with Rei and Zen in Q1 only hurts Q2.  It provides an obstacle for Q2’s writers, for example, who have to find ways to have characters “meet for the first time” that aren’t just retreading the way they already met for the first time in Q1.  And it creates an unpleasant feeling at the back of the player’s mind during Persona Q2’s events.  After all, it’s easy enough to guess, with familiarity of Q1, that Q2’s ending will once again have the characters all be forced to forget all they felt and learned on this adventure, once again out of logistical necessity.  With that knowledge ever present in the player’s mind, their ability to appreciate and find significance in the events of Q2 diminishes, as they know the whole time that it shall all be forgotten forever in the end.  Yet if the memory of Q1’s events was returned to Persona 3 and 4’s casts at the beginning of Q2, then this wouldn’t be the case--the player would be comforted that Q2’s events would at least have the potential to live on in the hearts of Persona 3, 4, and 5’s casts when next they met in a crossover event like this, since there would be the precedent of that happening for Q1.

Most of all, it feels disappointing, even a little painful, to have Rei and Zen forgotten in this way.  Simple practicality forces one to accept that they’ll be forgotten by their friends in the mainstream Persona games, and that’s unfortunate, but to continue to have them be forgotten even when there’s no need for it?  It retroactively lessens the moving significance of Persona Q1 to know that Atlus ignores it not just out of necessity, but also voluntarily.

It would, in fact, have benefited Q2 if Atlus had seen fit for the characters to remember Q1’s events as Q2 plays out.  It would have, for example, given the casts of Persona 3 and 4 opportunities to connect with each other over that shared experience, build their relationships further rather than have to start from scratch and retread old ground.  And how nice would it have been to have a few scenes in Q2 of characters fondly remembering their friends Rei and Zen, from the first time they united this way?  Plus, the situation could have been useful for the character arc of Persona 3’s female protagonist, Minako, as an outsider in Q2 even to her own friends, since she wasn’t given the opportunity to participate in Q1.

I think it’s likely that there will someday be a Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q3--I certainly am crossing my fingers for it, at least.  And when that day comes, I really hope that the game will allow SEES, the Investigation Team, and the Phantom Thieves to remember their adventures together with Rei, Zen, and Hikari.  It’s going to be a noticeably titanic impediment to the writers to have to come up with new ways for all these characters to meet for the first time for the third time, for starters, and it would be more compelling to see them building off of the interactions and relationships they’ve already created previously and going forward, rather than having to keep seeing connections born of “new” friendships the whole game long.  And more importantly, it’s only fair to the characters who have defined this sub-sub-series so far.  To have them continue to be forgotten about even when there’s no need for it will be doing Rei, Zen, and Hikari dirty.