Pokemon Generation 9 is a Step in the Right Direction

It used to be that I didn’t pay a whole lot of mind to Pokemon games.  Oh, I played most of them, sure, and even occasionally mustered up enough effort to complain about their flaws, be they trivial or serious.  But ultimately, the main-line installments in the Pokemon series were defined by consistent low-effort stories that said nothing, enacted by casts of flat NPCs and silent protagonists, and which only included the very namesakes of the franchise in the capacity of plot devices, collectibles, and lore scenery.  For 2 decades, Pokemon games were transparently nothing but Nintendo’s way of printing money every now and then.  Some like Generation 1 were more boring than others, some like Generation 3 were more stupid than others, and some like Generation 4 gave a token effort to do something with themselves, but ultimately they were all subpar as RPGs go, to put it a bit generously.  Highly ignorable as a whole.

Simpler times.

Because then 2016 rolled around, and for its 20th anniversary with the series, Nintendo went and did the unthinkable: they released an actual, genuine, all-around great game in the Pokemon series.  Generation 7 had a story with nuance, legitimate heart, and sincere purpose, told through the vehicle of a great main character and a compelling villain with some depth, and defined itself by their dichotomy.  Generation 7 also fulfilled its quota of new Pokemon, a new region, and even gave that region an interesting place in the world that expanded the franchise’s lore pleasingly.  But the main quality of note was definitely the fact that it told a well-written, gripping, thoughtfully emotional story of independence, love powerful enough to forgive, the heroism born when those qualities meet, and expressed itself through a colorful cast with a lot of personality.  There was even the seed of a promising new perspective on the titular Pokemon and what their place should be.  Generation 7 was so great that, suddenly, Pokemon was something I could actually give a shit about.

So of course, the next installment of the series turned out to be the most vapid, hands-off, lazy non-story the series has yet seen.  I’ve made my complaints known about Generation 8 on more than 1 occasion, but suffice to say that it was the absence of every quality that makes an RPG even remotely worth playing, and proud of being so.  Nintendo and Game Freak didn’t just go back on the progress that Generation 7 had made, they reversed it so hard that they wound up at a lower, lousier level than they’d even started at.

Thankfully, though, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have actually managed to reach down into the hole that Generation 8 dug for itself, and haul the series back up.  Not to the height that Generation 7 achieved, of course, or really even anywhere close to it, but at least we’re back above-ground at this point.

Generation 9 involves an actual story you get to participate in, for starters.  Not the journey to beat all the Gym Leaders and become Champion so much, of course.  That’s just the same bland, pointless filler it’s always been, punctuated by Nemona, a rival so 1-dimensional in her obsession with battles that even the largely parodical Big Bull of Okage would tell her to get a damn hobby, and Geeta, a Champion who’s generic and forgettable to an extreme fault.  On the other hand, she’s not Leon, so I guess she still represents a huge step up from last time.  But besides the regular, canned Pokemon journey, Generation 9 also focuses on a story about investigating the delinquent student group known as Team Star and hauling their asses back to class, and a story about getting ingredients to make sandwiches for a dog.

And okay, yeah, those don’t sound terrifically interesting, admittedly.  But learning the history behind Team Star actually turns the ordeal into a halfway decent story of regret, friendship, and the failure of the system to do right by those on the fringe of society.  And procuring ingredients winds up having the player participate in a plot with some poignant pathos as Arven pursues his plan to restore the health of his Pokemon pup who was injured while protecting Arven.  This one’s particularly good, as it’s a decent story in its own right, it actually follows through on Nintendo’s “they’re partners that we value and grow together with, not gladiatorial slave animals!” narrative, and it establishes Arven’s character very well, which is important since he’s the guy with a significant connection to Professor Sada or Turo, the main figure of the final, overarching story of the Paldea region.

And speaking of, the last arc in which the truth of Sada/Turo is revealed is pretty decent, too.  It may not ultimately be all that truly meaningful and poignant in actuality, nor Sada/Turo all that impressive an antagonist, but it manages to sell itself as such pretty effectively with its atmosphere and earnestness.  The line between the moron in Generation 9 who aimed to completely destroy the ecosystem with temporally-displaced invasive species and the the morons in Generation 3 who aimed to completely destroy the ecosystem by fucking around with land/ocean distribution ratios may be thin at best, but unlike the joke that is Generation 3’s main plot and villains, Generation 9 goes as hard as it possibly can to make this seem like a more epic finale to a long quest than it actually is, and it does actually pay off to a decent degree.  The final confrontation with Sada/Turo feels compelling, and the preamble setting of the Great Crater helps get the player into it.  The final arc of Generation 9 also represents a decent (if a little too understated) conclusion to Arven’s personal story, and also a good finish to the story of the protagonist’s partner Koraidon/Miraidon.

And yeah, I’m also pleased that a major character of the game’s story, one which is actually dynamic and has a relevant part to play as more than just as a plot device, is the main legendary Pokemon of the generation.  This is the third game in a row that has finally begun treating its series’s namesakes as characters, not just objects, with their own stories and personal development to achieve,* and it does so both in its main story and in 1 of its DLC ventures, so I’m very pleased with Generation 9 on that front, and I hope that this indicates that Nintendo has decided that Pokemon being important characters in their own damn games is now a series standard.

Honestly, there’s a lot to like about Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.  There actually seems to be some enthusiasm to the manner in which Generation 9 portrays and makes use of its setting (that being a Spain-inspired region), as it incorporates some occasional Spanish into its dialogue, and even makes a pun out of Team Star’s catchphrase “hasta la vistar.”  The DLC is overall pretty good--not something I can recommend buying due to being grossly overpriced, but still, way better than Generation 8’s, and, for that matter, Nintendo’s overall standard of quality for its games’ add-ons.  Even if I’m lukewarm on Penny, and Nemona is just an obsessive idiot, the overall dynamic of camaraderie between Juliana’s friend group by the end of the game is really appealing.**  The soundtrack is pretty decent, and even if there’s not a lot of tunes I really love, it definitely knows how to set its mood when it’s most important to do so (particularly through the final dungeon and finale).***

Sure, Generation 9 isn’t without its failings.  The character designs are pretty lackluster and few major characters, fewer Gym Leaders, and only half the Elite 4 stand out at all, whether visually or by gimmick.  And while there have certainly been worse generations for this, I can’t say that the Pokemon that Generation 9 introduces are too terribly interesting in my eyes--Koraidon and Miraidon are decently cool, and Ogerpon and Terapogos are both very cute, but not a lot else caught my attention.  And lastly, it’s buggier than it has any right to be, a problem which has unfortunately earned it a lot of scorn and dismissal by gamers.

But character design is a pretty minor and unimportant flaw, and Pokemon design is really only slightly worse a thing to flub.  Technical failings are frustrating, but the game is still very playable; it’s thankfully not the kind of mess you’d expect (and have that expectation met a dozen times over) from Bethesda, for example.  And such a buggy state is a symptom of bad management and unrealistic deadlines, whereas a tasteless nothingburger story like that of Pokemon Sword and Shield simply represents an outright bad game, one whose creators clearly didn’t give a shit about.  If I HAVE to choose between an RPG with merit that doesn’t function on a technical level as well as it should, and a worthless RPG that works perfectly but can offer nothing but wasted time, you can bet I’m gonna pick the former, so to me, Generation 9’s still a tremendous leap forward from Generation 8 even at its lowest moments.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s not Pokemon Moon and Sun, not by a long shot.  But Generation 9 is still a pretty good game in its own right, the second best RPG the main Pokemon series has to offer (hell, just the second good one it’s produced).  And after having Leon shove me away from experiencing an actual story for 95% of Generation 8, and finding the contents of that last pathetic gasp 5% to be stupid and boring, you can bet that I find Generation 9’s fairly good plot, decent cast, and earnest attempt at quality to be a huge relief.  There’s every chance that the next mainline Pokemon game will be a return to subpar quality, but Generation 9 at least has shown that there’s cause for hope, that climbing out of the gaping landfill of Generation 8 wasn’t an insurmountable task.  Good work to Nintendo and Game Freak for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet!












* Granted, Generation 8 only did this in its DLCs, but that’s still more than Generations 1 - 6 bothered with.  And heaven knows Sword and Shield needs what little credit it can get for doing anything right.


** Although really, just about anything would be better than having to go through another game of Hop forcing his way into every single situation you come across.


*** Admittedly, this isn’t really a step up from the last game.  Generation 8 shares that curious quality with so many others like Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, and Final Fantasy 5, wherein a really bad RPG somehow manages to have an absolutely banging soundtrack.  Still, at least Generation 9 isn’t a noticeable drop in musical quality, personal tastes notwithstanding.

General RPGs' Save Points' Ease of Use

The use of Save Points in an RPG should be convenient, straightforward, and fast.

RPGs as a whole are characterized by long, sprawling narratives, and while shorter, 3 - 10 hour ventures exist, the bread-and-butter of this genre is the 20 - 60 hour game.  And since most of us don’t just sit down in front of the newest Tales of series title on Monday with the intention of next standing back up on Friday--and since most of us don’t really want to take a chance of losing hours’ worth of progress thanks to 1 unfair quirk of the trickster gods in charge of RNG--that means there’s gonna be a lot of saving happening over the course of playing through any given RPG.

And that’s just assuming a regular player who’s not a neurotic mess, which is probably the least common of we RPG enthusiasts.  More often than not, you’re also gonna be adding instances of making a new save 10 seconds after having already made one, because you forgot the first time that you wanted to equip a different accessory on 1 character, or you decided after the fact that you wanted to change someone’s job class, or you needed to swap the order of party members in battle to better reflect your ever-changing shipping whims.  And then there’s those of us who save, exit out of the screen, check to make sure we’re ready for the next hurdle, suddenly realize that we’re pretty sure but not quite 100% certain that we saved, bring up the save menu again just to be sure, save, exit out, think for a moment about smores, refocus on the game, can’t quite remember whether the smores thing happened before or after we’d finished saving, bring up the save menu again because better save than sorry (lolz), save, exit out, then realize that it’s been a few minutes since we arrived at the save point, decide that we’d better save again so we don’t lose all the progress we’ve made here, and make 1 last save before finally stepping off the save point.

...Only to realize that we forgot to also make a second save file because the trauma of Velius* will never truly leave us, and immediately return to our self-imposed save point prison.

Look, my point is, if the number of saves I make for an RPG numbers less than the triple digits, I consider it a pretty solid step forward for my mental health.  So it’s a really, really important quality-of-life feature for an RPG’s save points to be simple, fast, and straightforward.  I mean, the ideal scenario is that of most western RPGs where you just save whenever you want, instead of having to backtrack or push forward to find some arbitrarily-placed cluster of sparkles, rainbow prism, tamed parrot, open diary sitting on the ground, payphone, etc.  And I really, really don’t understand, in this day and age, how that isn’t just how it is for ALL games now--particularly when a functional version of the “save anywhere” system was present all the way back in the first Legend of Zelda on the NES.  Jesus Christ, Atlus, are you seriously telling me that by 2021 you STILL hadn’t figured out the technology necessary to let the player save wherever they pleased in Shin Megami Tensei 5?  How hard could it have been to program that intuitive alternative to a system of glowy blue leyline save points?  You can’t possibly convince me you were too busy to manage it; the script for SMT5’s entire story could fit onto the napkins from the single McDonalds lunch that your team wrote it over.

But barring a developer having enough sense and wherewithal to give the player the option to save anywhere and anytime they choose, it’s important to make using a save point as convenient as possible.  It is, in fact, probably as important as a feature can be without being connected to the story or other elements of writing.

And most RPG creators seem to be on board with this idea, thankfully, and have been since the early days of gaming.  You want to save in good old Final Fantasy 6, you just go on up to a save point, open the menu, and select the Save function.  It’s even easier in games like Chrono Trigger and Terranigma--you just walk up to the thing, hit the action button, and it automatically takes you to the save file screen.  No muss, no fuss, the process is streamlined and only takes as long as it takes you to actually press the buttons.  

But sadly, this is not always the case.  Some RPGs decide to get cutesy with the whole process.  Dragon Quest 1, for example, is a huge pain in the ass.  Every time you want to save, you have to go all the way back to the king and talk to him, because there is not a single other save point or save NPC in the entire game!  And it’s not just a quick, to-the-point conversation, either.  The king doesn’t just give a nod and go “Yo, you saving?  Cool, done, gtfo.”  No, you have to have the doddering old tyrant run through a greeting line of dialogue so long it takes up 3 scrolling lines of the text box, and once your transaction should be finished, he then extends it by “helpfully” asking you whether or not you want to continue the adventure.  Goddammit, YES, OBVIOUSLY!  If I want to stop playing, I don’t need your precious royal leave to do so, you senile self-important superfluous social sinkhole, I’ll just reach forward and turn my fucking console OFF.  The fact that I’m wasting my breath talking to you, the most useless member of human society, automatically carries with it the implication that I’ve resisted both my better judgment and my gag reflex, and chosen to continue playing Dragon Quest!  Stop tempting me with a better time, already!  It’s a stupid question to ask at ALL, but you really have to make it a part of the process of saving the game EVERY time?

But Dragon Quest 1 goes all the way back to the late 1980s, 1 of the earliest console RPGs from the very first days of video games, so you can make some excuse for its failings.  I mean, okay, you actually can't, really, because even contemporary peers like The Legend of Zelda 1 and Phantasy Star 1 had far better save-anywhere systems in place.  But still, it was early enough that inconvenient and inelegant user interface and systems were par for the course; there was still plenty of streamlining to be done in the industry at all levels.  Although this annoying time-wasting attachment of “do u want 2 embrace the sweet silent darkness of the void y/n” to save interactions persisted in the DQ series past the first installment, and even infected some other RPGs, too.

Anyway, point is, certain allowances can theoretically be made for older games that make the process of saving your game less convenient than it could be.  But even in the modern age, some RPGs still slow the process down for no reason!

You take the game Cris Tales, for example.  This earnest little Indie title was released in 2021, so it is, as of the time of writing this, still a pretty recent game.  And every time I see the little patch of dirt that protagonist Crisbelle stabs with her sword to create a save point, I feel a tiny pang of annoyance, because I know that should I use it, it’s gonna take longer than there was any reason for it to.  See, when you use a save point in Cris Tales, what happens is that your companion Matias (or, if he’s absent, party member Zas), asks Crisbell what she wants to do, and you choose between saving, using a tent to restore your party, or nothing.  Crisbell says a line of dialogue to confirm your choice, and you’re on your way.

Which doesn’t sound like a problem, right?  Seems like that’s a pretty direct way of doing things.  Not as direct as Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy just having a save point that doesn’t require a dialogue interaction to use, of course, which is weird considering that Cris Tales actually has easter eggs that reference both, so it obviously was familiar with far more functional save point mechanics, but still, fairly direct, right?  Except that all dialogue and dialogue action choices in Cris Tales are rather clunky.  The line of dialogue starts before the choices appear, and because there’s that tiny little extra moment of hesitation as the game contemplates the fact that you just hit the A button, confirming that you want to save is just long enough to be annoying, when it’s happening in an age 30 years after the age in which you could hit the A button at a save point and have the game instantly respond accordingly without demanding confirmation.

Why does Matias need to ASK what Crisbell wants to do, anyway?  She walked up to a save point and hit the confirm button; what do you THINK she wants to do, you idiot?**  Imagine if every time you drove up to a take-out window, the employee greeted you with, “Welcome to Kentucky Fried Taco King!  Before we proceed, could you please avow in no uncertain terms that you have approached us out of an earnest wish to requisition some form of chicken?”  I don’t think Crisbell’s jamming the A button at a save point because she’s lost, Matias.

But hey, at least the save points in Cris Tales are consistent whether they’re found in a dungeon or in a town.  It’s always been just a little extra layer of save annoyance when a game decides that, instead of just having a nice, simple level of consistency, the process of saving in town is going to require you to go sign the inn’s guestbook, or talk to a priest (which runs the risk of another Chatty Cathy like the DQ1 king), or something like that, rather than simply make a beeline for the object you’re used to utilizing for the purpose.  What’s the reasoning behind that?  What, is it some sort of bid for realism or something?  Yeah, okay, I guess maybe it’s not 100% realistic to just assume that every town on the planet’s gonna have a statue of the goddess just sitting in town square, but the game already kinda threw realism out the window when it made the assertion that some enterprising and exceptionally pious sculptor went to the trouble of carving such a statue in a cave a mile below the surface of the planet where no human being had ever set foot before, inside the depths of an active volcano, and right smack dab in the middle of an extra-dimensional fortress of demons that you can only even reach if you bring together the fabled 7 rainbow crystals of Plot-Gar the Mighty and Convoluted.  For heaven’s sake, developers, save us and yourselves some time and just code 1 type of save point.  Don’t make me have to add an extra screen transition to get into a temple or inn every damn time I want to save in a city.

And man, don’t even get me started on the situation with Wild Arms 3.  Gimel Coins feel like the setup for a new monetization scheme, except that they were created in an age that predates most scummy microtransaction scams, so their inconvenience is bafflingly just for its own sake.

I’m obviously making mountains out of what could only be generously described as molehills--hell, this might not even qualify as an “anthill” kind of problem.  Still, when you’re gonna be doing it 50 times or more for almost any given RPG, it only makes sense to keep the process of saving your game as streamlined and convenient as possible, and it irks me when a game can’t just DO that.  No one needs speeches on the matter, no one needs to confirm their desire to do so, no one needs to be offered permission to stop playing the game, no one needs the additional action of having to squint and make out which sign says “Inn,” and no one needs a finite number of tokens which permit you the privilege of saving at all, seriously, what the fuck Wild Arms 3.  Just lay out your save point (and make it heal the party automatically dammit), and either let the player just go up to it and silently use it from a menu or by pushing a single button, or, at the absolute very most, make interacting with it an instantaneous text box of “Save?  Yes/No”, and BE DONE WITH IT.










* Belias for those who prefer the limp, lifeless retranslation of Final Fantasy Tactics.


** Matias’s perpetually questioning what Crisbell wants to do at the save point has led me to imagine Crisbell giving increasingly dismaying responses, always said in that chipper, goody-two-shoes tone of hers:

“What do you want to do, Crisbell?”

“I want to play with fire!”
“I want to join Scientology!”
“I want to see whether pain can help me feel alive again!”
“I want to run an NFT rug-pull!”
“I want to start collecting fingers!”
“I want to convince an 8-year-old that the world is a terrible place where no one cares for each other!”
“I want to explore recreational cannibalism!”
“I want to set off a series of high-yield explosives across the globe that cause catastrophic death and destruction on every continent!”
“I want to encourage someone to sign on with Nijisanji!”

This loses a lot in print, but if you ever play Cris Tales and imagine encouraging, guileless little Crisbell declaring these things in her forthright “I want to record our progress!” voice, it’ll be quite amusing, I assure you.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5 Stray Thoughts

As I said a few rants ago, while I’ve had plenty of thoughts about SMT Persona 5 that have warranted (under a very generous interpretation of that word) full-on rants, there were far more impressions and reactions I experienced as I played this game that are more appropriate for a blurb than a dissertation.  So we’re here again today for some more stray thoughts, this time a bit more generalized than last time.  Enjoy!



- Man, the writers didn’t even try to hide the fact that Akechi was going to be the game’s twist villain.  This douchebag is going around talking and dressing like Ikutsuki, with the same profession and almost the same name as Adachi.  I know the Persona team can only write 1 type of surprise villain, but come on, guys.


- I really like the fact that the planning and deduction in this game isn’t a 1-person show.  Ren may be, for example, the one who figures out that Kaneshiro’s palace is a bank, but it’s a team effort of Ann, Yusuke, and even Ryuji’s intuitive luck that figures out that it’s located in Shibuyua, which is an equally important step in getting to him.  Later in this same arc, the team works as a whole and has their talents utilized in the scene of their trying to follow Makoto to find Kaneshiro’s hideout--Makoto’s figured out a way to provoke Kaneshiro’s lackeys into taking her there, Yusuke is fast on his feet and immediately sketches the license plate of the vehicle that kidnaps Makoto, and Ryuji uses his vaunted Juvenile Delinquent powers to get a cab to stop so they can follow.  This sort of thing is common in Persona 5; everyone has a part to play in the success of the Phantom Thieves.  Some are more frequently vital than others (Makoto and Futaba), but each member’s personality and talents contribute to the success of the team in demonstrably valuable ways, within and beyond their introductory arc.

It’s a far cry from what we had to put up with in Persona 4--Yu and Naoto seemed to be the only ones on the team who were allowed to ever figure anything useful/significant out (most of which were painfully obvious deductions that the player had already figured out hours before), with the others barely managing to occasionally toss a few clues their way.  And on the rare occasion that the rest of the Investigation Team were actually DOING things, it was mostly just running around or basic functions that literally anyone could accomplish which had no connection whatsoever to the actor specifically.  It’s a huge improvement; where SMTP4 constantly held itself back by treating Yu like a fanfic’s self-insert Mary Sue, Persona 5...well, it’s certainly not lacking in player wish fulfillment, but at least it doesn’t let that get in the way of effective storytelling and use of its cast.


- Damn, once it’s decided that Le Blanc is gonna be the Thieves’ hideout, Ren loses absolutely any illusions of privacy in his personal life.  Man’s up getting 2 AM texts from Ryuji like “hey dude imma be there tomorrow with dvds and ur room’s where the player at, its cool if I just hang out in your personal living space all day, right?  dont bother texting back ur answer doesnt matter”


- Romance in Persona 5 is weird to me.  Ren seems much closer to the mental and emotional level of an adult than that of a high schooler, which makes it feel a little uncomfortable to hook him up with girls that are actually in his appropriate age group, like Ann or Hifumi.*  At the same time, it’s also obviously sketchy to have Ren hook up with actual adults, even if his maturity does somehow feel more appropriately on their level.**  Not helping matters, of course, is the fact that, as per Persona tradition, there’s really only 1 or 2 romances in the game that are even halfway decent to begin with.  And let’s not even get into the ickiness of the emotional power imbalance inherent with dating Futaba.

Thankfully, Haru manages to hit a sweet spot of an appropriate age, an older soul, AND a romance that’s at least passably believable, but honestly, it feels like Atlus hit that bullseye out of luck alone.


- I really like the fact that the relationships that Ren forms with his Social Link pals have demonstrable and appropriate effects on improving his abilities as a Phantom Thief, from gaining new fancy firearm moves from learning Shinya’s First Person Shooter techniques, to gaining more tactical options in combat from learning Shogi strategy from Hifumi, to building a more formidable and fortified state of mind in battle thanks to learning concentration strategies from Dr. Maruki during counseling sessions.  With Personas being manifestations of different thoughts, perspectives, beliefs, experiences, and feelings within the breadth of the human experience, there’s always been the elegant and quiet implication that the reason that advancing Social Links empowers different types of Personas was because the protagonist is broadening his horizons and expanding his understanding of the human experience through his connections with others, and I’ve always liked that.  But with the action of Persona 5 taking place entirely within a cognitive dimension, having the Social Links of Persona 5 also directly empower and expand Ren’s capabilities is a narrative touch I appreciate.  It also heightens the weight and significance of the friends he makes outside of the Phantom Thieves, as he carries the lessons, joys, and values he’s gained from them into his work as a hero, allowing them a more constant and notable contributive presence in Persona 5 than was true of non-party Social Links in previous titles.  It’s a good new feature.


- Yusuke, Hifumi, Kasumi...is there anyone from Japan who didn't spend the same weekend in the same 2-block radius of the same specific corner of Hawaii? I'm half surprised they didn't get an obligatory previous game cameo out of the way by inventing some reason for Akihiko, Metis, Rei and Zen, the Persona 4 Hermit shrine fox, and goddamn Raidou Kuzunoha XIV to all be sitting on a bench as Ren happens to walk past.


- While on the subject, is there some law posted in the Atlus boardroom that school vacations in Persona games have to be boring nothingburgers? Why even include the Hawaii trip to begin with? Nothing happens, being half the world away from home doesn't prevent ANYONE from meeting up, and you could go to the beach with a prospective love interest in Japan anyway. It's not the travesty that was the Persona 4 camping trip, thank God, but the most memorable part of this entire half week spent in Hawaii was calculating just how much of the day Mishima was spending with his head jammed in Ren's suitcase, sniffing his boxers.


- Seeing Ren dance gives me Commander Shepard PTSD.


- Does anyone else just absolutely love the movies and TV shows that Ren can watch in his free time?  I couldn’t even begin to explain why, but somehow the absurd versions of classic and renowned film and media that Persona 5 comes up with were 1 of my personally favorite things about the game.  I always got such a kick out of the spoken dialogue lines that would play as he watched stuff like Admission Impossible, Guy McVer, and of course, The Cake Knight Rises; they’re the perfect blend of silly, clever, and stupid to make this idea work.  Persona 5’s absolutely filled to the brim with little day-to-day quirks and polish that give it such a robust personality, and getting to listen in on Ren’s watching habits was definitely my favorite of these signature bits of flare.


- While we’re on the subject of Ren’s watching habits: the night before the finale to the main story of Persona 5, I decided that Ren should just get to relax and clear his head a bit, so I had him spend the night watching the first half of the DVD he’d recently rented.

So it’s now my headcanon that, for the entirety of the fateful Christmas Eve, as the Phantom Thieves plunged through the depths of Mementos, fought a chalice-made-god, challenged the embodiment of the seven deadly sins, and made hope incarnate literally shoot a bullet through collectivism's face, the ONLY thing running through Ren's mind the whole time, driving him forward, was a burning, unquenchable desire to see how Desperate Housewives ended.








* Although it’s also possible that it’s actually more just the fact that, at 40 years old, my old ass is starting to feel creepy about datesim’ing teenage characters.


** Hell, good sir Ecclesiastes has pointed out to me that there are times when Ren is so clearly emotionally and psychologically ahead of even the older romantic options that it still feels like he has too much leverage over them for it to ever be a relationship between equals.  I mean, can you seriously look at Ohya and say the woman is Ren’s mental peer?