Oh God the Tidal wave of feelings. It is 3 AM and I'm staying up God only knows how much longer to type up like, everything I feel about this game. I have given 0 thought to how to organize this section of my final thoughts, so I'm just going to go about it chronologically and pray that you all get the general gist of what I'm trying to say.
So the last time I was semi-coherent was the Ski Trip, nerding out at Rise and Yu inside the abandoned cabin, right? By my count the couple came near, if not over, the edge of sex something like 3 times. Her S-Rank, Christmas, the Mountain, and Valentine's Day on the beach. This creepy data means nothing and only serves to kind of add to my amusement.
SECTION ONE, MARIE AND THE FEBRUARY DUNGEON. Now that the game is over I cannot, in good conscience, say that I like Marie. Like, she's pretty much beneath the quality of every single character in this game.
That said, I confess I softened up to her as the game finally took the time to explore her a little more in depth than "OHOHO THIS AMNESIA PLOT SHE IS SO ORIGINAL!" As I said earlier, the last two of her poems in her dungeon . . . actually made sense. They weren't incomprehensibly awful gibberish. She's no Kuja, but she's a good mile above the shitstain that is Genesis Rhapsodos. And, unlike many others, I suppose, I actually enjoyed seeing the Weather Goddess turn into the Weather Girl. Mostly because for the FIRST TIME IN THE ENTIRE GAME Marie dropped her act and behaved in a cheerful, genuine manner.
I think this would be the best means of explaining my problems with Marie: First, Marie feels very, very forced when she really, really doesn't need to. I think I could have looked past her TERRIBLE outfit if the game had made her a natural part of itself, rather than so horribly attaching her. The player's interactions with Marie should not have been any more mandatory than with the rest of the cast. By which I mean that the game should've been bold enough to actually have Marie present or make her events mandatory, but paradoxically should not have forced her Social Link upon the player. If she had been afforded the SAME story telling mechanisms as the party, rather than the awkward, abrupt manner in which she was in the game, she would have felt far less abrasive.
The other part I think is more subjective: Marie's behavior is at stark contrast with the entire cast. She's obsessed with being cool for reasons that, even after all the chips are down, are never really examined. She constantly berates you for being stupid, for not caring how you look, and for being so uncool. This is related to, but not the same as her dislike of the party's selflessness, which is representative of her relationship with the pessimistic Izanami (who I will get to later.) This is really all I have to say on Marie, although I might also add that the whole "I have to die to save the world" aspect wasn't necessary, and I'd have appreciated if her dungeon had been as driven by her personal issues as the party's dungeons were. This is, ultimately, the real problem with Marie: she's somewhere between a fully-fledged member of the group and a complete outsider, and it makes her stand out and invites greater scrutiny upon a character already made conspicuous by her late inclusion.
Her dungeon draws similarly mixed views from me. I detest gimmicky dungeons, but at the same time I am obliged to confess that there was an element of challenge to her dungeon which Adachi's and Izanami's lacked. This is, I suppose, because I had already broken the game by maxing out Rise, which saved me from the nightmare of Marie's dungeon. The dungeon's presentation, however, was top-notch (not that there has been anything, barring faces in the anime cut scenes, which has not been of stellar presentation thus far in this game.). The music, especially during boss battles, was wonderful and the visuals were pleasing to the eye. Though the dungeon must, by default, stand out from the others, it is all the same not without merit, and not so different from them.
PART TWO: SOME DOWN TIME Valentine's day was a total blast, and Kanji killed it all by having the best lines in the entire game. Nanako's chocolate demon with the fishy face was a very close second. I couldn't decide if Rise was trying to be risque or deep when bringing up Adam and Eve, but I dug it all the same. Mostly my mucked up brain. I got the feeling that, although Yukiko had been dumped months ago, she still had lingering, unresolved feelings for Yu. Not like Chie, who did too, but was still too busy with her love-hate with Yousuke. I just kinda got that feeling as the game was wrapping up: that Yukiko had not entirely given up that pursuit.
PART THREE: IZANAMI First of all
THANK YOU PKGAMING FOR BASICALLY HOLDING MY HAND AND GUIDING ME THROUGH THIS GAME'S MANY, MANY RIDICULOUS ENDGAME NONSENSE, I couldn't have done it without you! So after following the advice to "not go home, but to Junes instead" my brain kinda melted as the game laughed and was like "HAHA OH DID YOU THINK THOSE WERE THE LAST TWO DUNGEONS? WROOOOOOOOOOOOOONG." And then the discovery that the creepy gas station attendant had some remaining significance (in fact the MOST significance) was just mind blowing. Like I legit grabbed my head on that one. Shit was CRAY.
Izanami herself serves as a perfect final foe to the plot, I think, assuming she is THE Izanami of legend. Not only does this make her the foe of your Persona, Izanagi, it also establishes her motive clearly: if the legend is true, she's probably pissed at Izanagi and has been trying to kill humankind for aeons. Since Yu is the representative of Izanagi, it stands to reason that Yu opposes her for the sake of saving humanity. Izanami's pessimism makes perfect sense in this context. What's unusual is that I kind of feel that Izanami is tied to Burroughs of SMT 4. Or rather, there's a great amount of similarity between Burroughs and Marie, in that both are fragments or representatives of greater Goddesses. Which I guess makes sense, since the whole "Megami" in "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4" means Goddess, if my hilariously limited knowledge of the language does not fail me. It is Izanami's hatred of mankind which also influences Marie's hatred of the cast's super heroic qualities. Just as a side note, the tale of Izanagi and Izanami has parallels with Orpheus (the Persona of P3) and Euclydie, as well as
many others, including (and this is why I liked the Adam and Eve reference on Valentine's) Adam's decision to descend into mortality after Eve.
The final dungeon wasn't much of a pain, but when Izanagi has LOL MAX STATS IN EVERY CATS, well, there's not really anything to fear. My sole regret was not finding a Power or Mind Charge skill for Izanagi, so I could dish out insane amounts of damage. The final battle's climax, the Thousand Curses, really got me bawling. Frickin' Teddie comes on and that was that, man. Bad enough it began with a rousing speech from Old Man Dojima.
And the ending. Man, the ending. I don't think I even kept it together as well as Kanji did, haha. I really didn't want to leave town, and all them tears really had me on the floor. And then the photograph, and Teddie's little speech, and Nanako just ripping your heart in half with the whole "I don't want you to go!" Gah. It was, however, a wound swiftly healed by the bonus ending.
Yousuke and Teddie's matching shirts were so cute, and Kanji's new look was hilarious. No pig tails Rise is actually best Rise. Yukiko and Chie looked so grown up! But most important of all was Nanako with her hair down. I mean, I've thought multiple times recently how, in terms of character development, Persona 4 really does feel the true successor to Final Fantasy 6, but they went all out here with letting Nanako's hair down. In FF6 it symbolized that for the first time Terra was truly free, and I'd say that, similarly, Nanako's emotional turmoils had come to an end and so she could at last relax and let her hair down. It was one last jewel in the crown of heart warming that this game really was.
