Depression Quest (PC): Hitting a little too close to home.

This one won't be fun to read. But I felt I should talk about it. So like the majority of this blog, I expect it to be ignored.

So a lot of you have read this blog and you've seen when I get fired up about something, I really get fired up. Strings of animated exaggerations and excessive use of expletives. A lot of your know that some of this is by design, because watching someone get worked up can be entertaining and to some extent, this is true. But as some of you who know me personally or say from my facebook, you've seen that sometimes the Rage Quitter just spits rage. That is just who I am. 

I admit, it's hard to stay out of my head sometimes. I'm not saying I hear voices, but I certainly hear suggestions and a lot of them don't get along with me. Sometimes they spurn anger, sometimes they bring me down. I don't feel like I have a lot of outlets, so when I feel I need to relate to something, I fire this game up. I'm no doctor, I haven't been diagnosed with depression. But playing this struck a chord with me, and I really want to share my thoughts on it. 

DEPRESSION QUEST(PC)

You may have heard of this game amidst the whole atrocity that is the GamerGate controversy. Now this isn't an article about that whole movement, because it's been done to death and frankly I'm tired of hearing about it. But at the onset of this whole debacle, it hinged off developer Zoe Quinn allegedly trying to get press for this title. Assumptions aside, it did bring the title to light to me, and I felt I should give it a shot.

Now, I use the term game loosely, because there is a bit of game aspect. You make decisions, and a story plays out, and there is a beginning and end. But more so than a game, I would akin this to a digital version of a Choose Your Own Adventure story from when I was a kid. There isn't a lot you can do other than read along with the narrative, and make decisions as you go.

As far as the story goes, you play a mid 20's personality who is in a stable and exclusive relationship with a partner named Alex. You have a day to day part time job that is covering the bills so you are living comfortably. You have a generally wide social circle consisting of old friend and co-workers but you wished you were doing something more with your life, and your parents are sort of pushing for that too.

But it's a struggle, you tend to struggle with motivation issues, which gives the impression of being lazy, and tend to fixate on things you can't really control.  The narrative writes you as very much internally conflicted, confused. and more than that frustrated because everyone else doesn't seem to have to deal with the problems you have.

When I first played this game, I felt if I were to really understand the experience I would have to make decisions closest to what decisions I would actually make, rather than ones I thought I might affect the game. So this is what I did. I found it a bit surprising how many of the options felt natural depending on the given situation. Granted, this isn't a game where you are going to wind up in a fantastical situation, these are just normal everyday circumstances. 

Now I think the big aspect of this game that really sells it comes into the decision making. Yes, you really are just clicking links along as you read the story, and it does effect the path and the outcome a bit. But where its cleverness lies is how it guides the story. With each click of a link your decisions change, and if you starting making more decisions that line up with the behavior of depression then on the next page a number of the decisions you make will be struck through.

It paints a good picture, or at least it did to me, of how the mind can turn on itself and make would would feel like simple decisions, seemingly impossible to make. If you happen to start to veer down a certain path, it just gets that much harder for you to make decisions that would improve the situation. It spirals down and as the difficulty increases, you find that the other characters will see an increased level of frustration as well.

There is a specific section of this game that stung me in heart as I read through it. It's just a few short paragraphs, but it basically mirrored an issue that I have personally struggled with for what feels like 20 years now. In it, it is 2am on a workday, and you are laying in bed awake. Literally every thought that runs through your head is twisting on you and you are being hammered with anxiety. By this point, most of the decisions you can make will be locked off, but what really makes them brilliant is how they read.

For some of the internal decisions, it shows more of the struggle of the mind trying to rationalize the difficulty of what should be a simple decision. The bargain with oneself, the confusion over the inexplicable difficulty of something that should be simple, and the eventual turn and self defeat as you turn on yourself. This, my dear reader, is probably the thing that hit me closest to home. This is something I personally have struggled with on more than one occasion. This was the point where realized there might be something to the value of this game. 

Throughout the experience, there is a very somber piano tone that continues to play through the experience, it's used as a supplement to bring down mood of they player, help them get into the role of the struggling protagonist, and you can almost hear the rain falling against the window of a dimly lit room as you play it.

It's also complimented visually because at the bottom of each section, it shows you how depressed you are, and if you are currently doing anything to help it. If you continue to spiral downward, its static-y appearance becomes harder and more difficult to read, more scrambled. Not unlike the mind of someone who might be struggling. 

I have mixed feelings on the reactions I have received from the other characters in this. For example, the mother is overbearing and is painted as somewhat difficult to talk to about your negative emotions. Some friends seem to have a 6th sense for noticing you are out of sorts. To a degree, I almost found everyone a bit too understanding. These aren't experiences I've had, so obviously didn't relate to it as much.

However, I understand at this is somewhat of a subjective narrative and might be written from the past experiences of the developers themselves. So perhaps they have tighter knit circles who would notice these things. It's not like when you show signs in the game you should expect to be met with outright aggression, been told to "get over it", or have someone try to belittle the issue by telling you how much worse off they are then you. These are things that can happen, but I am sure they aren't common, so I don't know why I would have expected such a tailor made experience to my own. People are different, and they react different ways. Frustration takes many forms I guess.

But ultimately, as you might expect, there is no "winning" in a game like this. I have played it through many, MANY times. And I have tried to see if I was ever able to figure out what combinations of things you can do to unlock all the options. Honestly, I don't think it's possible. I've tried to make choices that seem like they would result in the most positive outcome, and the best I've done is managed to stop my relationships from breaking up, and gotten myself on the path of wellness (both things I've struggled to do in my actual life). 

It's really a shame that the whole GamerGate thing dragged this in the mud, because while this obviously isn't going to be a 100% depiction of how depression might affect everyone, I feel it could be used as a tool for those who are frustrated with someone they might know who shows signs of it. In my case, it felt like it was a pretty accurate representation of how at least my mind works. Able to present myself with all the available options, realizing which ones might be helpful, but somehow, unable to make those decisions.

It's clear to me that the developers want to help. They provided the game online for free, and strongly feel you should play it at least once. But on top of that they also provide links for places people who are struggling might find help, such as the suicide prevention hotline, or services where you can help contribute to help raise awareness. Not only that but they are also donating a portion of their proceeds that they receive for the game to depression awareness organizations. It's admirable. 

At the very least, for me, It gave me the sense that at least someone out there understands. Someone who's felt the same struggle I've internalized (and sometimes verbalized) for years.  As I play through the words of this were very much in my head. And if you don't feel it's worth a purchase or a contribution that's fine, but I do feel it's something you should play at least once. You might learn something. 

Seriously people. Don't ever tell someone to "get over it".

It might be the least helpful thing you can do. 

Persona Q (3DS): Yo Dawg, I heard you like Mashups.

Alright alright, I know what you are thinking: "Oh wow, CannonMan is going to gush about how much he loves the Persona universe again. Talk about how much he loves the characters, and wishes they were his real friends. Yadda yadda blah blah." 

Damn fucking right I am. Let's do this.

PERSONA Q (3DS)

Depending on which protagonist you start with, the storyline's opening starts off around midway through the points of Persona 3 and Persona 4. For example, if you choose to play the game as Yu Narukami from Persona 4 the game opens up during the Yasogami High Culture festival, and when Yu goes to get his fortune read by Margaret at her fortune telling booth (after the group date cafe bombs), they wind up in a variant of the Velvet room, when they leave they find that an old Clocktower that has long been destroyed now stands tall.

On the Persona 3 side, Mintao Airsato (the P3 hero) has just gotten over a cold and decided to take the team into Tartarus on their mission to discover the what the dark hour is and why it appears over Gekkoukan High. At the base of Tartarus, Minato enters the Velvet room where he finds Elizabeth and Theodore. There is a disturbance, a chime of a tower bell, and the rest of the Persona 3 team finds themselves in the Velvet room as well. The elevator that holds it begins to plummet to a crash, and when they exit they find themselves at some alternate school having a culture festival.

Depending on who you picked, you search your way through a dungeon/exhibit called "You in Wonderland" try to find your way back home where you come across two mysterious students named Zen and Rei. They appear to be trapped in this bizarro school as well and they can't use personas, so they decide to join up with your team to try to escape.

As you fight your way down to the bottom of the first dungeon you get confronted by your first boss, and just before you get overwhelmed by shadows, the other team comes in for the assist. They both realize that way home must be through 2 suspiciously locked doors in the velvet room, and going through the culture festivals dungeons will unlock the locks that hold the door shut. With that, the two classes decide to work together to see this through.

Don't ask me why they felt they needed the dance poses for the assist... I have no idea.

Alright cool, seems like we have a interesting mashup of Persona's two most lovable casts of characters. That'd be great for an interesting one off. But more surprisingly to me, is that according to the developers, this game is supposed to be canon to the story. That just doesn't make sense. the Stories of P3, P4, and the 2 fighting games happen chronologically to each other, so they clearly aren't all the same ages. They also didn't know each other when they met in the fighters, so that wrecks havoc on established story.

I assume this will all be determined as the story plays out and I approach completion, but as someone who has become somewhat obsessed with this universe, its doing a pretty good job of twisting my brain around trying to figure out how this can be considered canon. I'm just hoping it doesn't end up one of those "They don't remember what happened" things at the end of it. It probably will. :(

Now, let's make no mistake here. This game isn't a single mashup. Nope, its not just the mixing of P3 and P4. In addition, its also a fusion of the Persona game franchise, and the Etrian Odyssey (a series I had never played). It mixes aspects of the two game types together so while I have familiarity with some of the aspects, others are completely brand new to me and in some cases a little disorienting.

The biggest change is that game fronted me is the dungeons. This game uses the Etrian system for dungeon crawling which is basically done on first person grid based maps. I, HATE, first person. We all know this, and I was pretty worried that it would turn me off to the game completely. I am very bad at navigating an environment in first person and more than likely will find myself getting lost.

Persona Q tries to assist this by allow you to make a map of the floor on the bottom screen of the 3DS. It gives you a myriad of options to draw walls, place icons for doors, stairs, chests, and other things like place notes that you can type for yourself. To be honest it was a tad overwhelming, and I know at least one person it sort of turned to game off for.

Ugh.

However, as I played along I realized that some of the icons you can place change automatically depending on how you discover things, and drawing the walls aren't overly important because it will at least shade the squares you have already stepped on.  So if you tend to just focus on doors and portals, and maybe chests or important events, it makes the whole thing a little easier to manage and less time consuming. Mitsuru complained to me it wasn't detailed enough but I seemed to be able to navigate it easier.

The battles are sort of a hybrid of the two games as well and that definitely threw me off. Now, I've played games that have the two rank battle formation system before, Final Fantasy IV specifically comes to mind. Easy enough, heavies up front, weak in back. But what makes it a bit more challenging is I have to remember what characters have ranged weapons and can actually deal better damage from the back rank, the game tells you but I did have to shift my lineups a bit to compensate for it.

So far, the game hasn't made me split up. But I'm leveling a bunch of people just in case they do.

Also, the weakness system changes things a bit too. Normally in a Persona you can just spam whatever elemental weakness someone has and knock everyone down, then crush a massive all out attack. Not so easy to do in Q, because most importantly hitting an enemy with an elemental weakness doesn't always knock them down. It can, but its not guaranteed. Also, if you are slick enough to get everything knocked down, you aren't promised an All-Out Attack either.

If you hit a weakness or critical on a baddie, your character's little icon will glow gold. What this does is gives them an MP free action on their next turn, so long as they haven't been hit. This allows you to maintain your assault without draining your very limited MP without the cost of the expensive casts. But on top of that, you have a chance for an All-Out Attack when people are fired up, and its more likely the more characters are. I've had it happen with at least 3 people fired up, but if you can get all 5, its pretty much guaranteed.

They have also added a feature from Etrian in the form of visible wandering bosses known as FOE's. Each map has a number of them that wander the map in specific paths or are triggered by certain events. Sometimes evading them is part of the puzzle to complete the level, and typically when you first meet them, they are significantly stronger than you are. Most of the time you will be prompted to run away from them if you get locked into an encounter. They are worth some middling experience but you will usually get a decent persona if you beat them, so its good to go back and grind them once they are easy enough.

Some FOE's can be downright infuriating, which makes them satisfying to grind later.

The game remains contained to the school they are trapped in, so there aren't a lot of  NPCs you can interact with outside of the residents of the Velvet room, so there really is no social link system in this game. There are however quests that you can do for rewards, and many of them require "taking a stroll" with your comrades which allow you to get your hilarious persona interactions from the crossing over casts. This is kind of a hit or miss.

On one hand, its great to see some of the personalities of the two casts clash, and see what you could considering the sprouting beginnings of certain characters relationships with each other. But on the other, if you have played and love both Personas 3 and 4 then you pretty much already know what character types they are, and it can make some of the events a little predictable. For example, at one point Yousuke complains about being hungry, and the team gets into the idea of a cookoff. It's a rehash of a Persona 4 joke, but now they add Fuuka to the mix, who was also a bad cook in Persona 3. You can save Yousuke by making the right decisions in prepping the meal, but it still goes bad for him like you would expect it to.

I'm a bad fan. I am so disappointing in myself about it to. As we've heard me say a billion times, one of my favorite characters in this game is Kanji Tatsumi: the tough looking, rough n' tumble, and possibly sexually confused thug with a heart of gold and passion for sewing & cute things. Part of what makes me love this character so much was Troy Baker's performance of him. As I was telling a friend how much I loved how he did in this game, I looked it up to realize that Kanji in Persona Q is actually played by Matt Mercer. But he did such an exceptional job that I didn't even notice the difference. To make matters worse? I learned that he was the voice of Kanji in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax too, and I didn't notice then either.

So this game kind of spells out for you that there are only going to be 4 dungeons for you get through. This at first kind of miffed me. Only 4 dungeons? Tartarus in Persona 3 had well over 100 floors. The TV world in Persona 4 had well over 4 dungeons, so I thought this game was going to be a 20 hour breeze. I was wrong. With just 4 dungeons my first save of the game already has well over 80 hours. Why is that? Because this game is GRIND-TASTIC. I know JRPGs have some degree of grind to them but this is ridiculous. There is no easy way to do it and I'm getting the sense you have be at level 100 to beat the game.

Kanji just wants to wuv a puppy. Quit being a baby about it Koromaru.

They added some nice features to the Velvet room in this game that make fusing personas much easier, and you have the ability to choose what skills you want to transfer over rather than just randomly trying to get them. I found this super helpful. They also added a sacrifice feature which allows you to dump 2 personas for a big XP boost for the one you are leveling. So basically you can just grind for weaker personas and use them to boost your currents, OR you can use the compendium to get similar types for a fee and get a bigger XP boost. These are great features and I hope they appear in the upcoming Persona 5.

The music in these games are so awesome. I don't know why I love it so much but I do. Every song is just some well constructed theme fitting melody, and almost every song uses almost genre of music and meshes them together into something wonderful. The P4 hero's battle music "light up the night" is this mix of Ska, Rock, Hip-hop I'd guess? And as much as I can't stand horns in my music (and trust me, I usually have a visceral reaction to ska) this theme is just perfect. I find myself listening to the boss battle music all the time just because I love the background vocals "WhooaaaYeaaaahhhhh". Persona always gets a gold star on music.

In addition to the music, the game operates in a more "chibi" style art for the characters which gives it a more cute feel to it. And I gotta tell ya, as dumb as I thought it was to start? Inside of a few cutscenes I fell completely in love with it. It felt right at home and in some scenes made the game seem even funnier, (why won't Koromaru let Kanji pet him!?). Combine this with a number of returning voices and it all falls right into step.

So what didn't I like about the game. Grind. Grind is the end all be all problem for me in this game. Yes, I understand that Etrian games have a tendency to be a bit grindy. And I know that Persona is no slouch to doing that either. But there has always been kind of a unspoken rule when it comes to JRPGs in that in the majority of them, unless there is some easy form of level grinding, typically around level 60 is when you can beat the game. Well, I'm pushing my characters past that and I'm still struggling with the last dungeon.

Zen and Rei are the only 2 characters out of place. While they fit right in, they obviously have a few secrets.

The persona level cap is always a point of annoyance for me too. It makes sense that you can't build personas past the level of your main character in the game, so that doesn't bother me all that much. But one of the features of the street pass is that you can share a persona and get ones from other people. The problem is, these are also restricted by the level despite being in your pass book. So I have like 5 different personas locked in my book that would be game changers and help me finish the game, and I can't purchase them because some of them are like 20 levels higher than me. Why bother letting me see them in the first place..

The game can actually be kind of insulting too. Through out the game there are a number of puzzles you find and have to solve. I won't lie to you, a number of them are actually pretty difficult. Hell, one of them in the later stages forced me to use fuck'n algebra to solve it. Guess what Persona Q, I passed algebra with the lowest possible D. I'm not that smart. Some of them, not all, the other characters will solve the puzzle for you. They'll be one I couldn't figure out and Naoto will just step in and do it for me. Not for the fuckin' algebra one though.

Absolutely love the little Catherine reference used in this scene.
Fun fact, the "Love is Over" end theme appears in the P4 Animated series.

The biggest problem of all though, is that I didn't finish it. I couldn't finish it. Some people love the grind of games, I don't. I want a fun experience that will take up a great amount of time with a good story to go with it. If its designed well and the music is great, so much the better. And while Persona Q seemingly has all the intangibles that would make me give this game a fantastic rating, I hesitate to do so. Why? Because I got bored, and boredom is the kiss o' friggen death in a video game. I've gone on and on this point before, but if I hit the point in the game where I become bored with it, I move on. It's that simple.

I am going to eventually come back to this, but I have to say the amount of excessive grind really took the wind out of my sails personally. But if you are a fan of JRPGs and more specifically the Persona universe then this game is going to be right up your alley. It made me laugh on more than on occasion, the battle system is and interesting hybrid, the music is fun, the puzzles are hard, and I certainly dropped a huge chunk of time on it.

Reviewers have been going batty for this game and giving it scores of 8's, 9's, and I have even seen a few 10s. While I think perfect scores are a bit high for this one, the rest I would say is pretty accurate. While perhaps not the best Persona game I've played, Persona Q: The Shadow of the Labyrinth is a very welcome edition and hold over till the release of Persona 5. I would give this a strong recommendation to any 3DS owner.

And like all persona games, Ken rides the bench.
Because he sucks.