I picked up Persona 3 FES a while back, well before I saw the Persona 4 ER. (Fun fact: FES is also the abbreviation for a type of surgery I had to have done.) I'd never played a Persona game before, so the whole thing was a new experience to me. Especially the parts where I felt compelled to follow the instructions on GameFAQs to the letter. Wait, that was all of them.
I'm a completionist - one of the many ways my bizarre, nigh-OCD, addled brain intrudes into my everyday life. I have to make sure everything is completed and all the items collected. This makes (or made, as you'll see later) Persona an anxiety-ridden, hyperventilating nightmare, because Persona is really two games. There is the the "social" game and the "dungeon crawler" game. It may be just my personal taste, but the "dungeon crawler" felt like the "main" game. I like the dungeon crawler. It was interesting and innovative. And I would have liked the social game, had I not suffocated at the mere idea that I was constantly on the verge of doing something wrong. This is where the guides come in.
In order to improve your dungeoning abilities, you have to maintain these "social links," which, as anyone who knows me in real life can attest to, I am terrible at. Seriously, I'm horrible at keeping in touch with real people, so these virtual people have no chance. But now, I'm thrust back in a hypothetical high-school, choosing who to spend time with, not to just maintain relationships, but to save me life by having an effect on my dungeoning. Now, I've made some poor social decisions in my life, but the only consequences there are a life of regret. I've never had to worry about a friendship status affecting the level of a demon I summon by shooting myself in the head. So, go ahead, hang out with the student council instead of with the track team. Tell random guy who talked to you on your first day that he has no chance of getting the hot teacher. It's your choice. Dun dun DUHHHN.
Moreover, you improve your social stats by doing specific... I want to call them quests, but that's the wrong word. "Activities" isn't even the right word, because you, the player, aren't actually actively doing anything, so, I suppose you're making specific choices, which, as a person who kept up to four fingers at choices in a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book just in case the path didn't turn out how I wanted, is another terrifying nexus of failure. Will you can sing karaoke or play in the arcade? Arcade, really? Ok, then which game? Will you study? Will you? Oh my god!
Oh, but we're not done - there is a third complication to the social link system. TIME.TIME moves arbitrarily. Each choice advances TIME. And TIME is finite. Days pass. Chances are missed. TIME marches on, meaning you must juggle a complex social schedule in addition to your whole "saving-the-world-through-suicide" thing. You can only meet with the magician on certain days. Your clubs only meet on certain afternoons. Even your free time must be elaborately planned. So, on top of my personal need to complete everything, now I need to complete everything in a certain correct amount of choices. So, if maintaining a busy social calendar is your thing... you probably are far too busy to worry about maintaining and advancing relationships with over 11 distinct virtual friend groups. Oh, and have you forgotten about the dungeon crawling yet? Because TIME affects that, too. Play for too long (which you have to in order to reach the progress points) and you and your party members get "tired." When you leave the dungeon, they get "sick," essentially preventing you from dungeoning until they get better, which itself takes TIME.
I've been shifting between the phrases "me playing" and "you playing." It's because talking about "me" playing is no longer accurate. I couldn't handle the sheer weight of choices. Then again, "choice" isn't exactly what's at issue here, but we'll get to that in a moment.
The breaking point was dear, sweet Elizabeth. A nice girl at first, she eventually begins to make requests of you. I am all too happy to fulfill requests in games. Being the hero is what I live for. It's not long before, I realize she's a total bitch. Her requests have deadlines. Yes, it's not enough that you take time out of your busy social/"saving-the-world" schedule to get and give her things. No no, she wants things by a certain date. And if you don't get it to her, she shuts off the secret reward forever.
Thus we reach the crux of my issue with choice in games. As a comparison, one of my favorite games is KOTOR. Bioware has reached a lofty status in my respect. I love the Mass Effect series, I think Dragon Age is amazing, and I even mostly liked Jade Empire. The part I love most about Bioware games is the ability to choose your reactions/personality/life path. I never choose the dark side. I am rarely a renegade. I will never be a villain. But, I appreciate the opportunity. I feel much prouder being a hero when there's the actual opportunity to not be a hero. But these choices are of a different kind than Persona's choices. Sure, both are hegemonic, but KOTOR doesn't have wrong choices. Sure, the choices you can make in Bioware games affect later events in the game, and now even later events in different games, which I find intensely gratifying. But in Persona 3, if I choose to do one thing over another, it is entirely possible that I have closed off an entire section of the game. Forever. One choice is the wrong choice. Now, I have to concern myself not with being true to myself or whatever character I'm role-playing. I have to "choose" what the computer has decided is the correct choice.
It's not a choice anymore, it's a guessing game. Thus, I'm stuck looking on GameFAQs, inputting "choices" exactly as the guide tells me, scheduling things exactly as the guide recommends, doing only what the guide commands, essentially removing myself from the process entirely. The stress was far too much for me.
Strangely enough, it was a moment of fun that caused me to stop playing. At one point, I deviated from the guide. I made my own choice once and threw off the whole schedule. That wasn't the fun part. In an effort to "catch up" to the guide, I went dungeoning - and actually had a great time. The next in-game day, I realize I've missed a critical event for Elizabeth (that I, of course, wouldn't have even known about had I not looked it up in the guide). I had to be in the correct place at the correct TIME to get whatever McGuffin it was she wanted, and since I missed it, I'll never be able to see the ultra-secret-whatevers. Completionism versus Freedom collided. The only way to fix this was to reload an old save and basically undo the fun I had. A do-over to take back the enjoyment and realign myself with Elizabeth's, and Persona's, schedule.
At that point, I realized I wasn't really playing this game. I was a conduit from the walkthrough to the screen. My part in the process was totally ancillary. This wasn't a game for me, it was a machine and it had turned me into a joyless cog. I made a choice and broke off my "social link" with Persona 3.
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