Persona 5 is here at last, and given that the series has always relied heavily on concepts and symbolism from Jungian psychology (among other things), we thought it’d be fun to dig into five games that deliberately used Carl Jung’s ideas to create vibrant, dreamlike stories filled with sinister Shadows. Things then get less esoteric as we look at Persona 5 itself (with help from host emeritus Henry Gilbert), Parappa the Rapper Remastered, Destiny 2’s release date, Mad Catz’s demise, and your experiences trading in games.
Question of the Week
Have you ever had a dream about a game? What was it about?
Theme song by Matthew Joseph Payne. Break song is Lahan by Yasunori Mitsuda. Haunting and beautiful New Releases Theme by David B. Cooper.
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If ya haven’t checked out the Laser Time YouTube channel, here’s something swell you might’ve missed!
UPCOMING VIDEO GAME PRE-ORDER BONUSES
Kingdom Hearts III
Red Dead Redemption 2
South Park: The Fractured But Whole
Death Stranding
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Spider-Man
As a person forced to stay in the closet by the redneck small town I’m stuck in, I enjoy Henry’s LGBT talk.
SMT/Persona is my FAVORITE game series and I love that it’s finally hitting here and getting popular.
I preordered the Persona 5 premium edition and got it four days ago and still HAVE NOT played it, which is a testament to how good Zelda is since I got a Switch the day before. Too many video games!
Yeah. I have to resist buying games for the rest of the year.
QotW: My wife and I both fell in love with Animal Crossing New Leaf. I play for at least a few minutes everyday and have kept mostly the same villagers for over 2 years. Our favorite is socially awkward Quillson the duck who flirts awkwardly with my wife and one time sent me a pair of women’s shoes with a letter saying he hopes it’s a perfect fit like Cinderella. I occasionally will have dreams about our little town.
When Mario Maker was announced, I was really excited. It was a childhood dream come true in the months before release, I would sometimes dream that I already had the game and was making levels.
QOTW: Shortly after Mario 64 was released, I had a fairly normal dream (a bunch of random nonsense involving people and events from my life), only at different points throughout it, I obtained the various ways that Mario was able to fly. Mario 3’s Raccoon suit, World’s cape, and 64’s Wing Cap. It’s the only flying dream I’ve ever had, and although it’s been over 20 years, I can still vaguely remember that sensation.
I love Xenogears, but that’s a game that really needs a re-make since the second disc is essentially unfinished. So. Much. Text.
I dreamed i was in my animal crossing town BUT IT WASNT A DREAM!!!
Doodoo doodoo doodoo doodoo
Wow after hearing the Persona discussion I have zero (less than zero if possible) interest in that series/games. Not what I look for in games, don’t care what metacritic reviews are.
I’m also not obsessed with Japan so maybe that has something to do with it.
and I basically feel the opposite way, and personally have zero interest in every current western AAA franchise. diff’rent strokes!
Oh yeah, the Metaverse eye-con reminds me of that giant globular eye at the end of Persona 4.
Oh jeez. I have not finished both Shin Megami Tensei IVs, Strange Journey AND regular IV. That stuff is hardcore as f-.
I don’t dream about video games anymore, just school even though I’ve graduated for several years now. But when I was a kid, I was pumped full of Game Boy Pokemon Secrets BS that I dreamed about another Pokemon League, across the literal barriers the game places on the world. For some reason I named all of the items “Amber” in this “negative world” and ended up thinking up of a Lavender Town of nothing but dead Pokemon. Haven’t had many dreams that involved.
QOTW: What game have I ever had dreams about? Batman; Arkham City. In my dream, the Dark Knight finally comes to realize that every time he puts another villain in Arkham (or Black Gate Prison), they just break out again and cause more havoc. Batman snaps and goes on a psychotic rage, killing every inmate he comes across. The Joker, Two-Face, Penguin and the rest of the Rogue Gallery end up with two holes in the chest and one in the head. Perhaps I need to go back to First Person Shooters for a while and forget Arkham City.
Whenever SaGa/Kawazu is mentioned on this show, Henry makes dramatic vomit noises and starts cursing the heavens — on an older episode I remember he kept yelling “those games are fucking TRASH!!!”, “they fucking suck!!!”, etc.
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For an alternative perspective, check out this Jeremy Parish piece which thoughtfully articulates what makes those games interesting: http://www.usgamer.net/articles/has-an-rpg-ever-been-more-self-indulgent-than-the-saga-series
Played through SaGa Frontier back on the Playstion when it was released. Enjoyed it, especial seeing characters show up in other chracters story line. That said I couldn’t say it was particularly memorable. Still fun.
Thanks for the link, I’ll be checking it out.
I really hated SaGa Frontier, didn’t even come close to ever finishing it. But SaGa Frontier 2 was amazingly good, though can be incredibly frustrating if you don’t have a pocketstation to farm extra items from what I remember.
When I was playing a lot of Shadow of Mordor I would dream I was wading through bunches of orcs, punching and kicking, then I would work my girlfriend, lying beside me, into the dreamworld as an orc, and I would kick her in real life. It’s scary to think what I might do sometime, when my brain is dreaming but my body thinks it’s fighting.
I once had a sex dream interupted by Red XIII from FF VII. He just showed up and asked to join in. I was so turned off that I woke up. I’m still worried that dream means I’m a repressed furry.
Henry mentioned that the conversations and answers with Personas is “random”, that’s not quite true. The game doesn’t really tell you in any of the tutorial pop ups, but if you dig through the menus it does explain how to pick the right responses. Each persona has a personality type (upbeat, timid, irritable, gloomy) that is displayed under their name, the responses you can give are either joking, serious, or vague. So each Persona, according to their personality type, likes one type of answer and dislikes the other two. So really recruiting Personas is just about looking at the personality type and choosing the right answers accordingly. This probably should have been in the tutorial pop up, not buried in the help menu.
I think we did this before — I remember Chris drunkenly reading out my Zelda nightmare when I was 10, with the wallmaster — but more recently I binge-played Nier Automata because I was done with the game but I had to know what happened in the story, and came to a screeching halt at the final ending an hour after I should have been in bed.
As it turned out, going to sleep after finishing an incredibly deep and philosophical game with so many twists and turns was a bad idea. I won’t say what I dreamed, since it’s a lot of spoilers, but I woke up drained, sad, overwhelmed, and wanting to die, so it was basically just like playing the game!
Henry had an Interesting take on ME: Andromeda about being rushed to make a date. That is exactly how I felt about the ME 3, specifically the ending. Seems like Bioware also had to rush to get ME 3 out to make a date and the ending’s writing and execution was sloppily handled. Actually my theory is EA forced Bioware to outsource the ending to a team in Bratislava who just saw the Matrix trilogy and then that team further outsourced it to a team in China who just got through bing watching Galactica’s final season. Still enjoyed the game but damn I would have loved to have waited a couple months to have the “fixed” director’s cut ending. I will be skipping ME: A. It sucks that the norm is to put out a massive patch a few months later to fix a broken game.
Also Persona 4 Golden six hour mandatory tutorial almost made me quit. That is a horrible way to intro anyone to a game. If Persona 5 is like this then I will wait for Persona 6.
I had a bout of insomnia September of 2015 that lasted about 3 months, shortly after Mario Maker released. While Mario Maker was a much needed escape from the stresses of my job which had caused the insomnia, I found that Mario Maker soon began to haunt my half-asleep, half-awake mind, hearing the super catchy remix of the Mario 3 World 1-1 theme playing in a 3-second loop while I tried to figure out how to make a level that created a latte out of enemies (Buzzy Beatles at the bottom for the shot, Goombas in the middle for the milky coffee mix, Dry Bones at the top for the frothy foam). It nearly drove me to suicide.
Also, in line with Chris’ amazing Stranger game dream, I had an original game dream a few months ago of a Nidhogg 1-style clown sprite running through a dimly lit dark red cave with no music. It actually inspired me to flesh out the idea and come up with some ideas if I ever decide to do anything with it (PATENT PENDING! *shakes fist*).
Forgot to add QotW