Persona 5 Royal (2022)

The future feels fucked

Persona 5 Royal
by Atlus
Released in October 2022 on Nintendo Switch

What the fuck am I even supposed to write? What utility is there in visibility, in standing on my internet soap box and again declaring that I am both trans and the child of immigrants, and that neither should disqualify me from existing? I know it’s okay to feel despair, but it’s exhausting to have to make contingency plans for any number of plausible nightmare scenarios. Practicing for gigs and playing shows has helped distract me the past few months, but I have nothing lined up after March, and there’s an increasingly likely chance that neither of the two jobs I gambled my whole livelihood on will pan out. Besides, is theater what I really want? Do I even like guitar? Every time I see some shredder dude on the internet, I think, This is the stupidest fucking instrument and I am completely wasting my time.

The future feels fucked.

Now I’m sinking myself into video games like I did early in the pandemic: compulsively, longingly. Last Friday, thinking I was close to finishing, I played Persona 5 Royal for twelve hours straight, moving to a seat near an outlet whenever my Switch got low on battery. But for all my progress, I was woefully underleveled by the time I reached the final boss. It was a hopeless, drawn-out battle, and I had to watch the ending on YouTube.

I started P5R around a year and a half ago, before this latest round of shit hit the already shit-stained fan. It took about twenty hours to really draw me in, which is wild to think about since I’ll give up on books after five minutes. I knew from the start that the game centered plucky, idealistic teenagers who changed the hearts of corrupt adults. But (spoiler alert) I had no idea how much the narrative would explore how populist autocrats rise to power through both the exploitation of and consent from an electorate motivated by fear. So much for escapism.

Yet I found comfort in the game’s life sim elements—the daily routine of strengthening bonds among characters, boosting stats through various activities and mini-games, the requisite crafting/min-maxing in any JRPG. There’s a delicate balance between structuring time and leaving room for player agency that’s particularly appealing when you’re an underemployed homebody asshole who often needs help feeling like life has purpose, direction, momentum, etc.

And then you get to kill monsters. Or, at least, the monstrous parts of people’s souls.

I don’t think there’s anything noteworthy about adults playing video games. But maybe there’s something to unpack as a forty-two-year-old woman immersing herself in a power fantasy about youth. We all want to feel like we’re in control, that we’re growing stronger, that we can change the world. Ageism tells us we lose relevance as we rack up the decades, and that there’s no hope for those of us without long-term careers once our faces start to sag. I liked P5R enough to buy Persona 4 Golden, and I’m really looking forward to sinking another 120+ hours into the series. But it would be nice to look beyond the franchise and have an avatar my age who isn’t a soldier or a cop.