I'll be the first to say that a majority of games are meant to simply be fun. The gameplay's interesting, the background's colorful, the characters say catchy things. They're fun. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. A lot of the games I play, I choose because they make me happy. Usually it's just because they're fun and I enjoy playing them. My favorite type of game, though, are the games that make me think about myself and the things around me. Cyberpunk, Horizon, and Fire Emblem are games that challenge the player to think about the world around them and the people in front of them.
My favorite introspective game completely avoids the subtlety of the ones mentioned previously. It's the type of game that asks you to think of how you view of the world around you and how people interact with one another. The greatest franchise for introspective gaming has to be Persona. Keeping in mind that I've only played 4 and 5, let's talk about what makes these games so special.
To start, the game does a great job of making you care about the characters. They show them for who they are on the outside, who they want to be perceived as. These are the characters that actively live up to every stereotype a jrpg has to offer. Then they show you who they are. A persona is the embodiment of that person, what they truly think and feel and who they are when their not faced with the expectations of society. You get to watch the characters you learned to love, learn to love themselves. That's a huge part of why the game feels so good to play.
The other standout of the persona series is the games ability to face real world problems. The games talk about serious topics like sexual harassment and suicide in a way that's real. You can see and feel how the characters react and, after seeing who they really are, the games makes you feel for them not as characters but as people. You see someone at their lowest, facing the worst possible circumstances, come out on top through their own will and power.
These games feel good to both watch and play in the same way that a lot of games do - the characters who started on the bottom, who see themselves as nobodies, prove that they have worth and that they can make a difference. It's something that people want so horribly to relate to, that doesn't just show them about themselves, but shows them that, faced with who they really are, everyone has the ability to change the circumstances they were born into. That's what makes introspective gaming so powerful to the player - they can relate to it.
Like many of you may be, I'm waiting for the next installment in the series. Persona 5 was a joy to play and started me down a long path of playing these 70+ hour games. I can't wait for the Persona 3 port so I can go into even more detail about this inspiring franchise.
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