11.23.06 - I've gotten an ending in Persona, but I haven't seen maybe half the game. I've spent about 23 hours playing, but have still managed to miss that much. I find this incredibly interesting. The ending, I have to say, did come as quite a shock. I mean, I was ready, after defeating… ahem… Super Guido, to get on to the final stretch, to find out who was really behind everything. But no… a cinema, credits. Cogito Ergosum.

How could I miss so much? Two ways: one bad choice and American-version editing.

Persona fits very comfortably as a console RPG in most ways. Winding dungeons with plenty of dead ends, whose purpose is to give the game time to launch random more encounters against your party, one after another. That was pretty much standard RPG practice in 1996, long before then, and often enough even today. Persona has notable deviations: demon negotiations, the moon system and persona fusion being a few of the big ones. Interesting as those are, however, it is the story branching and the behind-the-scenes stuff that is the most intriguing.

Persona falls into the Mute Hero category of RPGs. Other examples of this type are Chrono Trigger, pretty much any Dragon Quest, and some Final Fantasys. The main character never opens his mouth. Instead, the story is driven by the other party members and NPCs. The motivation for this choice can vary. I wouldn't say that having none of your characters contribute story-wise in Final Fantasy 1 was a design decision to make the experience more immersive. It was likely a more technical reason, such as limited memory. In Persona, though, I think they really want you to see the main character as, well, as you. At several points during the game, the main character is asked direct questions by other characters. You may have two, three or four possible responses, and though they seem totally innocuous at the time, your answers are the fire in which your destiny is forged. In particular, it seems that your answers to the set of questions asked by Mae at the Gingerbread House have a strong bearing on which ending you get. There are several other times, however, where a decision is required: helping a trapped nurse, saving a scientist's life, deciding which of your friend's paintings you prefer, not battling a demon that just might be Mary's mom in disguise, giving your nemesis peace of mind in his final hour and helping a friend discover her purpose in life. If these decisions don't influence the ending as well, then what are they for? In any case, it's not how many demons you killed, how many spell cards you collected, which quests you finished or how long you've been playing. It's questions and answers that lock in your ending.

This connection is not obvious. I will say that it does feel unusual when the main character's portrait comes up and you actually have to make a choice, rather than just tapping a button until the text goes away. It just did not really occur to me, at the time, that my answers had such weight. The questions aren't riddles, either. Those, at least, could have a logic to them that you could potentially work out. They would ask for the names of the three Greek god that protect the area and this would elicit either an "Ah ha! I saw those names in the previous dungeon." or a "Shit. Better reload." Some of them seem to have an obvious moral subtext (such as, it's better to help those in need than not to), but for a few there is no way to calculate the correct answers on your own, so your ability to get the good ending is all luck.

I don't really feel this is bad, just strange. It feels so unfair, yet, so old-school at the same time. Its even more provocative because the bad ending, for which you are almost certainly destined, occurs three-fourths of the way through the quest. If you are on track for the good ending, you will, from what I have read, continue long past this point until the finally confrontation and, ultimately, the good ending. In fact, if you had not read a faq or the back of the box (because who does that), you may not even realize that there is more than one ending and live the rest of your life thinking you completed Persona.

So now I've gotten the inferior ending, missed a rather large portion of the main quest and have no save file at a point before I answered the first question incorrectly. That leaves me with one dread choice: New Game. I don't think I have it in me. It's a good game, but its had its moment and I have to move on the next in an interminable stack of games I have bought but not finished. I have to say though, I really have thought about playing again. The final portion and the real ending just sound cool… and once you know there is more than one, you feel like a chump having gotten the worst one. I do think the whole good/bad ending thing fits better in games that take you 12 hours the first time to play and 3.5 hours the second. Not 23 hours the first and 35 the second.

Then there is the much more insidious, arcane bit of forbidden knowledge… and I've never seen anything like this. It would appear that at some point, with proper conditions fulfilled, that the story in the Japanese version of the game branches completely to lead to an entirely different storyline and set of events. This is not a side quest, this is not Final Fantasy IV's "white dwarf room". This is, instead of completing events A, B and C and getting one of two endings, you instead complete events D,E and F and get one of two other endings. The standard quest (and only quest, in the American version) is taking out Guido and the SEBEC corporation. The other involves piecing a mirror back together and defeating the Snow Queen. In the American release of the game, this storyline has been amputated, wholesale.