Vicarious Gaming 101: Not So Vicarious Anymore

I realize that I have somewhat neglected this column over the last few weeks so I jumped on the internet this morning with the intent to fix that.  As I sat down to write this I realized the reason I’ve neglected this is because it’s reached a point where I feel like I’ll just be regurgitating the story of a game that many of you probably played years ago.  For those of you out there who are interested let me fill you in quickly.  We got some new summons (Bahamut is a badass), we rocked Seymour’s face (again) and now we are in the Calm lands moving forward.  Now that the story business is out of the way let’s have a little chat.

Originally I imagined this vicarious gaming idea to be a way that I could experience games that normally I wouldn’t play by myself and at the beginning it served to be exactly that.  I saw how complicated this game was and immediately my affirmation that I couldn’t handle it felt true.  After spending about 20 hours watching Leah play this game my tune changed a bit as evidenced by my last post on the matter.  Well it has now escalated beyond just thinking about playing an RPG by myself because I totally bought Persona 4.  I know that many of you who are reading this also listen to the podcast so you’ve heard me talk a bit about Persona 4 but I don’t think I’ve properly conveyed exactly how of much of my life is being ruined by this game.

I popped Persona 4 in a few weeks ago because I was bored and didn’t have the energy to concentrate on not being shot in the face in Killzone 2.  The idea of a nice, relaxing, really freaking weird, game was right up my alley.  I played the tutorial section, also known as the the first 3 hours, and I immediately knew this was going to be a problem.  I was genuinely laughing at some of the dialog, having fun with the battle system, and enjoying trying to date japanese school girls a little too much.  Since that time the game has rapidly become an issue.  

When I sit down to play Persona 4 I get completely entranced and I don’t get up for 4 hours.  I have started using words like buff and debuff in conversations with Leah (which totally freaked me out the first time it happened) and I completely obsess over which girl to talk to.  In addition to all of that I have spent more time than I would like to admit fusing Personas so I have the correct skills to deal with bosses. 

I never thought a JRPG would grab me by the back of the neck like this.  Beyond the occasional bought of Pokemon I play almost nothing else except Persona 4 in my game time.  The story is so incredibly weird but at the same time I have to know what happens next because I’ve become attached to the characters, largely due to the really fantastic voice acting and interesting/hilarious dialog.  The combat is turn based but has the spin of exploiting enemy weaknesses to gain extra turns which adds a certain strategy element to the whole thing that I was really not expecting.  I spend time deciding on accessories for certain character members based on their strengths and weaknesses and making sure my fused Persona have abilities that cover the entire elemental spectra so I always have what I need to exploit a certain weakness.

The whole experience of this game has been wonderful so far but it definitely has me wondering, “what happens next?”.  Am I going down a path in my life where my gaming tastes are going to permanently shift or is this a further broadening of my interests?  It’s a question I don’t know the answer to yet but it definitely has me curious about how my game time will be spent as I get older.  There is no doubt that I will always play games but now I am questioning the type of games that I will spend my time with in the coming years.  For now I can see JRPGs sticking around in my rotation which means Leah and I may never actually have a conversation that does not at some point include leveling grinding ever again.  I will also probably spend a great deal of time wondering “did I just really say that shit?” more often than ever before in my life.