When compared to adult life, junior-high seems like a piece of cake. Just do your homework, maybe join a club and, if there’s time, find some part-time work to earn some Friday night pocket money. Senior year is still a long way off, so there’s nothing to worry about, right? Wrong. Despite your best intentions, a wild card is constantly at play: love, or something like it. So, how do you maneuver the tricky waters of attraction and romance? Well, for one, don’t base your moves off of Persona 3 Portable.
While an exceptionally enjoyable game, the 3rd entry in the Persona series doesn’t exactly present a paradigm of relationship integrity. In fact, it’s just the opposite. For a game that revolves around building connections with those in your social sphere, it seems strange that it would allow such careless incidents of infidelity among those within your Shadow-fighting circle, as well as your classmates at Gekkoukan High.
There’s this old song by The Foundations titled, “Build Me Up Buttercup”. Like many songs in the 1960s, it was an uptempo track about misery brought on by unrequited love. Maybe it wasn't Colin Young’s plan, but the song encapsulates the plight of the female students who got involved with me and my two-timing—albeit charming—character in Persona 3.
My first target was the extremely fit and perky Yuko Nishiwaki: manager of the sports club. She’s a little insecure about her diet, worried about being a good role model for the younger freshmen athletes, and nervous about a past relationship with a basketball player. Due to the game’s no-brainer selection of dialogue responses, winning her over was like shooting fish in a barrel. At this point in the game, my Charm ranking wasn’t so high, but for Yuko, it was just fine. Just be a supportive guy, say the right thing, and she eventually caves. I soon became someone she could trust with her secrets, someone who might be a decent future father, and someone who she could show off to her bitchy friends at Paulownia Mall. And me? Well, I was content. Yuko was ambitious, smart and caring. What else could I want? However, Persona 3 had other plans.
Once I’d maxed out the relationship level with Yuko, she stopped interacting with me. No more lunchtime meetings, no more bright red exclamation points glaring over her head, begging me to click and engage. No, those times were long gone. To the game, I’d gotten my Arcana with which to create a Persona and that was the extent of our relationship. It was time to move on.
This wouldn’t be the last time. Throughout the 50+ hours of gameplay, Persona 3 heavy-handedly pushes the act of forging relationships with peers, then dumps them once you’ve drained them dry for their Arcanaas. Some of the bonds are actually tough to achieve. For example, the first person you meet in the game, the petite pink-wearing Yukari Takeba, is a real challenge. In order to even talk to her in a non-NPC capacity, you’ve got to get your Charm stats to a Rank 6, which equates to Charismatic. I can’t tell you how many nights I spent sipping 'performance'-enhancing tea and bussing tables until midnight at Chagall Cafe in Paulownia Mall for that status.
Once the red exclamation point appeared over Yukari’s head, I finally had a chance. However, I had a guilty sinking feeling in my guts: what about Yuko? I hadn’t talked to her in weeks. Was she still even mine? Apart from the game's tepid warning that Yuko might get jealous if she's me talking to someone else, there was nothing to stop me from dating and ultimately winning Yukari’s love. Hell, it was almost encouraged. I felt like I was cheating on Yuko, but, once again, the game seems to absolve you of any wrongdoing granting you even more power and Persona capabilities.
So, what? That’s the takeaway? Just jump from relationship to relationship and milk it to your own ends? No, there’s got to be a better way. The end result of chatting up the opposite sex only to ditch them and score a magic card doesn’t justify the means. It’s lazy, misogynistic, and presumptuous. Moreover, it’s not even accurate. Atlas, do you even remember junior high school? If your partner caught you even glancing at someone else, you’d be begging them for forgiveness, or find yourself out on your ass, flying solo once more.
It pays then to consider a more progressive and mature approach. For example, when making a connection, perhaps give the characters more than a two-dimensional personality that doesn’t include them going completely ga-ga for the player. Not every conversation with the opposite sex needs to end up resulting in an all-out confession of love. Maybe even have instances where you interact with characters and their significant others, thus creating a plutonic connection. It's also possible to maintain polyships that aren’t there just to appease your ego. Even breakups can be handled diplomatically, like in Legend of Korra - poor Mako might end up dateless but both his ex-girlfriends find love together. Without resorting to the lax trope of assuming everyone wants your bod just because you're holding the controller, it’s possible to create an even more interesting dynamic between the characters.
Despite being a part of the same team as Yukari, my last fling was with the blond android-weapon Aegis, who, in all honesty, was who I was hoping to ultimately end up with. As a sentient robot increasingly cognizant of her own “life”, her affection was my most treasured. Her self-doubt wasn’t about her weight, or about her relationship with her parents, but an existential dread about her own existence. At the end of Persona 3, it’s Aegis who stays with you and pledges her undying love. It’s Aegis who sits next to you while you sleep peacefully on the school’s rooftop. And it’s Aegis whose final scene feels the most intimate, as she gives you the key to her synthetic heart. Now that's love. But was I just a pawn in Atlas’ sick game of romance? If you were ultimately destined to be with Aegis the entire game, then why force to you break all those innocent hearts beforehand?
Junior high is a confusing time, but the bewilderment can turn to unbearable agony once a broken heart enters the mix. If you want to make it more realistic, Atlas, perhaps create some consequences for cheating on your significant other, or at the very least, don’t assume every member of the opposite sex wants you, no matter how much tea you guzzle down. As the song goes, build me up, Buttercup, don't break my heart.