NEO: The World Ends With You And Persona 5 Are Two Sides Of The Same Coin

Both say the same thing in different ways.

You Are Reading :NEO The World Ends With You And Persona 5 Are Two Sides Of The Same Coin

It’s impossible to avoid comparing Persona 5 and NEO: The World Ends With You. Back when the TWEWY sequel was first revealed, some were quick to call it out for ‘copying’ Persona 5, while others pointed out that it looked identical to the first game, which predated Persona 5 by a decade. At the time, I wrote about how it doesn’t matter if Persona 5 is the reason you’re excited for TWEWY; the two games are similar, after all. Being JRPGs set in Shibuya and revolving around kids empowered by rebellion and justice, such a comparison is natural and healthy regardless of which came first (TWEWY, btw). Overall, it feels like TWEWY is more consistent than Persona 5, but less proficient.

That might sound a little confusing, but it’s actually very straightforward. Basically, TWEWY is on it all the time. It never forgets what it’s about, goes back on what it’s trying to say, or loses its messaging. There’s a free-spirited nature to The World Ends With You that remains throughout the game, flowing through the veins of every lead. Meanwhile, Persona 5 slips in and out of its own ideas, often contradicting itself, undercutting its themes, and getting its story threads so tangled you can’t tell what it believes. When it has an idea though, it shouts it from the rooftops.

Here’s a small example – there’s a general anti-authority feeling to TWEWY. It deals with young, fashionable kids being repeatedly screwed over by rules they didn’t create in a game they don’t even want to be in. That’s a somewhat obvious metaphor for the disaffected youth and the shortsightedness of governments when it comes to the Zoomers. Persona 5 doesn’t rely on metaphors. Haru explicitly says “we despise cops” in Persona 5 Strikers. There are layers of metaphorical context on top of this in Persona 5’s base game, but when Strikers says ACAB, it says it with its whole chest.

However, Persona 5’s directness costs it when it gets its storylines all mixed up. P5’s bosses are framed as the Seven Deadly Sins, each acting as the embodiment of one of humanity’s greatest vices. The first one, Kamoshida, is lust. There are many ways you might choose to illustrate lust, from a philandering spouse to a pimp. But remember, Persona 5 leans into its own extremes, and so the game offers up a gym teacher guilty of grooming and molesting his students.

There’s nothing wrong with Persona 5 using a more extreme example – for a game involving high schoolers, having the first villain be a teacher is relatable, and sadly there are teachers guilty of these behaviours. On the whole, Kamoshida is done very well – we’re left with no doubts as to what he has been doing, but without seeing anything to sensationalise his abuse. Kamoshida faces clear consequences for his actions and there is a suitable aftermath that underlines how traumatic the situation is.

I’ve often felt that Ann Takamaki, one of Kamoshida’s victims, is a more fitting protagonist of Persona 5, since she’s the only one who is forced by the game to move on without confronting her past. Mostly though, Kamoshida is a very difficult character to portray in a way that is both unflinching in its criticism and sympathetic in what details it forces audiences to deal with. Unfortunately, Persona 5 can’t back this up.

For one thing, consider the aforementioned Ann Takamaki. She has been groomed by Kamoshida, and while it appears she was not physically molested, there are deep psychological scars for her – especially given that she sees the naked doppelgänger who lives in Kamoshida’s Palace in loving servitude to him. However, we don’t see any evidence of these scars. In fact, women in Persona 5 as a whole are treated pretty poorly, and Ann is repeatedly objectified by members of the group. Immediately after her ordeal, she is told the only way she can stay in the group is if she strips naked for a stranger so the boys in the group can investigate him.

It’s not just Ann though. Despite setting the table with such a bold villain choice, Joker – our high school-aged protagonist – is encouraged to romance several adult women throughout the game, including his teacher. In this instance, the game flips the power dynamic, with Joker keeping her second job a secret in exchange for her doing his chores, giving him leeway at school, and eventually, starting a romantic relationship with him. It’s very odd that these two scenarios exist within the same title. There’s also the fact that Persona 5 is all about young rebellion and social justice in a time of upheaval, but is incredibly uninclusive, using gay characters for the butt of the joke. Perhaps Persona 6 could fix that with a queer lead.

These differences translate to gameplay as well. Both are very fashion forward games in how every character is designed, but TWEWY goes for the haute couture look, fresh off the streets of Harajuku. Persona 5 is more heavily stylised, and again objectifies Ann by putting the teenage girl with sexual trauma in a latex catsuit and making her talk like a stripper. Even their gameplay feels incredibly similar, with the team approach, different powerups, and hyper designed enemies, but TWEWY goes for action-combat carnage while Persona 5 is more methodical with turn-based fights. Persona swapping squadmates in and out is analogous to TWEWY’s pins. Both games even exist in an ‘anti-world’, something that both is and isn’t the everyday streets of Shibuya.

TWEWY is not quite as bold as Persona 5. It has big ideas, but doesn’t shout them as loudly or as confidently as Persona 5 does. It’s not quite a subtle game – it fully leans into being a video game in a loud, colourful explosion of energy – but it prefers to let the player draw their own conclusions. We need games like this, games that trust their audience, but we also need titles like Persona 5 that shout “we despise cops” from the rooftops. Gaming is getting better at confronting huge concepts, and these two games are a massive part of that journey in importantly different – but slightly similar – ways.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/neo-the-world-ends-with-you-vs-persona-5/