Day 165, Game 165 - Persona 4 Golden

I admit, I have a biased opinion when it comes to certain games. It's built in and ingrained into my gaming DNA, and not matter what I do to change it or be more open minded, I just can't fight nature. 

With racing games, I feel like they are all the same time and time again, and I equate my boredom with NASCAR to a contributing factor in my bias. Fighting games feel like they are made for people with stupid-ridiculous hand-eye coordination, and while the average gamer can have some fun playing them, only the elite will ever get good at them.

And then there are JRPGs. Oh, the one genre of games that I can't find interesting to save my life. With the exception of Ni No Kuni, I can't remember any JRPG ever exciting me and keeping my interest. I don't know if it is the art style, the language barrier, the themes or what, but JRPGs are usually the very last type of game I would ever want to play. 

With that being said, this year long project is all about expanding my horizons, playing games I've never experienced before and over all celebrating all that is video games, whether I have preconceived biased opinions or not. If I just played games I liked this whole year, I wouldn't have very much context for comparison, thus eliminating a crucial aspect of accountability and credibility I hold so dear.

A friend of mine bought Persona 4 Golden a few months back, mainly because of his desire to have a lengthy game to sink dozens of hours into on his Vita. He muscled his way through it, and while he didn't Platinum it, he put enough quality hours into his first play through that he felt comfortable calling it done. With The Last of Us coming out today, he had planned on trading in Persona 4 Golden to help with the cost of the new game, but before he did that, he wanted me to at least try the game. He knew that unless he gave me the game himself to play, I would never take it upon myself to hunt it down and give it a shot. 

Honestly, I don't know what his true motivation was for wanting me to play this game, because he knew better than anyone that I would hate it. Maybe he wanted to see if this game, the creme de la creme of handheld JRPGs apparently, could sway my biased opinion about the entire genre. This game did get incredible reviews, and I could understand his excitement in wanting to share that experience with me. But with me, of all people? Good try, James.

I played it. I gave it a decent shot, despite knowing ahead of time I would hate it. And honestly? It bored me to death. The characters did nothing for me, the storyline was non-existent in my mind, and the visual style did nothing for me at all. I didn't like how the game played, the combat system was adequate at best, and honestly, I just didn't see what all the hype was about.

I tried. Maybe I didn't go in unbiased, but I really wanted to see what all the fuss was about. And I didn't. All it did for me was make me want to play more Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

At least I got something good out of it, right?

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