LogFAQs > #975831994

Rise.

For some reason, I was under the impression that Rise was a controversial character with people arguing her merits and shortcomings. That's usually a sign that female character have done something fucked up in the native work, because people tend to paint complex women as irredeemable bitches, but I think I was just mistaken about her reputation. The way she presents herself - at least with the prior misconception I had - is kinda suspicious too, she moves back to Inaba and begins lovebombing the PC and gets involved in the whole thing fairly quickly.

The way I thought things were gonna work out is that Rise was behind the killings, and Adachi was like her enforcer. The killings are related to the media, and she's a media superstar - she killed the newscaster because she had some connection to the politician, she killed the schoolgirl because she was a witness and then she began getting Adachi to meddle with the heroes as they began to thwart her plans. She calls the shots, and Adachi follows her orders - then when shit starts to go south, she moves to Inaba to do it herself.

Though in hindsight, that's basically just one of the Persona 5 antagonists. Maybe I'm just biased.

I thought she was gonna drop the lovey-dovey act and go full yandere, and then her story would take a dark turn as she fell victim to serial abuse in the idol industry and vowed to get to the top and crush everyone who'd ever wronged her - internalizing the abuse she suffered and craving it as a source of power. To that end, she created her own dungeon, "kidnapped" herself and manipulated the narrative to make them think she had a change of heart. The Midnight Channel was born from a moment of sheer shock and despair, leading to a supernatural being latching onto her and manifesting her dark desires as the Midnight Channel to reflect her nature as a media personality, and then the rest of the narrative is more or less the same.

In that equation, I think Adachi would be a creep who was preying on her, only to get murdered by her as a pawn. Like when the abuse happened, Rise went to the police and Adachi was a fucking slimeball to her, and him mistreating her is what caused her to snap and manifest the Midnight Channel as a way of twisting everyone's darker impulses against them and killing them. But in that, she was able to string Adachi along and get him to do her dirty work. The damage he did was very real, but Rise manipulated his nature to get what she wanted and then killed him as a final act of revenge - his name was like #2 on her hitlist. It doesn't conflict with his characterisation too much either, he's already a misogynistic misanthrope.

I dunno, Adachi being the perpetrator just felt kind of flimsy and hollow. He's the goofy funny guy, then he's a serial killer who was Evil All Along. He's not familiar enough for the reveal to be a massive backstab, as likeable as he is, and the twist felt more repellant than engaging to me. It was kind of a wet fart of a reveal. I feel like Rise having a hidden serious side and calling the shots would be one more layer to the twist that could have heightened the conflict.

I also wasn't a big fan of the reveal that the god character did it for shits and giggles. idk, you have the grand scale and edginess of Persona 3 and the stylishness and insurmountable scale of Persona 5, and then the final boss of 4 is some hoity-toity dickhead who's all like "it was all a game to amuse me, *ojou laugh*". I dunno. The pacing and stakes just kinda began to fall apart after that incredible scene at the hospital with the TV.

I guess what I'm trying to communicate is that there was a desire there for a much more dark, substantial twist. I'd never played Persona 4 before this year, and I'd enjoyed the third and fifth games already. There was potential for things to get really fucked up and weird, and it never quite crossed that threshold - again, that hospital scene was probably the closest that the game came to crossing that threshold, it was really fucking good.