Quote Originally Posted by Skyblade View Post
The Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series was started as an exploration of psychology. This is why it was called Persona, after the mental mask people wear as theorized by Carl Jung. The first few games, however, didn't really stand apart in this area. Certainly, they dealt with some psychology, but except for the world lore, I felt it never really grappled with psychological issues. The events and powers may have a new name, a new mask, but they are still the same sorts of things that would happen and occur in the standard series. We face Philemon and Nylarthotep, but we don't really get a grasp on the true nature of their conflict.

Persona, Persona 2: Innocent Sin, and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. They are fantastic games, no doubt. But they never really fulfilled the goal the games had from the beginning of being a study of psychology. There wasn't enough there to differentiate them from Devil Survivor, Digital Devil Saga, or any of the other spinoffs. It wasn't until Persona 3 that I feel the series became its own series, rather than a spinoff of Shin Megami Tensei.
I'm going to have to disagree with you on most of this, technically I would argue that P3 has the least to do with human psychology of the series.

Persona 1, the SEBEC story arc deals with a machine powered by a forsaken child that has allowed her splintered consciousness to create a parallel world that is a mismach of her ideal version of reality and some of her darker wish fullfillments. Hell the demons in the story are simply manifestations of her mind and not true demons like MegaTen, the party seeks to help their friend Maki's whose consciousness has split into the Freudian psychological trinity of Ego (Ideal Maki), Super Ego (Mai), and her Id (Aki) of whom the party must face and eventually get them all back into the real Maki so she be healed and accept her fate.

In the Snow Queen Arc of the game, the school is transformed into three towers where the student body is allowed to let their unconscious desires run free as we watch bullies get tortured and other inhuman acts of depravity.

An underlying theme throughout P1 is the cast dealing with change from being a student and becoming an adult. Maki's illness makes her fearful for the future, Nanjo worries about being a worthy successor to his family company and his own guilt of admiring Kandori, Reiji deals with his own identity issues as he has a bad rep that is made worse by the actions of his brother.

Persona 2, the game completely revolves around the two groups dealing with both the "Masks" society has placed on them, and their own dark sides. I mean the Shadow selves debuted in P2. JOKER in both incarnations is a being that grants hidden desires and the whole mess with rumors was caused by Nyarlathotep betting that humanities own self-destructive desires would be it's downfall and surprisingly this has been the main theme of the series in relation to the supernatural threat that appears.

Tatsuya deals with his resentment with his father, his fear of the future, and later on, his guilt for his failure to save his reality.

Maya deals with her own father issues, the trauma of being nearly killed, and forgiving the people who hurt her out of love.

Lisa deals with her isolation due to her non-Japanese heritage, the stigma it gives her in society, and the fear that her feelings for Tatsuya is a coping mechanism for all of this. Not to mention we once again have resentment issues against her father.

Eikichi deals with his body image issues, hides his true self and his less than desirable past behind a fake personality of absolute confidence and badassness, his fear of his father and the fact he has to hide his true dreams from him, and his own insecurities created from years of being picked on as the "fat kid".

Jun has to deal with both his parents being messed up and the resentment it caused, his trauma of being bullied by the other kids and thinking his weakness caused the death of his "Big Sis" and the betrayal he felt from all of this.

Yuki still has to deal with her confidence issues in relation to what she wants out of life. She's in love but can't bring herself until it's too late to really act on those feelings.

Katsuya deals with both his sense of justice in the face of a world that doesn't gel well with it as well as his estranged relationship with his brother Tatsuya as well as his own dealing with their disgraced father and the stain it left on the family name.

Ulala deals with her own self image issues, her bad relationships, and her jealousy of Maya who is the less than ideal woman but still gets guys flocking to her.

Baofu is dealing with his past and the death of his partner. He's almost hit bottom due to his obsession for revenge and has lost most of his shred of morality to achieve his goals.

Hell even Nanjo and Eriko are still dealing with coming to terms with Kandori and the P1 MC by P2's time. Not to mention their own insecurities about being a worthy heir to the Nanjo group or dealing with the pit-falls of being a celebrity.

The original Masked Circle was created by a group of kids trying to use their playtime to run away from their problems and it all goes out of control from a supernatural phenomena. The rumors given life in IS are more silly and fanciful because they stem from what adolescents and teenagers want, while the rumors from EP deal with more adult fears.

I mean half these character arcs are pretty much re-used for P4 and a few for P3.

Eternal Punishment explains the real conflict of Philemon and Nyarlathotep to the player, the tow of them are "gods" created from the collective unconsciousness of man one representing mankind's positive elements and the other it's negative qualities and their conflict is simply trying to prove which side of human nature is the strongest. I mean the whole game is one giant character analysis of both it's cast and the human spirit. I can't think of a game that does a better job of really getting into everyone's head.

P3 certainly deals with death but it's theme in my mind is really more about the choices we make in being aware of our mortality and realizing we can't take them back once they are made, which is beautifully portrayed by the game's calendar system. Death is a catalyst for the choices some characters make but in truth it's now how the characters handle the death that is the problem as it was losing their reason to fight or shaking up the issues of it. P3 does a great job but I feel it was more subtle than it's companions in really exploring it's psychological themes whereas the rest of the series is not.

For me, the issue I do have with P3 and especially P4 is that I feel the games have made the series much too soft in comparison to their predecessors. The games spend too much time in the light of the social masks that people wear whereas the earlier games were more about making the uglier side of humanity a physical thing that has to be dealt with, and then showing that the fight is an eternal one. This is partly why I do like The Answer for instance cause I felt it really brought P3 full circle inline with P2's themes. P4, as I said, has just become too soft, I prefer the series to stick to it's darker roots, it's why I prefer the more melancholic P3 to the overly idealistic P4.