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Noise Machine
Persona 5, Noise, and the accessibility of beauty
In 2016, Persona 5 exploded onto the PlayStation 4 in such a way that you might think the colour red hadn’t existed before. In its insatiable visual language and its defiance of the quotidian standards of Japanese role-playing games, there was hope the era of flicking through boring menus was over. If nothing else, it certainly fired a shot across the bow of its competitors.
A spin-off of the popular Megami Tensei series, Persona isn’t completely distinct from most JRPGs. Its turn-based combat between teams of characters, supplemented by magic, monsters, and items places it firmly within the genre. Pokémon meets Final Fantasy. Indeed, its first two volumes could be mistaken for Square Enix’s flagship franchise — so similar was the visual presentation of the games.
What set Persona apart at the beginning was its narratives. Persona employed the fundamentals of…
