The Persona 5 trailer is better than a lot of things and here are some of those things
Kyle posted some new Persona 5 screenshots earlier, which got me excited, which got me watching the Persona 5 trailer again, which just got me more excited.
I like when a trailer can turn me on (not sexual). I watch a lot of them, in my line of work (competitive bird watcher/about-videogames writer). I might watch near all of them. And, not unlike movies, trailers have a particular way about them, certain editing tropes, that can be dull. Mostly, though, it’s that the trailer is exactly what you expect. Adam Jensen is an angelic allegory in Deus Ex: Even Yellower Still. Five O’Clock Shadow the Hedgehog does cool explosive stunt things for Just Cause 3. And it’s all compounded when everything is sequels and everything is futurewar and everything is a mash up of existing, successful things.
There are moments of excitement, though. All I saw of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain at E3 last year was a behind-closed-doors trailer and it was enough to sell me. Recently, Little Devil Inside dazzled me with its mysterious promise, even if I’m unsure the game can hit those levels. There was the hand-drawn Cuphead at E3 last year and its 1930’s-style animation.
I was worried about Persona 5. Another JRPG romp would have been fine, sure. It could also have been stale. This was not stale. This was exciting, dynamic, and full of tiny, idiosyncratic flourishes that make me feel alive. The menu screens, the Catherine-cribbed aesthetic, the playable cat.
The first thing I did the morning I knew the trailer would launch was paw around in the dark, eyes half closed, for my phone to watch it and it was somehow as good as I expected it to be despite unreasonable expectations.
But how good is that? We need context. Here are some things that the Persona 5 trailer is better than:
1) Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
2) Having ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife.
3) The love and acceptance of a parent, because a parent is just going to die and leave you alone. Persona 5 will never leave you.
4) The Iditarod.
5) The episode of Seinfeld where Elaine dances badly.
6) When America legalized standing with your feet close together, thus freeing public transport from sweaty, leg splayed wafts.
7) Ants.
8) Some cats.
9) This joke: “Need a friend named Nick so I can say ‘what do you call a guy with no balls?’ Eunuch.”
10) The time 50 Cent’s grandma made him take out the trash and he tweeted, “I’m rich fuck this I’m going home I don’t need this shit.”
11) Brett Makedonski’s basketball game.
12) The time when I was like five years old, playing on the top of a bunk bed. I grabbed the guard rail, looked over the side, and the guard rail came loose, taking me down with it. I split my head open and lost so much blood that I had to be carried around the house (no, of course I didn’t go to the hospital, what am I, made of money?)
12) List posts.
