• (00:00) - - The eery quietness of Persona 4 Golden
• (03:10) - - The Heisei mergers
• (06:15) - - Persona 4 Golden is biased towards tradition
• (06:55) - - Yukiko gives in
• (08:55) - - Kanji's dyes his hair
• (10:56) - - Rise goes back to showbiz
• (12:35) - - These aren't real people
• (13:03) - - Conservatism
• (14:28) - - Tradition for tradition's sake

Thanks to @FazPersona , @shinobuSMT , and @SphericAlpha for game footage

Watch @LadyVirgilia 's video on the Heisei mergers and Inaba: https://youtu.be/gd2YrXqkchM

Watch @BiggeTwig 's "The Development of Persona 4": https://youtu.be/gd2YrXqkchM

Thank you to my $5+ members:
GJ
Jenn Cheung
Mike Turley
Chase Allhart
Zeno
MajesticOstrich
Kim
Silellak

Research Sources:
Katsura Hashino blogs from the old Atlus website

https://web.archive.org/web/20130831132713/http://www.atlusnet.jp/topic/detail/607
https://web.archive.org/web/20140205015317/http://www.atlusnet.jp/topic/detail/650

Podcast interview with Persona 4 dev team

https://web.archive.org/web/20100908090614/https://game.biglobe.ne.jp/colweb/shoku/2010/100902/100902.html

SiliconEra translation and summary of the podcast interview

https://www.siliconera.com/behind-the-design-of-persona-4/

“The Development of Municipal Mergers in Japan” by Kiyotaka Yokomichi

https://clair.or.jp/j/forum/honyaku/hikaku/pdf/up-to-date_en1.pdf

Interview on 1UP.com with Yu Namba and Nich Maragos

https://web.archive.org/web/20130228183558/http://www.1up.com/news/anime-expo-atlus-talks-persona

Interview on 1UP.com with Katsura Hashino

https://megatengaku.wordpress.com/readings/interviews/1up-persona-4-afterthoughts/

Shmuplations translation of Persona Club P4 book

https://shmuplations.com/persona4/

Highlights from the Persona Club P4 book by Tumblr user, adachimoe

https://adachimoe.tumblr.com/post/731417840378347520/random-stuff-from-the-persona-club-p4-book

Toru’s blog on their visit to Fuefuki

https://p4toru.jugem.jp

Toru’s blog visiting the same street as the P4G team did on their tour of towns to base their design of Inaba on

https://p4toru.jugem.jp/?eid=17

Fuefuki on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuefuki

0:00 - My boring question
0:38 - What is Blippo+?
1:17 - Why does JJ love 80s TV?
5:26 - Her analog video work
8:19 - JJ's genius made Blippo+ great
11:59 - JJ's reverence for her collaborators
14:23 - Giving "weirdos" the Holly wood treatment
15:07 - Following her dreams paid off
17:51 - My hope for Blippo+

Before I talked to JJ Stratford, I had a really boring question. Is Blippo+ a video game or a cable service? But she was far more interesting than that question.

Full interview with JJ available on Patreon & Ko-Fi:
https://www.patreon.com/flowstatecrit
https://ko-fi.com/matthorton

Blippo+ is available on Playdate, Steam (PC & Mac), and Nintendo Switch

It was a weird year for video games, but here's my favorite moments among the mess.

• (00:00) - - It was a weird year...
• (01:01) - - and Roger
• (01:48) - - Extra: Persona 4 Golden
• (03:00) - - Dispatch
• (05:15) - - The Séance of Blake Manor
• (06:11) - - Unfair Flips
• (07:20) - - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
• (08:54) - - Extra: Octopath Traveler 2
• (09:56) - - Fretless
• (11:13) - - Fighting Games
• (13:36) - - Q-Up
• (14:45) - - Known Mysteries
• (16:47) - - Citizen Sleeper 2
• (19:19) - - The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy

dotzip's and Roger episode - https://share.transistor.fm/s/570f6f40
Brendon on YouTube - ‪@itswavelengths‬
Stephen on YouTube - ‪@MemoryCardManuscript‬

After 14.5 hours of Demonschool, it’s time to admit that I’m disappointed.

• (00:00) - - Demonschool is disappointing
• (01:14) - - Demonschool's original sin
• (02:45) - - A game that does it better
• (03:22) - - It's not just expectation

Demonschool on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/19...

• (00:00) - - The Séance of Blake Manor
• (01:26) - - Irish AF
• (02:14) - - Deduction in Blake Manor
• (03:09) - - The art

The Séance of Blake Manor on Steam - https://store.steampowered.com/app/13...

It's two days before Halloween, and Declan Ward has been invited to Blake Manor to investigate the disappearance of a woman named Evelyn Deane. She and a number of guests are at the manor ahead of the Grand Séance, an attempt to speak directly to a spirit rather than through a medium. As the player, we navigate Ward through Blake Manor to solve the mystery of Miss Deane's disappearance, yes, but also to discover smaller, personal mysteries.

The hottest game mechanic of 2025 is... coin flipping.

• (00:00) - - Flip a coin with me
• (02:19) - - Number goes up
• (12:11) - - The concept of 20%
• (14:41) - - The "ladder"
• (17:57) - - "Meme games"
• (19:27) - - Commenting on humanity with a coin
• (22:39) - - Committing to the eSports bit
• (26:21) - - Simultaneous invention

Unfair Flips on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/39...
Q-UP on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/37...
Music from the original soundtracks of Q-UP and Cobalt Core

At this point you’re probably aware of the game, Unfair Flips, where you flip a coin with the single goal of getting 10 heads in a row. Northernlion has played it. I’ve already made a Short about the game. The game has reached a meme status that often leads to financial success for these smaller, simpler games.

And in the latest Steam Next Fest, a demo for another coin flipping game has come out. Q-UP is a completely different take on flipping a coin, as impossible as that sounds. Where Unfair Flips is stripped down to only the slightest amount of mechanic on top of the basic probability of a coin flip, Q-UP puts that simple game of chance into the context of eSports. This is a video game that straight up looks like Apex Legends or Overwatch or Marvel Rivals. You have seen a video game UI that looks like this. The design is Fortnite maximalist, including a shop, messages from the developers, a carousel of fake news hits about the game, and even daily challenges. You can actually, really queue up with your friends for coin flipping matches. It is a tongue-in-cheek take on eSports that actually does have an interesting game within it, even if the coin flips themselves are completely random.

These games are wildly different takes on a goofy idea, and the distance between those takes leads to thematic differences that I find really interesting. Yes. The two games where you flip coins both have things they’re trying to say. I promise.

Consume Me is an auto-biographical story of a young girl and the untenable pressures she feels to be a success, whatever that means. It is serious, but it is goofy. The game has sad moments, but it’s not somber. Far more often, it’s really funny, chronicling Jenny’s young adulthood through a series of WarioWare-style mini-games. They are chaotic and funny and messed up in all the ways that real life can often be.

• (00:00) - - A goofy game about real stuff
• (02:19) - - Consume Me's big mechanic
• (04:22) - - What even is this game?
• (06:03) - - It starts out fun...
• (08:42) - - The breaking point
• (12:46) - - The broken ways we seek control
• (16:08) - - Consume Me is extremely well-made

Music in the video is by Ken "coda" Snyder, including some music from Consume Me

Support my work at https://ko-fi.com/matthorton
Read more at https://matthorton.live

Subscribe to Flow State: https://youtube.com/@flowstatecrit

• (00:00) - - Fretless has a magic
• (01:41) - - What is Fretless?
• (02:42) - - Getting QTEs just right
• (09:15) - - The musical theme of Fretless
• (16:27) - - The game is great! And that's it.
• (19:32) - - Fretless almost didn't get made

Fretless on Steam - https://store.steampowered.com/app/2429050/Fretless__The_Wrath_of_Riffson/

Support my work at ko-fi.com/MattHorton

Read more of my writing at https://MattHorton.live