Say you just spent 100 hours finishing Persona 5. You feel exhausted, satisfied, probably a little sad. Here’s something fun you can now do.
Now that you’re done, think back to a million years ago when you first started the game. You played through the first half hour, named your protagonist, and flashed back to his arrival in Tokyo. You went to bed for the first time and woke up in the velvet room. That’s when you first met Igor.
If you’ve played past Persona games, you probably heard Igor speak and thought… what? Why does Igor sound so weird? Did they re-cast him? Why? I miss the old Igor! If you had any friends who were playing the game along with you, you probably talked about it. Can you believe the new Igor? What the heck, right?
Now that you’ve finished, of course, you know that was all a subtle joke. That wasn’t Igor! That was Yaldabaoth, the God of Control, pretending to be Igor.
Secure in that knowledge, it is fun to go on Twitter and search “Persona Igor Voice” and smile along with the people who are all reacting to Igor’s voice for the first time. I did this several weeks ago, then again yesterday, and the results were much the same.
I don’t mean to blow up anybody’s spot or anything, because we all had the same reaction. I know I did, at least. Most of us probably came to the same conclusions, too. Maybe the original Igor voice actor was unavailable?
Maybe the developers decided to go a different direction? Most of us did not guess that perhaps the real Igor had been taken captive and replaced by an ancient God, nor that he would triumphantly return in time for the game’s conclusion.
All of us at Kotaku had similar reactions. Back when it came out, I remember mentioning his new voice to my colleagues, and wasn’t it jarring? After I had finished, I saved this enjoyable Slack exchange for posterity:
I started a New Game Plus last night, and it’s definitely been cool to replay the beginning of the story while knowing how everything plays out. You notice things, like some of the dialogue exchanges during the initial interrogation scene, or the fact that the twins each have an eye patch over a different eye. You look forward to the line about pancakes.
All of which is to say: If you’ve finished Persona 5, it’s fun to go back and appreciate the twists that were hidden in plain sight.
Comments
2 responses to “Here Is A Fun Thing To Do If You’ve Finished Persona 5”
I just finished the first palace last night. Thought his voice was weird. saw the spoiler warning but just thought you were being overly cautious. Damn.
I’m surprised no mention of the Original VA dieing prior/during P5 development.
I was about to say, this is why the twist is really good because most people who knew the Japanese VA had passed away immediately just went “the new voice is weird, but i guess they wanted to try something different and respect the original VA”.
What’s even crazier is that i’m pretty sure when the devs were asked they basically said “This Igor is a bit darker than previous ones” which was actually a huge hint to that twist.
What sucks is there was an opportunity to bring the original English voice back. The actual Igor shows up at the very end, and he has a different voice as well. I think it’s Kirk Thornton doing an impression.
Apparently the Japanese version uses recycled speech of the old guy. I kind of wish they’d done that in English; having the original voice would’ve made his comeback more awesome, Instead it’s like “Oh. okay then.”