Rumor has it thatPersona 4 is going to be getting the Persona 3 Reload treatmentand will be remade for current-generation consoles. On its face, I think this is a fine idea; a lot of people seemed to really enjoy Reload (myself included), andPersona 4 Goldenis certainly showing its age a little bit.
As much as I’ve enjoyed the Persona series, however, I have to admit that I’ve never actually finished Persona 4. While the remake might seem like a good chance for me to do that on account of its presumed updates to some of the older design choices from the base game, I think I’ve decided that I might still sit out the remake when it inevitably launches.
The major problem I had with Persona 4 Golden didn’t have anything to do with the combat or dungeon design, but instead with something much more difficult for Atlus to fix with quality-of-life updates. I stopped playing Persona 4 because I absolutely hate Teddie.
God Won’t Forgive Me For What I Want To Do To That Bear
Teddie is the inhuman mascot character for Persona 4, an archetype that’s been a staple of the series since Persona 3. He’s a giant bear thatonly exists in the Midnight Channeluntil he (spoilers) takes on a human form and is able to join the player in the real world for the second half of the game.
Teddie is one of the most irritating characters ever put in a video game. It feels like there isn’t a single scene that Teddie’s in that he doesn’t ruin by making completely inappropriate, out-of-pocket passes at the women in the party or by interrupting the momentum of the scene for absolutely humorless physical comedy.
When the game starts, Teddie is relatively bearable (no pun intended) since he’s relegated to the Midnight Channel, but when he finally gets a body and starts hanging out with everyone during the day and at school, he invades nearly every scene from then on out.
Teddie is by far the worst part of Persona 4 and that opinion is shared by many diehard fans of the series. He got me to stop playing the Switch release of Persona 4 Golden entirely because I just couldn’t stand to watch another scene about trying to find a serial killer interrupted by the JRPG equivalent of Borderlands’ Claptrap.
NOTE:Before you try to tell me that the reason Teddie is so inappropriate is because he’s a young kid trapped in a teenager’s body, know that I understand that. That background doesn’t make him any less annoying; he’s irritating, regardless of why.
To Remake Or To Revise
While many gaming remakes make changes to the original games to best suit modern audiences, I don’t think that a potential Persona 4 remake would do much to change Teddie for the better. The problems I have with Teddie are so core to who the character is that he’d need a complete overhaul to be ‘fixed.’
I don’t think such a thing is completely out of the question, especially in an age where gaming remakeschange major parts of a game’s story, like in Final Fantasy 7 Remake. However, when looking at how faithful Persona 3 Reload was to its original characters, it doesn’t seem like there’s much hope that Teddie will be significantly different from his original portrayal.
I’m not even convinced that Teddieshouldbe changed for a Persona 4 remake, since I know he has his own fans, but it’s just unfortunate that one of gaming’s best RPGs seems like it’s going to be reimagined and that I might have to sit it out on account of one character having some truly awful writing. It’s such a shame since there are plenty of kids in the Persona series who aren’t terrible to talk to. I just wish Teddie was written like Nanako, Ken, or Maiko.
Who knows,maybe the remake will make some changesto Teddie’s writing and make him a little bit less… likethat, but if he gets dialed back, the character will start to lose a lot of the things that made him who he is in the first place.
If, when the remake is inevitably announced, it looks like Teddie is going to continue to be his awful, old self, I might just wait to play the game on PC until someone mods it to make Teddie more bearable,like they did with the original Persona 4 Golden Steam release. While he’s not fixed, the mod cuts out a lot of the worst bits of Teddie, which I suppose is all I can ask for.
I’m hoping Atlus has at least seen some of the fan pushback to Teddie in the 15-ish years since Persona 4 came out, and they have some ideas on how to fix him for the remake.
