The strange appeal of School-based games

Saved by the bell

When you're the one in School, the only thing you can possible think about is getting the hell out of there as expediently as humanly possible, but the second you're spat out the otherside of education into the harsh and unforgiving world, it is that very comfort of scholastic structure that you find yourself longing for. Which may lead into one of the reasons why so many out there find the school-based style of video game so very appealing to their sensibilities; because it reminds them of a time where it felt like anything was possible and the world was boundless. Both things which, as anyone above school age will tell you, are not preeminent truths of the world. But to the point; isn't it strange that such a theme is present in some of the most popular and/or beloved games of their genre; is there something transcendent, or simply just profound, hidden in the formula of the school system? And no, when I'm talking about this style of game I'm not lauding up games like 'Yandere Simulator', I'm more talking classics like...

Life is Strange. I know I have my issues with DONTNOD and every single one of their games, and the original Life is Strange is no exception to that rule, but I would have to be delusional not to see the profound effect that series has had. Heck, it's got three games and a spin-off related to it's characters; that has to count for something! Only the first Life is Strange, and the spin off, is school based, but it remains a favourite in many people's eyes for it's characterisation of a young girl going through the year of her Art School university whilst struggling with fantastical powers and the doom their coming has hastened. DONTNOD made heavy use of the typical power tropes that arise around School structures in order to explore sensations of being outcasted and popularity dynamics in a lesser sense, and explore relationships and how younger people connect on a deeper, and consequentially more painful, level to one another. I think they didn't really did anything meaningful with that position; but I am in the vast minority, it would seem.

One such game I have a much easier time getting behind is the Rockstar classic Bully, because of course. Bully is a game that takes the typical open world formula of Grand Theft Auto, completing missions across a slowly expanding world as your social prestige and means increase, and shrinks it into a tightly packed town dominated by Bullworth Academy. Here Rockstar explores the tropes of school society again, although through their typical hyper exaggerated lens that blows up this image into school factions defined by their tropey identity, which are toyed about with throughout the narrative as hardcore competitive gangs might in other Rockstar games. Bully painstakingly goes through each aspect of School life to make it work as an open world game, from having a time-table for which ignoring it earns you the ire of School Prefects that will hunt you down as Police would, to attending lessons that present you with minigames which award abilities that upgrade the open world exploration experience for completing them.

Bully presents a fantasy where the player, a delinquent who has been kicked out of every school they've ever been to, is a scrappy underdog in a world of liars and cheats where School is an extension of the hard streets outside. It feeds into that fantasy of school life that some like to indulge in, which mixes the comfort of living in a world of structure with the thrill of being that wrench in the system who stands up to the motes of power and 'breaks the wheel' to quote that one series. There's less an examination of actual School life in Bully, and more a use of it as a blanket on which typical GTA worlds are projected; but given how attractive those worlds of crime already are, the translation prints out perfectly and then some. There's something honestly a little insightful about portraying the social hierarchy of school-life as a literal microcosm of adult society which helps make the Bully package just infectious with it's charm. That's probably why people have been eager for a sequel for so very long now.

But of course, this idea could not exist in my head for a whisper of a second without Persona soon following suit. The ATLUS spin-off from their much more existential JRPG franchise, Persona has blown up into their main money maker on account of the premise and execution being just so darn approachable. You don't have to get into some strange new universe where people have cat ears on their heads, or it's entirely acceptable to have half your body covered in blue paint; instead you're lured into a seemingly normal scholastic world that is slowly turned on it's head by the introduction of over worldly elements in a manner not so dissimilar to the set-up for 'Jojo's Bizarre Adventure'. Which is fitting, because apparently Persona was inspired for some of it's choices by the good work of JoJo. Which makes sense; the way these games use Personas is actually quite similar to how Araki uses Stands.

It's the school setting in particular which is perhaps the biggest hallmark of Persona in it's distinction from Shin Megami Tensi; because whereas you can expect your big JRPG battles to play out with the very familiar and fun 'weakness'/'strengths' elemental combat system which ATLUS rock, the downtime for these games are almost just as, if not more, important than the action. You attend school on the daily, plan out your extra-curricular activities, work on building yourself as a person, and grow closer to the community all around you. It's a recipe for self improvement that feels utterly idealised when read out as a laundry list, but when gamified like ATLUS does it, that concept becomes approachable and heartfelt. The terrestrial school-kid setting of Persona humanises the setting and the characters so that they feel real and their struggles become just as real. Identifiability is really the key here.

By and large we keep coming back to this sense of 'grounding' that the school trope brings to the stories it's implemented in. Because attending and learning at school is a sort of experience that most everyone can relate to, and thus requires less of a investment to become attached to. If you want to then use that setting to tell some mundane story about school life or an exaggerated commentary on societal cliques; the way forward has been smoothened by the intrinsic personal connection that the player has immediately established with their setting. Of course with that comes risk, as some people find the setting to be too mundane or pastiche; but for the moment it would appear that the general winds of fandom have blown to favouring these styles of story for the moment; which is why even as companies like ATLUS expand their horizons with other styles of games, it's the tantalizing promise of a Persona 6 which has most of their western fans frothing at the mouth.

There's definitely an art to nailing this style of presentation and a balancing game stringent on the genre you're working with. I happen to think that the Bully version of this trope is perhaps a tad annoying with the whole 'truancy' system, and I think Life is Strange is just generally hammy in most of it's significant direction choices (particularly the supernatural stuff; but Max being a cookie-cutter 'not like the other girls' protagonist didn't help things) and Persona is my Golden boy because of course it is, I love that thing. But everyone who is a fan of school-set games have their own compunction, whether because it reminds them of the structure of school life that they love, or see games as a wish fulfilment for how they wished a personally turbulent part of their lives would have gone; there is something special here for everyone. Unless you hate school-based games and wish ATLUS would spend their efforts on literally anything else. Those people exist too. I see you.