Review: Varlet Borrows too Heavily From Persona 4

Furyu has a habit of making games that feel heavily inspired by Atlus’ Persona titles to varying degrees of success. Usually, it’s a little more of a lose representation and homage, even though you can clearly see how Shin Megami Tensei or similar series inspired it. With Varlet, the company’s latest JRPG, it not only is its weakest attempt, but it also pulls so strongly from Persona 4 that it feels like it lacks an identity.

I first started to bring these constant similarities Varlet shares with Persona 4 in my preview. Our character can’t stay at home with his family, so he’s temporarily shipped off to live with his absentee uncle and cousin. (She’s older than him, rather than younger like Nanako.) Immediately in his class, he befriends a girl with short hair in a green jacket with a Chie-like personality and a boy with Yosuke-sort of inferiority and easygoing traits and a similar orange sort of color scheme. They learn that people are getting trapped (or tossed) into the Midnight Channel-like Glitch dungeons, where they are trapped with Desires (Shadows) who attack them. Since our avatar and his two instant friends end up in his cousin’s Student Support Services group at the school, they essentially decide to make it their mission to save folks from those Glitches, starting with the idol (with a pink color scheme and hime style aesthetic like Yukiko) who gets chucked into one of these dungeons. 

While at least ensuing SSS members aren’t as Persona 4 coded in Varlet, the concept is all incredibly familiar in a way that I feel keeps the JRPG from seeing any story or character-based redemption. That’s because so many other elements don’t really feel like they add much to the experience or are handled as well as Atlus or other modern-setting titles. Things constantly feel middling and bland, even compared to past Furyu titles. While it also attempts to touch on issues that high school students would deal with, like bullying and burnout, it’s so surface level that it doesn’t really explore any of them in a fashion that makes it feel like they matter. The Caligula Effect 2 is better at handling those sorts of social issues. 

For example, Varlet really wants to follow the Persona 4 daily life sort of pattern and style. However, there’s no real freedom. When we go through the different periods of the day, there are no moments in class when we’ll need to act or answer questions. There are no after-school clubs or substories that feel meaningful, even though we can go through Character Episodes by “heading home” with SSS members after class. We do get Trust Points that are used to improve their abilities. But I felt like these episodes weren’t as well fleshed out as any Persona Social Links or even the scenarios found in Furyu’s Caligula Effect. Since we can’t see them all, it’s best to only focus on folks we use in battles. Also, there’s no “life” outside of seeing the story scenes, doing some running around in the Kousei Academy to do some busywork for “likes,” and heading into Glitch dungeons. You don’t really talk or interact with anyone else. You don’t take on after school jobs or experience town. You read, wander a courtyard, go into the current chapter’s major Glitch dungeon when it comes up at story related points, then repeat. 

Images via Furyu

Said Glitch expeditions in Varlet also aren’t as interesting or engaging as the Persona 4 Midnight Channel dungeons, by the way. So that doesn’t offer a reprieve or motivation. There are very few Desire enemy types. The Glitches all tend to look the same. There are no real challenging puzzles when exploring. Even the battles themselves aren’t any trouble, especially after you recruit the idol Aruka, who becomes your healer after recovering her from that initial Glitch. While there are attempts to make the turn-based fights more interesting by watching the timeline to see when people might attack, stun enemies, combo with allies, and trigger a Blitz Mode for what sort of feels like the Varlet take on Persona 4 All Out Attacks, it’s all just so easy and unsatisfying. 

Even the one unique element to Varlet ends up feeling poorly implemented. The game begins with a quiz to assess your personality, which then assigns you points in the Altruism, Morality, and Sympathy Light Triad and Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy Dark Triad stats. Yes, getting certain numbers in these can mean you get different response options in conversations or boosts to certain types of attacks and abilities. But at the same time, I didn’t find them all that influential. I did some save scumming and there were times when selecting different dialogue options didn’t make all that big of a difference. It didn’t feel meaningful in the way I hoped.

Images via Furyu

The same goes for the non-scripted SSS Activities segment that happen each day. It almost feels more like that’s an excuse to wander around an open, not-hostile space in the JRPG, since there aren't exploration opportunities otherwise. Students there? They won’t talk to you. You can collect their information, just like in Caligula Effect, but it’s far less interesting than that since it isn’t like they’ll become allies or matter to you. You might find a Glitch to head into, be tasked with placing an ad in one of the few designated, unchanging spots, or have a moment where your response could boost one of your Light or Dark Triad stats. But I didn’t enjoy the flavor text conversations from the folks there and there are no meaningful rewards from actually attending these SSS sessions. 

The only things that I found really memorable were some of Varlet’s design elements, as it is a Furyu JRPG with great music and cool looking characters. Ema and Taiga especially look great. And when everyone transforms when they enter into a Glitch, their in-combat costumes can be very inventive and unique. Due to the nature of its design, it also looks and runs quite well on the Switch. But then, it isn’t the most intensive game, so it would be disappointing if it didn’t.

Varlet suffers from a lack of originality and meaningful activities, and the JRPG relies too heavily on concepts from Persona 4. It’s so bland and hollow compared to other Furyu games, with even The Caligula Effect titles doing a better job of telling a story, offering engaging gameplay, and showing off original characters and concepts. The battles are boring and involve repeated types of enemies. Most characters feel like folks we’ve seen before. There’s no real sense of exploration, as the SSS activities are basic, and I didn’t feel like I connected to anyone in its version of “social links.” Even if you enjoy Furyu JRPG releases, this might be one you may want to skip in favor of replaying one of The Caligula Effect games again instead. 

Varlet is available on the PS5, Switch, and PC. 

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