I’ve been playing through Golden again in its entirety and I have decided I Do Not Like It
The way that Golden implements the new scooter mechanic actually ends up making Yosuke one of the least likeable characters.
No really, remember the scene where Yosuke plans to feel boobs against his back by buying a motorcycle and persuading women to ride behind him?
I was uncomfortable with it when I played it several years ago, but revisiting it now, especially after comparing it to similar scenes that remain from the original game, it feels more like gratuitous fanservice than anything else, and (dare I say) it is extremely out of character for Yosuke.
So here we are. I have some thoughts.
Let’s take a look at something that happens around the same point as the added Golden scene, but is in the original game – Rise’s introduction.
When Rise first appears on the Midnight Channel, Yosuke calls Yu up to confirm what they’ve both seen. Yosuke says “That was Rise for sure!” and choosing the “I dunno…” option prompts this line.
The next day, when Chie brings up that Rise “seemed different” on the Midnight Channel, Yosuke instead says this:
There’s no question that this is performative (right down to smacking Kanji on the back), and is specifically intended gauge Kanji’s reaction, while also making a dig at Chie with the comparison of Rise’s “slim” legs to her own.
We already know from the night before that he really recognized Rise from her hairstyle.
Sure, he also fanboys over Rise when he first meets her, but once the initial excitement of meeting a celebrity wears off and he recognizes that she’s not the bubbly, carefree idol he knows from TV (and that she’s likely the culprit’s next target), he gets down to business and starts treating her the same as anyone else.
Just like we see with Yukiko, Yosuke is “interested” in the idea of pretty girls more than actually dating them. Once he starts talking to them, he switches gears from superficial city-boy Yosuke (that he himself says he had to invent in order to fit in with his old friend groups) to the real Yosuke.
By now, it’s well-established that Yosuke acts different around the protagonist than he does with the rest of the Investigation Team (Yu has seen his shadow, and Yosuke no longer has to put up a front). Even when Yosuke does call Yu up to ask about whether he likes Chie or Yukiko, he’s a lot more hesitant to ask outright.
He promises to keep the talk between them, and is mostly curious to know what Yu’s tastes are (look at his Rank 5 Social Link for more evidence of this). He offers his own thoughts on them depending on Yu’s answer, but never objectifies them.
Here, when he’s talking to Yu about the girls in private, he discusses their personalities and positive traits that he appreciates about them. Should Yu respond with “neither”, Yosuke simply brings up their shadow selves, he doesn’t insult or mention their looks at all.
Now let’s get back to Golden’s added Okina City scene(s).
The most important thing to note here is that he starts out the conversation talking solely to Yu. Less than a month ago, he was quite cautious about asking what Yu’s preference in girls was, but apparently now he’s completely fine walking up to him and saying this.
He goes on about how great it would be to have boobs pressed against his back, how having a motorcycle will make them ooze male pheromones, and generally sounding like the worst “alpha-male” douchebag in the universe.
On top of all this, he seems set on “getting a girlfriend”, even though a large amount of his character arc is based around him not being able to let Saki go (it can even be brought up during this scene, but doesn’t change anything).
Yosuke will casually flirt with the girls at times, and can be excited at the prospect of a potential relationship with a celebrity like Rise, but not once in the original game does he express genuine interest in having a girlfriend after Saki’s death – in fact, this scene actively contradicts several ranks of his Social Link.
Even if you make the argument that he’s “trying to get over her”, he tells Yu directly that he has “something [he] needs to do before [he thinks about having a relationship]” (avenging Saki), and going out of his way to spend all of his money on a scooter because he’s too impatient to wait to buy a full motorcycle makes absolutely no sense.
Yosuke puts his foot in his mouth a lot, says a lot of stupid things about girls, but he’s mostly just blunt and doesn’t think before he speaks (”Pure disappointment when he opens his mouth.”). He’s not as conniving as Golden makes him out to be, and he is certainly nowhere near this vulgar and perverted in the original game.
If this scenario had come anywhere else in the game, I could possibly look past it, but because it comes just before the campout scene, it ends up retroactively making everything he does there seem so much more more nefarious (specifically how he plans to get Yukiko and Chie to wear bathing suits for him).
Personally, I believe this reflects even worse on Yosuke’s character than the infamous tent scene. The fact that it’s all grouped up at around the same time makes it even more egregious, and I can’t fault ANYONE who comes away from this hating Yosuke.
The way that he pressures Kanji into hitting on girls with them is bad enough, but then when they arrive in Okina, he says this as well, which I believe is why he appears SO much more homophobic in the tent scene (which to me when I played the original came across as Yosuke trying to have a genuine – though undeniably horribly insensitive – conversation with Kanji, but when Kanji gets defensive, Yosuke gets scared – which he admits to in that very scene – and everyone knows how that turns out). The second line that he gives (after Kanji leaves and you are able to talk to him alone) explains why he said it (because he knows that Kanji would have an advantage over him if he could also hit on guys) but it’s still inexcusable, and makes Yosuke seem more homophobic for bringing it up during the most “nohomo” scene in the game.
It’s really all just a terribly tone-deaf addition, and that’s made doubly obvious with Hanako’s involvement as the “haha funny fat girl” joke at the end of the scene.
So then, aside from this, how does the “Up Close And Personal” plot affect Yosuke’s character? It’s already made him into a significantly less likeable, blatantly homophobic and sexist asshole; the damage is done, right? Unfortunately not.
In the original game, Yosuke is saving up for a (real) motorcycle, which makes sense – his bicycle is broken, but the reason he doesn’t have the money to replace it is because he’s saving up for a motorcycle.
So, when Chie charges Teddie’s new clothing to him, he says:
This scene does two things:
a) It shows that Yosuke is responsible, has been actively working towards some type of goal, and now because Chie was inconsiderate, he’s going to have to wait even longer to buy his motorcycle. It makes his anger towards Chie seem a little more justified in the following scene.
b) We see him give money to Kanji and Teddie to spend on topsicles, which has more significance now knowing that it’ll set him back even more from his goal.
So there you have it; Yosuke is a sucker when it comes to helping out his friends, and will do so at his own expense… however, in this instance, he’s justified in being upset, because Chie took advantage of that, and seemingly has no remorse.
Now lets look at the changes made to Golden.
Instead of evoking a feeling of sympathy for Yosuke (we’ve seen how frivolously he spent his money on a skeevy plan to pick up girls) it now seems like he’s just taking his anger out on Chie. Sure, it’s his money, and he has the right to be mad at her for charging to his account without asking, but it also removes the other components here that I believe are most important. Instead of being the generous and responsible friend, he’s now shown to be selfish and irresponsible (“I’m broke!”).
He spent ALL of his money on a scooter in order to try and pick up girls; so he’s getting what he deserved, right?
You wouldn’t think that something this seemingly small and insignificant would affect his character much, but it’s the small changes like these that give his character a completely new feel, and this – I suspect – is why so many people who played Golden first get the wrong idea about Yosuke.
Of course, you could argue that Golden being an official release makes all of this canon anyway, but the change is so drastic between the way Yosuke acts in original scenes versus Golden-exclusive scenes that it makes him seem completely disingenuous (and sometimes even malicious) when you put it all together. Other characters have similar issues, but no one gets hit worse by this than Yosuke (aside from maybe Kanji, who becomes even more of a punching bag; the added New Years scene where the IT members laugh and call him “Moronji” for seemingly no reason is a depressing example of this).
While Golden has plenty of quality updates to gameplay, I feel that overall, the additions and changes to story make it hard to defend at times, and at least to me, it’s incredibly disappointing to revisit.