The cool air brings with it a plethora of music relating to the holidays and winter season. In the realm of video games, many that feature snow and ice environments contain songs that exemplify the feeling of being in a winter wonderland. Snowflakes from Persona 4 Golden is a song that I find captures this feeling of winter so well, even if it doesn’t necessarily match other seasonal tunes.
To begin with, the song plays during the in-game months of January and February. Since the finale takes place on March 20th, you hear it as the game starts to wrap up. What I like about this song is that it subverts your expectations while giving a sense of closure. Throughout the game, your goal is to catch a murderer in the small town of Inaba, where the murders take place. After learning to trust your friends and yourself, you eventually come to find the truth and catch the killer. This is the song that plays in Inaba after that entire ordeal, where the killer has been caught and your journey is coming to a close.
“Snowflakes falling on your face
A cold wind blows away
The laughter from this treasured place
But in our memories, it stays”
In a game centered around the pursuit of truth, these lyrics exemplify a subtle gentleness of having found that truth. Facing your own truth and having to accept it is as scary as it gets, yet through that acceptance, an opportunity to learn and help others presents itself. I like to think of the “cold wind” blowing away as a false identity the characters once wore. They, with the help of the other characters, were able to move on and accept their true selves. Their memories, both the happy ones and the challenging ones, will stay with them forever because that’s how people grow.
“This is where we say farewell
And the wind, it feels a little colder now
Here, times run out like a spell
But laughter’s our vow”
As the main character’s time begins to run out (he moves away on March 20th), the very idea and hopeful nature of the truth they reached stays strong because of the hardships they endured as friends. This, however, is where the subtly comes in. The “cold wind” returns, which I said might symbolize the false selves the characters were moving past. In this instance, I think that, while it doesn’t necessarily symbolize that specific falsity, it does hint to the fact that the truth has yet to be fully revealed.
There are still truths to be uncovered, even if many of the characters faced their true selves and the mystery of the killer has been solved. I mean, the developers weren’t just going to make you run around Inaba for two months without some sort of fighting. Even though one cold wind blows away, an even colder wind, an even colder truth, is still out there waiting to be uncovered. That sort of subtly is why I love this song.
“This is where we saw it through
Thick and thin, this friendship, it was built to last
Here, we swore that we’d be true
To bonds that were forged in our past”
Parting can be both peaceful and painful. That, in my opinion, is at the heart of this song. Every character matters, every experience shapes us, and we are the ones who decide who we are. Having to say goodbye is hard, especially when those who you’re leaving helped you accept your own truth. The cold wind blowing away also represents this; going through thick and thin, eventually creating an unbreakable bond. However, the wind gets colder with the realization that you must say goodbye, as those who you formed your bonds with will not be around forever.
But this song is hopeful. Finding personal strength to face the world on your own. You forged a special bond, giving you the strength to stand on your own two feet. This song tells us that we should never forget the people who gave us strength when we were at our lowest, and by moving forward, we’re honoring them and all the help they provided.
And it bleeds into life in general. Goodbyes are inevitable, and they’re extra terrifying when you’re saying goodbye to someone who lifted you up and greatly impacted your life. Snowflakes tells us that there’s beauty at the end of a long journey with close friends. It’s okay to be sad because that just reinforces the care you have for important people in your life. These people influenced your life greatly, helping you find yourself and giving you a shoulder to lean on. Even though you may say goodbye, the impact they had on you will last forever, meaning the happy memories will help continue to guide you through life.
And that’s Snowflakes. They fall from the sky, sometimes causing storms, closures, and maybe even stress. However, it leads to a beautiful environment that covers what seems like everything. People laughing, sledding, building snowmen…it almost feels as though it’s the perfect scenario. But the snow eventually melts, leaving behind only the memories of when its beauty graced the world. Snowflakes come and go, but the memories of their beauty will never fade.
