Persona 4: Golden
I’ve grown quite fond of 2D fighters this generation. Super Street Fighter IV and Blazblue alone have really shown me what the genre can bring, but even so I was a little bit hesitant to pick up Persona 4 Arena. The reason being I had no experience with the Persona series, and I was worried the game would be all about a world I wouldn’t understand without playing at least one entry in the series.
I decided to take a chance on it since it was done by Arc System Works, the people behind Blazblue and how much Atlus impressed me with Catherine. Almost immediately I fell in love with the characters and by the end I was hungry for more. I picked up Persona 4 Golden and I’ve gone from not knowing anything about this series, to watching concerts of the music on YouTube and picking up the recently released Anime.
I’m hooked on this world and I can see why it’s growing in popularity. It’s looking like Persona 4 is doing for the Persona/Shin Megami Tensei series what Final Fantasy VII did for Final Fantasy. This is in no small part due to the incredible cast. You feel like you could be great friends with any of them and they all feel really human.
Persona is all about not shying away from your insecurities, instead embracing them and accepting they’re part of yourself (well Persona 4 Golden and Arena are anyway, I’ve not played the first 3 yet). The first two thirds of the game will focus on facing the cast’s “shadows”, the dark side of themselves they don’t want to admit exists, and helping the cast battle their own demons. These all feel somewhat relatable real life, such as the guy who’s into cute childish stuff acting all tough so people won’t think less of him.
It’s a refreshing change for the genre which is usually all about saving the world from corrupt governments and great supernatural evils. Overall your goal is to track down a murderer and it all makes for a pretty decent murder mystery.
The bulk of the gameplay is split into two. Persona 4 is part JRPG and part Social sim. It takes place between April 2011 and March 2012 with the game progressing through each day. Each day is broken down into 3 sections, Morning, After School and Evening.
Morning sets up the day. Often you’ll be asked a general knowledge question that you’ll be tested on later when you do exams. Your friends will also approach you if they want to hang out with you (which build up your social links, more on that later).
Evening gives you more time to build social links and stats, earn money through jobs, spend time fishing or reading, or preparing lunch to share with someone the next day.
After School is where the main game takes place. Here you can build up social links or go into the TV world and explore the game’s dungeons. There are also other activities such as shopping and fishing.
The Majority of the game’s characters develop social links with you. By hanging out with a particular character you will improve your social link with them. In the case of Party members improving a social rank will give them abilities that will help you in battle. Early on these will be picking up party members that have been knocked off their feet.
At higher ranks they will pretty much take a bullet for you, which is good because annoyingly Persona 4 is one of those JRPG’s where if the party leader gets knocked out it’s game over. A little more annoying is how the game handles failure. At lower difficulties failing a battle will just lead to everyone being fully healed and you continuing the fight where you left off. This offers no challenge. At the other end of the scale failure can mean restarting a dungeon floor or reloading a save. This is really annoying when you opened a few chests, beaten a few enemies and generally cleared a floor only to be beaten by a self-destructing enemy in the last fight (and there are quite a few of those, even in the first dungeon).
In other words it’s either too easy or too punishing. It would’ve been better if you could just retry that fight you lost. I guess not every game can deal with failure as well as Xenoblade does.
The world inside the TV is the JRPG side of Persona 4. You explore dungeons, fight enemies and eventually fight the boss. Dungeon floors are mostly randomised but all follow the same basic pattern, find the stairs to move onto the next floor. There are usually around ten floors with one or two mid bosses before facing off with the main boss. Monsters are visible but as anonymous black blobs (or red to indicate tougher enemies), you won’t know who you are fighting until the fight starts (except for the rare golden hands, which give high exp and money rewards).
Typically attacking the blobs first will give you an advantage, with the enemy getting an advantage if they attack you first. Combat is all about finding and exploiting elemental weaknesses, but those kinds of weaknesses also apply to your party. Hitting a weakness downs (but does not defeat) an enemy and gives that character a follow up attack. This is also true for the enemy; they can down a party member and get an extra attack if they hit a weakness.
Critical hits also down enemies. Progressing a party member’s Social link will let them randomly ask you whether to let them follow up your attack with a special strike. These are at the expense of any extra turns you’ve earned by downing opponents, and are usually critical hits (one character even instant kills an enemy). When all enemies are down you’ll be given the option of a powerful “all-out” attack, which does a high amount of damage to all enemies but will bring any undefeated enemies back onto their feet.
If all this exploiting elemental weaknesses while avoiding your own is sounding a little like Pokémon then that’s because Persona is a little like Pokémon. The Main character can bring a number of Personas with him, each with their own abilities, resistances and weaknesses. They all share the same HP and SP as the main character so it’s more like equipping a weapon than having extra party members. The other party member’s Personas are fixed. There are a number of Personas to collect, either as loot for successful battles or by fusing the ones your currently hold into new more powerful ones. You can only create new personas that match your level, however your social links will give them bonus exp after fusing usually pushing their level a few higher than yours. Each persona has an Arcana type with matches a particular Social link arcana type. For example Yosuke’s arcana is “The Magician”, the higher your social link with him the more bonus exp a persona of “The Magician” type will earn after fusion.
While there is nothing particularly unique with the combat system it is a good solid turn based system, which becomes second nature early on and offers some scope for strategy. Unfortunately I found more often than not the solution to a difficult section was to level up. I’d rather it be about tactics.
A session in the TV uses up both your after school period and your evening period. Leaving the TV to heal therefore brings you one day closer to your deadline and leaves less days for social link building. Early on you’ll find it hard to keep your SP up and it can be tempting to leave to rest up and continue fresh.
Persona 4 is really about time management. What days you set aside for your current objective inside the TV, What days you use for Social Link building and what days you use for other things. Gameplay wise there’s nothing really special here, it’s just a good solid system with an emphasis on developing relationships with other characters.
What is special about Persona 4 are the characters and its overall presentation. The main 8 characters all have strong personalities which shine through throughout the game. By the end you’ll want more of the story just to see what happens to them. Persona 4 probably has the strongest cast in all of gaming. Voice acting often gets a bad rep, particularly in JRPGs, but they did a really good job here.
It’s also probably the funniest game I’ve ever played. It’s like a good sitcom with excellent timing and delivery, with plenty of memorable scenes. The soundtrack is infectious and sits proudly amongst the other great videogame pop/rock soundtracks, alongside the Sonic Series, Blazblue and Jet Set Radio.
Disappointingly the visuals let the whole experience down a little. I know it’s a PS2 port but I’m sure I’ve seen the PS2 deliver better visuals than this.
For those that played the original Persona 4, Golden offers a decent amount of new stuff and tweaks that validate a second purchase. I never played the original but I do know it has two new Social links, one for a brand new character, an extra dungeon with comes with its own twist, more events including a Ski trip, an extra ending and epilogue. It also includes an extra’s mode called “TV listings” which includes concept art, trailers, a quiz mode and videos of live performances of the series’ music.
Overall Persona 4 is a very strong JRPG that incorporates some well implemented Social link building mechanics. It has some flaws, with a bad difficulty spike early on. Although once you get over the initial hump you’ll be left with one of the most funny, stylish and awesome experiences in all of gaming. While the visuals disappoint the soundtrack is flawless.
If you have a Vita, Persona 4 Golden is an essential purchase, unless you really hate JRPG’s. Even then I reckon it still has a shot at converting you.
9/10
I decided to take a chance on it since it was done by Arc System Works, the people behind Blazblue and how much Atlus impressed me with Catherine. Almost immediately I fell in love with the characters and by the end I was hungry for more. I picked up Persona 4 Golden and I’ve gone from not knowing anything about this series, to watching concerts of the music on YouTube and picking up the recently released Anime.
I’m hooked on this world and I can see why it’s growing in popularity. It’s looking like Persona 4 is doing for the Persona/Shin Megami Tensei series what Final Fantasy VII did for Final Fantasy. This is in no small part due to the incredible cast. You feel like you could be great friends with any of them and they all feel really human.
Persona is all about not shying away from your insecurities, instead embracing them and accepting they’re part of yourself (well Persona 4 Golden and Arena are anyway, I’ve not played the first 3 yet). The first two thirds of the game will focus on facing the cast’s “shadows”, the dark side of themselves they don’t want to admit exists, and helping the cast battle their own demons. These all feel somewhat relatable real life, such as the guy who’s into cute childish stuff acting all tough so people won’t think less of him.
It’s a refreshing change for the genre which is usually all about saving the world from corrupt governments and great supernatural evils. Overall your goal is to track down a murderer and it all makes for a pretty decent murder mystery.
The bulk of the gameplay is split into two. Persona 4 is part JRPG and part Social sim. It takes place between April 2011 and March 2012 with the game progressing through each day. Each day is broken down into 3 sections, Morning, After School and Evening.
Morning sets up the day. Often you’ll be asked a general knowledge question that you’ll be tested on later when you do exams. Your friends will also approach you if they want to hang out with you (which build up your social links, more on that later).
Evening gives you more time to build social links and stats, earn money through jobs, spend time fishing or reading, or preparing lunch to share with someone the next day.
After School is where the main game takes place. Here you can build up social links or go into the TV world and explore the game’s dungeons. There are also other activities such as shopping and fishing.
The Majority of the game’s characters develop social links with you. By hanging out with a particular character you will improve your social link with them. In the case of Party members improving a social rank will give them abilities that will help you in battle. Early on these will be picking up party members that have been knocked off their feet.
At higher ranks they will pretty much take a bullet for you, which is good because annoyingly Persona 4 is one of those JRPG’s where if the party leader gets knocked out it’s game over. A little more annoying is how the game handles failure. At lower difficulties failing a battle will just lead to everyone being fully healed and you continuing the fight where you left off. This offers no challenge. At the other end of the scale failure can mean restarting a dungeon floor or reloading a save. This is really annoying when you opened a few chests, beaten a few enemies and generally cleared a floor only to be beaten by a self-destructing enemy in the last fight (and there are quite a few of those, even in the first dungeon).
In other words it’s either too easy or too punishing. It would’ve been better if you could just retry that fight you lost. I guess not every game can deal with failure as well as Xenoblade does.
The world inside the TV is the JRPG side of Persona 4. You explore dungeons, fight enemies and eventually fight the boss. Dungeon floors are mostly randomised but all follow the same basic pattern, find the stairs to move onto the next floor. There are usually around ten floors with one or two mid bosses before facing off with the main boss. Monsters are visible but as anonymous black blobs (or red to indicate tougher enemies), you won’t know who you are fighting until the fight starts (except for the rare golden hands, which give high exp and money rewards).
Typically attacking the blobs first will give you an advantage, with the enemy getting an advantage if they attack you first. Combat is all about finding and exploiting elemental weaknesses, but those kinds of weaknesses also apply to your party. Hitting a weakness downs (but does not defeat) an enemy and gives that character a follow up attack. This is also true for the enemy; they can down a party member and get an extra attack if they hit a weakness.
Critical hits also down enemies. Progressing a party member’s Social link will let them randomly ask you whether to let them follow up your attack with a special strike. These are at the expense of any extra turns you’ve earned by downing opponents, and are usually critical hits (one character even instant kills an enemy). When all enemies are down you’ll be given the option of a powerful “all-out” attack, which does a high amount of damage to all enemies but will bring any undefeated enemies back onto their feet.
If all this exploiting elemental weaknesses while avoiding your own is sounding a little like Pokémon then that’s because Persona is a little like Pokémon. The Main character can bring a number of Personas with him, each with their own abilities, resistances and weaknesses. They all share the same HP and SP as the main character so it’s more like equipping a weapon than having extra party members. The other party member’s Personas are fixed. There are a number of Personas to collect, either as loot for successful battles or by fusing the ones your currently hold into new more powerful ones. You can only create new personas that match your level, however your social links will give them bonus exp after fusing usually pushing their level a few higher than yours. Each persona has an Arcana type with matches a particular Social link arcana type. For example Yosuke’s arcana is “The Magician”, the higher your social link with him the more bonus exp a persona of “The Magician” type will earn after fusion.
While there is nothing particularly unique with the combat system it is a good solid turn based system, which becomes second nature early on and offers some scope for strategy. Unfortunately I found more often than not the solution to a difficult section was to level up. I’d rather it be about tactics.
A session in the TV uses up both your after school period and your evening period. Leaving the TV to heal therefore brings you one day closer to your deadline and leaves less days for social link building. Early on you’ll find it hard to keep your SP up and it can be tempting to leave to rest up and continue fresh.
Persona 4 is really about time management. What days you set aside for your current objective inside the TV, What days you use for Social Link building and what days you use for other things. Gameplay wise there’s nothing really special here, it’s just a good solid system with an emphasis on developing relationships with other characters.
What is special about Persona 4 are the characters and its overall presentation. The main 8 characters all have strong personalities which shine through throughout the game. By the end you’ll want more of the story just to see what happens to them. Persona 4 probably has the strongest cast in all of gaming. Voice acting often gets a bad rep, particularly in JRPGs, but they did a really good job here.
It’s also probably the funniest game I’ve ever played. It’s like a good sitcom with excellent timing and delivery, with plenty of memorable scenes. The soundtrack is infectious and sits proudly amongst the other great videogame pop/rock soundtracks, alongside the Sonic Series, Blazblue and Jet Set Radio.
Disappointingly the visuals let the whole experience down a little. I know it’s a PS2 port but I’m sure I’ve seen the PS2 deliver better visuals than this.
For those that played the original Persona 4, Golden offers a decent amount of new stuff and tweaks that validate a second purchase. I never played the original but I do know it has two new Social links, one for a brand new character, an extra dungeon with comes with its own twist, more events including a Ski trip, an extra ending and epilogue. It also includes an extra’s mode called “TV listings” which includes concept art, trailers, a quiz mode and videos of live performances of the series’ music.
Overall Persona 4 is a very strong JRPG that incorporates some well implemented Social link building mechanics. It has some flaws, with a bad difficulty spike early on. Although once you get over the initial hump you’ll be left with one of the most funny, stylish and awesome experiences in all of gaming. While the visuals disappoint the soundtrack is flawless.
If you have a Vita, Persona 4 Golden is an essential purchase, unless you really hate JRPG’s. Even then I reckon it still has a shot at converting you.
9/10
posted by Master hunter at 10:00 am
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