Persona 4 Post-Mortem Tells You What Went Right, Wrong

2. Real-time weather design: Unlike in the previous title, Persona 4's time limit for each dungeon was affected by the in-game weather. We did this with the belief that such a system would create the feeling of urgency, since the player didn't know when damage-causing fog would appear. 

However, when we implemented it in the game, players were inclined to make dungeon investigation their first priority. Their mentality was, "If I don’t know when the fog appears, I should finish the dungeon as soon as possible." As a result, dungeon crawling and working on the inter-character Social Links, which are equally important, became completely separate and imbalanced. 

We tried to compensate by adjusting the weather, in-game messages and story progression, but that created an unexpected workload. A huge amount of data could not be finalized until the weather was set, but the weather kept changing due to our design adjustments.

First.
 
Thanks Jeff for reporting this. I'll read the article.

Im not so sure id like a next gen persona :S

Kickass drawing.

" First "

That drawing is pretty sweet. Kudos to whoever drew it.

" When's that P4 review coming? :) "

That's a bleak bleak tale. I think the Atlas guys need a holidy.

" First.  Thanks Jeff for reporting this. I'll read the article. "

That image of Chie is really wrong....

"Parts of the game felt almost impenetrable at first, and even after seeing well over 100 hours of the game, I only feel partially closer to making sense of that stuff." 
 Cue 400 replies of people screaming "YOU WEREN'T PAYING ANY ATTENTION TO WHAT WAS HAPPENING OR TRYING TO REMEMBER ANYTHING" in response to this. 
 
(although I don't think you guys ever so much as glanced at the in-game fusion rules and tricks that you can read by talking to Igor via the fusion menu, which would have helped with the basics of fusion. The fusion system could still stand a better skill inheritance system, though(just let us pick what skills we want, or at least let us know how many chances in hell we have of inheriting certain things, Atlus. We won't mind.). And there's really no excuse for hiding so many fusion mechanics, like elemental inheritance affinities, in the age of internet guides.)

While I kind of agree with Jeff about the fusing.. it does explain some of that stuff in the tutorials that Igor offers when you choose "Talk" which Vinny and Jeff didn't bother looking at for the Endurance Run. But even so I read that stuff when I played and didn't understand what was going on with fusing until well into the game. So it's not as bad as Jeff makes it sound, but yeah it could have been clearer.

" That image of Chie is really wrong.... "

It would be better if the link to the article was over the "fascinating article"text rather than Gamasutra.
Thanks for pointing it out though. I would love to see some post Endurance Run coverage here on GB as well.

Pretty cool, the point about the weather system is probably true. Persona 3 had a good system where you knew an event would happen and you specifically knew how many days left until that event, whereas Persona 4 was often vague to the point that you were better off just prioritizing dungeon exploration over anything else. As long as they're aware of those issues, they should be able to strike a good balance for a sequel, because I wouldnt say  Persona 3's system was perfect either.

 "We kept playing the game over and over again, as many times as possible, until the game went gold. The more time we spent on debugging, the harder it became for us to put ourselves in the mindset of how gamers would feel when playing the game for the first time. In the end, we all wish for our next project to be an action game."

Interesting, but that statement about them wanting to do an action game next is heartbreaking. They know to make a great RPG, and I'd hate to see that talent go to waste in a genre that typically doesn't have nearly as strong of a story or cast of characters.

Who drew that chie pic?

" Interesting, but that statement about them wanting to do an action game next is heartbreaking. They know to make a great RPG, and I'd hate to see that talent go to waste in a genre that typically doesn't have nearly as strong of a story or cast of characters. "

Persona 4 is a great game, but I love P3 just as much. Maybe it's because I played P3 first. There sure are some good changes from P3 although not every change was good IMO, but most where. I'd like to see an endurance run of P3 even though I've already played it several times, just because id like to know what Jeff and Vinny think of it. 

Thanks for the info.

Good read, it would be a real bummer if these guys didn't make Persona 5. Though it would be interesting to see what kind of action game they would make, if they were serious and not just joking because of the long QA process for RPG's

Interesting read. Thanks.

Time to get mah read on.

Why does Chie have a package?

It's interesting how under the "what went right" it's all reactive stuff, stuff that happened AFTER the game came out. I'd like to see what they think was particularly strong about the final product.

I get the impression they were partly joking about the action game comment since it came after this list of how hard it is to make and RPG, though maybe they DO want to move on.

" @Winternet said:

" First.  Thanks Jeff for reporting this. I'll read the article. "

dork. "

" Why does Chie have a package? "

Thanks for posting this, Jeff!  Looks like an interesting read!

" Interesting, but that statement about them wanting to do an action game next is heartbreaking. They know to make a great RPG, and I'd hate to see that talent go to waste in a genre that typically doesn't have nearly as strong of a story or cast of characters. "

" First.

Chie's got quite a bulge there.

The part about the action game seems like it was more of a joke: They were joking that an action game would have less QA and that they'd "rather" do that style of game because they did so much QA on Persona 4.

Interesting read. I sure hope you're wrong about the PS3 development though.

And that Chie drawing is pretty good from the waist up!

I think a small thing they could have had that would have saved a ton of time and just be convenient is being able to simply press a button and see what an item you got out of a chest does.
 
Also, giving the stats/effects of stuff on the shopping channel before you buy it wouldn't hurt.

The story could be a little more coherent and the localization could have been improved. People will always love the game though because they put so much work into their characters they find it impossible to separate themselves by the end. Its a classic JRPG with a lot more style, but to me it was too tedious.

" @Jimbo: Keep the Game Revolution trolling in the Game Revolution trolling thread. "

" @Nexas said:

" Why does Chie have a package? "

This. "

" Chie's got quite a bulge there. "

Yeah P4 had a few quirks but, still, what a game.

I've seen much better Chie porn.
 
But seriously, nice drawing, and I definitely agree with the article. Persona 4 is an overall amazing game with some key flaws; a lot of which seem to stem from how old the game is, and a need to evolve with the times (I'm not saying it *hasn't*, I'm just saying that maybe it needs a greater overhaul or a lot more of a tutorial).
 
I'm going to start playing Persona 3, and I'm a little worried about going back to an older game in the franchise, if Persona 4 already had its problems. I'd wait for the PSP remake, where they'll probably fix a lot of that stuff, but the style of the game just seems so different, and I want to play around with the original incarnation of it.

Nice to see that Persona 4 is still getting love from the Giant Bomb crew.  Can't wait for the next Endurance Run, whatever it may be.  Might I suggest a Mass Effect 2 ER with Brad and Ryan.

Man, that is a pretty cool Chie pic, I wonder who drew it <_< >_>
Just a shame he never noticed certain areas looked kinda weird before, he should probably fix that at some point >_> <_<