So this is my first jrpg ever. I just picked up the vita and from what I've seen and heard about the game I decided to take a gamble on it. I'm 4 hours in and I'm having a pretty good time with it. However, it's a bit overwhelming where I'm at and I believe the game just really opened up for me. I'm able to decide what I do after school and when to go into the other world. And this is where I started to feel overwhelmed I'm not really sure what I should be doing after school and in the evening. Should I just be walking around looking for things to do simply by exploring? Is the anything I should really focus on or is it totally by my digression? I'd appreciate any help I could get and thanks in advance.

Follow your heart, bro. If that Chie's asking for it, you best give it to her, son.

Balance Social Links (you'll know who gets a social link because they have a portrait) and going to the Midnight Channel/studying or whatever (depending on when we're talking about Social Links). If there's something in the fridge, though, you man the fuck up and swallow that shit down your face hole.

Also I'm a bit confused on the fusing and registering of personas. I'm pretty early in so I'm not too worried about it now but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it.

Once you accept a Persona into your heart, it's automatically registered. Everytime it gains XP or anything like that, it is able to be registered in the compendium and rewrite the record of the old one. This may lead to some mishaps if you aren't paying attention, so try to keep your wits about you when registering Persona, 'specially the ones that you use constantly.

The long and short of it is, just keep doing your thing and have a good time. It's a pretty good game.

It's best to just play around and experiment to figure things out on your own. The game isn't so hard that you can't afford some leeway.

I wouldn't worry too much about the compendium until you get a hang of the game. You can easily go through the whole game without ever having to spend money summoning from the compendium so it's really not worth the money early on. Only do it if you know it will make you something really awesome. As for fusion in general, you'll pick it up as you play. You don't have to worry about rerolling fusions to transfer skills in this version so it shouldn't be too hard to pick up the gist of it.

@Sackmanjones said:

@Flappy now do I have to use a specific persona to gain it xp or is it more of a universal xp and they all gain it?

They only gain exp if they are active at the end of battle, unless you have a specific skill on them that allows to gain exp regardless.

One piece of advice: If you're going to social link, make sure you actually have a persona of that specific arcana on you. Takes way longer to rank up without it.

Connect online to the Persona 4 network, you'll start seeing a bubble on the top left corner of the screen. If you click on it, you can see choices made by other players which you can use for reference in helping you choose what to do on that particular day. It's not the most helpful tool, but it may get you on the right track in terms of who to spend time with to maximise Social Link ranks.

Also when you start juggling multiple Social Links it's best you have the same persona as the Social Link arcana. For example, you should have with you a Magician persona because Yosuke's Social Link is Magician.

I'm also playing through it for the first time, and I've made a system on what day to talk to people. For example, Mondays I try to hang out with Yukiko, unless it's raining then I go hang out in the Cultural Club. Sometimes I don't follow the system because there are days when there are multiple people I can hang out with, and one might not be able to rank up yet, so I hang out with the other. It's not the best system, but it's gone well for me so far.

One piece of advice: If you're going to social link, make sure you actually have a persona of that specific arcana on you. Takes way longer to rank up without it.

Yes. Don't be too stuck to that though, like Jeff and Vinny were in their ER. It doesn't hurt to do it without one every now and then, especially for the first few levels where it doesn't actually make a difference.

When you have a person in the tv world to save you should probably put all your focus into that. The quicker you get that done the more time you have for everything else. Try finishing that stuff in one or two days. It's hard to do it that quickly early in the game but pretty easy after about the 3rd or 4th dungeon. After you get that done, you should spend most of your time after school social linking with people. You could follow a guide to get max social linking possible or you could just make your own decisions. I like to focus on my groups (chie, yosuke, yukiko, etc) social links before anyone else. In P4G they get bonus abilities the higher their SL rank is.

How to spend your time at night is much more difficult for me to answer. There's quite a few options in P4G. You can work at night which lets you earn some money and in some cases advance social links. Another thing you can do is boost your character traits by reading or working in your room. Getting your traits up isn't crucial, but some social links require some of your traits to be high and it allows you to choose more dialogue options, get better test scores and get better jobs like janitor or tutor (which each have their own social link as well). You can also spend time with your social link friends at night. I don't think the SL will ever advance when you do this (except for maybe one person) but it will boost your progress and help you level the SL faster. Social linking with Nanako or Dojima is also an option at night and it's probably what you should focus on the most early in the game because those SLs stop being available after a certain date.

That's just the main things you can do. There are tons of other things you can also do to spend your time, but I definitely don't know the best strategy for those. There are guides that will tell you exactly what to do each day so you get the most out of the game, but I hate using those. I usually just wing it and hope for the best. If you use a guide for anything you should probably use one to get the bonus dungeon and the true ending.

@Zeik said:

Yes. Don't be too stuck to that though, like Jeff and Vinny were in their ER. It doesn't hurt to do it without one every now and then, especially for the first few levels where it doesn't actually make a difference.

I'd recommend the opposite of this. After level 2 or 3, you should really have an arcana card with you unless you want to lose like, a week just to get a single level.

Like, I can see where you're coming from in that "oh it'll be fine", but you do that you're going to get to the end of the game and suddenly you're out of time.

@Dethfish said:

When you have a person in the tv world to save you should probably put all your focus into that. The quicker you get that done the more time you have for everything else. Try finishing that stuff in one or two days. It's hard to do it that quickly early in the game but pretty easy after about the 3rd or 4th dungeon. After you get that done, you should spend most of your time after school social linking with people. You could follow a guide to get max social linking possible or you could just make your own decisions. I like to focus on my groups (chie, yosuke, yukiko, etc) social links before anyone else. In P4G they get bonus abilities the higher their SL rank is.

Ideally you'll want to finish it quickly, but I don't recommend forcing yourself to finish it right away if you don't want to. One of the nice things about the structure of these games is that you have relative freedom to decide when you want to dungeon crawl and when you want to hang out and do social links. If the dungeon crawling starts to drag then take a break and do some social links. You'll have more fun.

Nothing kills that more than trying to max all the S. Links using a guide. Don't do it. Just play the game and do the S. Links you want.

@Zeik said:

Nothing kills that more than trying to max all the S. Links using a guide. Don't do it. Just play the game and do the S. Links you want.

I agree with this. I've looked at those guides before but as soon as it tells me what dialogue option to choose is when I'm done with it. Nobody tells me what to pick, I go with my heart!

@Terramagi said:

@Zeik said:

Yes. Don't be too stuck to that though, like Jeff and Vinny were in their ER. It doesn't hurt to do it without one every now and then, especially for the first few levels where it doesn't actually make a difference.

I'd recommend the opposite of this. After level 2 or 3, you should really have an arcana card with you unless you want to lose like, a week just to get a single level.

Like, I can see where you're coming from in that "oh it'll be fine", but you do that you're going to get to the end of the game and suddenly you're out of time.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, I'm just saying you don't need to obsess about it. Sometimes you'll have a full team of Persona's that you won't want to give up just to summon one for an S. Link. It might cost an extra day to level it, but that's not the end of the world.

@Sackmanjones: Fool, Star, and Judgement social links advance on their own in the story. You don't need a card to help advance the Empress or Hermit SLs either, but you have to complete quests.

Also instead of using money to pull cards out of the compendium to help with social links, you could just work with the ones you have. Like if you wanted to hang with Chie but didn't have a chariot card just look and see what else you have. If you had something like a priestess or magician card you should hang with yukiko or yosuke. Go to the Social Link menu if your confused about which arcana belongs to who.

@Sackmanjones said:

@Terramagi so I have a persona that has a fool arcana. Does that mean I should work on those social links related to that?

It's more that you should try to bring a Persona with you when doing the S. Links you want rather than focusing on an S. Link just because you happen to have a particular Persona with you.

P4Golden makes fusing fairly easy. Skill transfers are taken care of and unless you are trying to do the Elizabeth requests it isn't a big issue.

Some SLs give you bonuses to your stats which are helpful, mainly the school clubs and jobs ones.

If you want to get the most out of the game, I suggest finishing all the links for party members and Dojima and Nanako which require you to work on your expression to finish.

I'm starting to realize that I would have been seriously lost if I didn't watch that endurance run before.

As for S. Links that you want to work on, it's all up to you but I suggest that you raise the S. links of the people who are in your party first. You get great benefits and extra moves for ranking up those guys.

This is something I didn't learn until playing through the game a second time, but it is entirely possible, and relatively easy to finish a dungeon in one game-day. When I originally played Persona 4, I did what Jeff and Vinny did in the ER, which was going into the dungeon multiple days and bouncing out when I ran out of SP. With Golden having SP-replenishing cards after battle now, it is much, much easier to finish a dungeon in a day, opening up more time for S/Links and part-time jobs.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, try to finish a dungeon in a day! It ultimately won't matter which day you choose, but just know that dungeon monsters are harder on rainy days. This is either a good or a bad thing, depending on the player.

@Sackmanjones said:

@Colourful_Hippie and you raid your social link by hangin out with those people correct?

Yeah, they have an icon over their head when they're available to hang out. I also suggest pressing that bubble in the top corner of your screen. It shows you what other people did on that day. It's a quick glance to see what you can do that day.

I started replaying this after Jeff started talking about Golden so much. This time with the PS2 version on PCSX2(I own the PS2 version, I just wanted to see how Persona plays with frame skip and forced AA). Man this is a great game. I would argue the best game that came out on PS2. Just hands down, from the combat system to the non-gamey aspects to the social links to how all the fucking drug and sexual innuendos while keeping it all pretty PG. Seriously good stuff, Atlus has never been better.

@Sackmanjones: As others have said, just hang out with whoever you feel like. If you want to raise your social stats then i recommend reading books....A LOT. If you have nothing to do at home then you can work at the Shiroku Pub. It's good for raising Diligence and if all 4 dudes are sitting at the bar then you get a pay bonus as well as the option to boost any one of your other social stats, if it's raining then i think you get another stat boost.

If you think you might do a NG+ then don't get crazy with S-Linking. I ignored the sports club so i could focus on my main S-Links and i didn't join a culture club until way later. Here's a pro-tip for how to maximize your S-Linking time, if it says "you feel your relationship will not become closer" when talking to someone then you should pull a persona of that arcana.

@Sackmanjones: The book shop is right next to the gas station in the shopping district. There should be a sign next to the door that says when new books go on sale.

I hardly recommend the Expert Study Methods, really speeds up knowledge gain when studying!

@Jedted said:

@Sackmanjones: The book shop is right next to the gas station in the shopping district. There should be a sign next to the door that says when new books go on sale.

I hardly recommend the Expert Study Methods, really speeds up knowledge gain when studying!

totally and doing good on exams gives you a social link boost to your school friends. do well in school kids!

I've spent too much time on my social links and my jobs and as a result I have shot myself in the foot.

I'm about 30hrs in trying to finish The

Dungeon only to run out of health/health restoring items and when I exit the Dungeon the damn fogs comes.

I've tried may times from my last save, but it looks like I'm going to have to start the week over! Lesson learnt, I must create more saves and maybe go into the TV a bit quicker.

@mr187uk said:

I've spent too much time on my social links and my jobs and as a result I have shot myself in the foot.

I'm about 30hrs in trying to finish The

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

10th floor of the Stripper

Dungeon only to run out of health/health restoring items and when I exit the Dungeon the damn fogs comes.

I've tried may times from my last save, but it looks like I'm going to have to start the week over! Lesson learnt, I must create more saves and maybe go into the TV a bit quicker.

Not sure if enough people still play for this to be viable but by using the SOS dungeon feature, you can pretty much fill your SP back up to full by using it after every battle while running around the first couple of floors of Yukiko's dungeon. Maybe try to see if that works out?

@OmegaChosen: I've started using the the SOS button a bit more, even though I felt I was cheating - but I suppose if they didn't want people to use it they wouldn't have created a nice red button ;-).

Not sure if enough people still play for this to be viable

I'm in the UK and Persona 4 Golden isn't released here until sometime in Feb, I was lucky to pickup an import version. So the SOS may get used more then.

Cheers

Tim.