Persona 4 Golden came out on PC. I figure there must be about a million hours of experience with this game collected here on GB (and that's only counting the ER...). Therefore, I feel like there might be a whole lot of tips of the "things I wish I knew on my first play through"-nature among the GB populous.
So. Let's have it. Keeping things related to mechanics or story broad-strokes, do you have any pointers for people only just picking this game up on PC?
Here's a list of tips so far:
TL;DR
- Don't use a guide for story/social stuff.
- Learn to manage SP in dungeons.
- Experiment with fusing new Persona.
- Shuffle Time and Full Sweep is your friend.
- You can tune the difficulty manually.
Not gameplay related, but check out Kaldaien's SpecialK patch for the game. They've done great work in fixing other poor PC ports, and there's some significant improvements to be had here.
Combat/dungeons:
- Learn to ration your SP (spirit points). Running out is usually what forces you to leave a dungeon, which will end the day.
- Use items, rather than SP, for healing. Save SP for weakness-hitting spells.
- Invigorate, a skill certain Persona can get, regenerates your SP and is potentially OP if used right.
- Some skills use HP, not SP, as resource. They can be a powerful and efficient way to avoid spending SP in combat, especially when combined with healing items.
- You can change Persona once per turn in combat, even after attacking and getting a "1 more".
- On rainy days, there are special enemies and items that show up in dungeons.
- Try to hit shadows in the back to initiate combat with advantage. At the very least you should land the first blow, so as to not let them get advantage on you.
- Don't leave dungeons to the last day.
- Consider clearing dungeons as soon as possible. This leaves you free to do all the other stuff at your leisure.
Persona:
- The key to farming Personas is getting "Shuffle Time": The "All Out" attack you get when all enemies are knocked down increases (guarantees?) the chance of getting a shuffle if you end combat with it.
- "Full Sweeps" during "Shuffle Time" are amazing. Look out for cards marked "draw more". If you manage to draw all the cards you're dealt during ST, a "Full Sweep" guarantees you'll get ST after your next fight, with two extra draws. You can keep this rolling if you strategise your drawing well. You see where this is going.
- Persona learn skills from the Persona you use to fuse them. Use this to tailor a Persona's spells.
Social:
- Don't stress over trying to maximise S.link levelling and events. "Perfect runs" are a thing, but don't use a guide on your first play through. Just follow the story and events the way you feel like. There's NG+ for the stuff you missed.
- It might be a good idea to prioritise your party member S.Links, as they provide direct combat buffs.
- When doing a social link, keep a Persona of that Arcana on you. This will increase the number of points you receive towards the next S.link level.
- Don't neglect your social attributes. Knowledge, expression, understanding etc. all gate certain progress points in side quests and other events. E.g., the courage needed to go to the shrine at night.
- You can sometimes find your party members hanging out around the gas station, if you're bored of an evening.
- If any of your maxed social links ask you to hang out in January, it's worth doing.
- The only social link tied to a special ending is [spoiler contains an early game character name] Marie, who is unique to P4 Golden.
- There's dating sim stuff? :jeffu
Pro tips:
- Explore the boss room after a fight. There might be good loot.
- Don't upgrade your weapons constantly. Wait until the upgrade is more significant.
- You can tune the difficulty to your liking, and tweak individual aspects like exp gain, damage done/taken, combat retries etc. Find it in the System menu. This was previously a NG+ feature, but is available from the start on PC.
- Soda machines are one of the only ways the game lets you buy SP regen items, and the machines run out each week.
- On rainy days, the shop has a discount on healing items.
- Always check the fridge.
- Never cast Bufu.
Special thanks to: @krelmoon, @facelessvixen, @christopherson329, @zeik, @undeadpool, @north6, @imhungry, @stordoff, @yyninja, @someoneproud
Black Lives Matter.
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