Great Story, Great Gameplay. (May 2013)
This is one of those backlog regrets. The one I didn't play, when I should have. I even bought it twice! Although honestly, it was an excuse to plow down on my Vita, which hasn't really had much to play since I bought it. Best 300 dollars I've ever spent. The short version of this review so far is that you should play this game, especially if you're even the slightest bit of an RPG fan.
Persona 4 is a turned-based RPG game, much like Final Fantasy or Pokemon. You control a party of three team members, a whole cast of them, and you are set out on an adventure of some sort. You are the new-guy who has just moved into the town of Inaba, a small countryside village with not much to do. Things escalate quickly, as murders start to happen just as your character is moving in with your uncle, and a whole mystery story unravels in front of your eyes, very anime-style. It's an amazing story that takes many twists and turns coming to an excellent conclusion. It's as much as I can say without spoiling anything, but it's well done.
On the surface, the game looks silly. I'm not denying that some people may think this and just judge it by it's cover, but the game deals with many mature topics and handles them well. I can actually see a teenager getting a lot of mental benefits out of the story of this game. Things like being alone, dealing with negative thoughts, and being unsure about what you want. Not many games talk about these things which are important to think about.
The gameplay is split. Half the time you'll be in dungeons, which are randomly generated towers, fighting monsters and climbing the tower. Enemies are visible in the field and you can attack them, by swinging your weapon, before battle and get a preemptive strike. Inside battles it's good old turn-based style with a very fun twist. This game is long, and I enjoyed the combat throughout. There's a neat knockdown mechanic, which involves you hitting the elemental weaknesses of monsters; if all the monsters on the field are knocked down, you can initiate a beat down. Beat downs are a free attack (takes up no turns) where your entire party charges in and deals one massive hit. Most battles basically turn into you aiming for beat downs. It's like a puzzle battle. This is made easier by being able to check weaknesses of monsters you've already fought with a simple tap of the L button.
The other half you are in town building relationships with the fellow towns people of Inaba. Relationships determine the resulting bonuses of crafted Personas, which in itself is a whole 'nother system. You get different Personas after battles through a mini-game, which then can be combined to make more powerful Personas. They're like different pokemons that give you new abilities.
I played a bit of the PS2 version a long time ago, but really dug into it on the Vita. Some changes are made, the most noticeable one being a completely different voice actor for one of the cast, but most of the other changes were tiny mechanical things that gave it more polish. Vita is definitely the better version of the two, but both experiences are good.
Overall this is just a brilliant game. It's almost hard to convey how good this game is, like every one is in on a joke, but we're serious. It's has well-written characters and an excellent story. Many gameplay mechanics are present that all compliment each other rather than seeming crowded. Play this game.
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