I finally bought P4 Golden for my Vita i thought i'd document some of my experiences as i make the long trek though this awesome game. First off, i'll say that game like P4 feels best suited on a handheld platform. Perfect game for those nights when you can't fall asleep or long plane/train/bus rides.

I'm only an hour in but a few of the things i've noticed that are different from the PS2 version(going by what know from the Endurance Run):

• After you meet Dojima and stop at the gas station you have the opportunity to familiarize yourself with the market district, you can also explore a bit more after your first day of school.
• It sounds like you can grow food in a home garden now so no more relying on Nanako bringing home all the food.
• Not sure how i feel about the new Chie voice, sounds cuter but not necessarily annoying IMO.
• The colors look much more vibrant than in the PS2.
• I don't know if this is new but there is a conversation log that you bring up by pressing the Select button, very useful as a few times i accidentally pressed a button more than once and missed some dialog.

I'm not a big fan of the new intro but i was happy to learn that the original is included in the game under the Extras menu. I'm looking forward to seeing what other changes are in the Vita version.

Meanwhile, i'm off to go see my soul-mate. :)

Part 2!

Part 3!

Part 4!

Final!

GL HF!

I assume this is the first time you've actually played it? If so, you're in for a good ride - the ER was awesome, but not as awesome as getting to fuse / battle / choose s-link responses yourself.

Thanks!

I haven't played P4 before but even when watching the ER there were some things that they did that i wouldn't have done. :)

@Jedted: Yup - don't cast Bufu on Teddy! Don't not-use-Rampage with Chie! Stay away from the capsule machine!

In general though, make sure to use the Voice feature a bunch as it seriously saves time (the speech bubble on the top left which tells you what the community has done on that day). The equivalent one for fusing isn't anywhere near as useful, but yeah.

Oh here's a few tips if you're going to play on a Very Hard run,this made my game much easier -

*During Shuffle Time always and I mean always get Magic + Endurance arcana cards whether your persona is physical or not,the defense is so useful!

*Always buy TaP soda (next to Shiroku store) and Dr Salt Neo (South shopping district all the way at the end) you always get 75+ SP just doing this once a week,it's worth it!

*Recommended you level teammate's social links first aside from everyone,the extra skills you get from social links can be useful. (Yes everyone get skills from social link now,not just Rise!)

*When you obtain Rise immediately level her social link and get it to 10,which is usually after Mitsuo's dungeon since they don't give you much time to level it.

*Like first week of persuading Yukiko's dungeon,there should be a housewife at Junes she'll give you 3x Tiny Soul Tomatoes for a cheap price. Tiny Soul Tomato = 20 SP

*When farming it's recommended you only farm Corn (Tetracorn and Makaracorn),Tomatoes (self-explanatory),Paprika Wall (forgot name I think that's it,useful for party members who don't have rank 10 social link yet),and optional but cabbages. Use them for a quest at Junes a woman who should have the sign above her head and she gives you a 120 attack weapon for MC.

*If you want some extra dialogue from mastermind of the game and an epilogue for the game max out Marie's social link before December I believe.

78 hours in, got the true ending, just started New Game+ and I am just now learning about the select button. I pressed it a couple of times during the game to see if it did anything, but it was always when I hadn't talked to anyone so I just assumed it did nothing outside of dungeons.

As if we didn't need more evidence to support that Morooka is a molester.

@Jedted: that whole scene was SO creepy.

I understand they wanted to introduce you to going outside and to costumes, but omg.

The colours look better..? Huh, maybe it was just your TV or something. Well anyway, I'll be following this thread. Good luck!

@Jeric said:

The colours look better..? Huh, maybe it was just your TV or something. Well anyway, I'll be following this thread. Good luck!

The colours are more vivid. My monitors are colour tuned and the combination of the PSV screen (which is pretty warm) and the PS2's colour reproduction being a bit lacking equates to P4:Golden looking much prettier in general - though a bit vivid if I were to be critical.

@selfconfessedcynic said:

@Jedted: Yup - don't cast Bufu on Teddy! Don't not-use-Rampage with Chie! Stay away from the capsule machine!

In general though, make sure to use the Voice feature a bunch as it seriously saves time (the speech bubble on the top left which tells you what the community has done on that day). The equivalent one for fusing isn't anywhere near as useful, but yeah.

Whatever! It sucks going into a fight ready to use a Persona with Bufudyne+Iceboost+Amp+item that raises Ice Damage just to see him absorb 500+ damage.

@Mcfart: XD, I did that back in 2008 when I started NG+ with my Lucifer. Also, I believe my testing yielded that the the most boost you can get to a skill is Amp + 1 other thing. Item or Boost, but not both - having both doesn't seem to increase the damage more.

@TohruAdachi: So I just started my Very Hard difficulty Izanagi run (am on floor 3 of Kanji's dungeon).

I had forgotten that you can't go into dungeons solo until after Kanji's because if it weren't for Emperor Arcana shuffle times, I'd be 4-6 levels behind my team. My choice of starting skills (Zio, Mazio, Muzzle Shot, Silence Boost, Tarukaja, Rakunda, Absorb Phys, Ali Dance) has proven to be very effective, but in general the game is pretty damn hard atm. I love it.

I didn't have fire until I got Yukiko, I still don't have Magaru (we're all only about lvl 16), and battles usually take 3 rounds or more to finish. That and it took me 3 days to do Yukiko's dungeon with this one possibly being worse, unless giving my Izanagi Invigorate 3 at lvl 19 (when Sarasvati would have invig 2) changes things dramatically. I haven't been using the SOS feature, so yeah.

I can't believe how cash constraints changes the game. I'm still on my imitation katana ffs, and don't see that changing any time soon unless I start spending all my time doing part time jobs. Jobs! For money! I'm looking forward to Dojima giving me a cash bonus for doing well at exams, since then I can maybe buy stuff! The fact that I insist on saving every level of the dungeon means I have to buy 10 goho-ms per dungeon, and that's 10k sorely lost.

Oh, and thanks to your tip I now have the win-a-prize-from-the-drink-machine thing. In fact, I've won the prize 4 times on this playthrough making me think that I was exceedingly unlucky in the past. Now all I need is to get a fusion accident.

@selfconfessedcynic: Haha good luck with that,yeah the Emperor arcana saved my arse plenty of times in Yukiko's dungeon,I fought him straight when I got Senri with Hysterical slap. I beat her on my third day like you to,I beat Kanji at level 13 since I got Oberon and had to train him little so he had null Elec and resist physical,I also maxed Yosuke social link for Evade Elec against Kanji's special. I mainly used Hysterical Slap throughout the first two dungeons since it hit two times. For Rise's dungeon I used King Frost,by Mitsuo dungeon he had 41 Mag and 38 Endur (Had Paper Armband from Nanako) than made an Oni for Power Charge. Invigorate 2 was definitely useful,I ALWAYS use the Sarasvati strategy.