Today, I completed the Persona 4 Endurance Run. I beat Persona 4 in the last couple of weeks, and my roommate beat Persona 4 a week before that.

Normally, that would mean you were DONE with a game. But with Persona 4, I am STILL experiencing the game through the anime. When that's finished, if it's not out already, I'll probably be heavily anticipating the release of Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena, a sequel to a game that ends so completely it almost should never have a sequel. I don't mean to imply it's "their fault" I'm experiencing this eternal Persona 4 conclusion. After all, I'm the one who's finishing the game almost three years after its release.

I don't think I've ever had an experience quite like this before. The second and third times I reached the ending, I got pretty choked up, but, again, there's always MORE Persona 4, so no open tears. How many media do you get where you've reached the conclusion and the experience just won't end?

I could be done with Persona 4, of course. I could stop watching the anime and ignore Mayonaka Arena. But that world, those characters, and that story are all so compelling that I feel like I never want to leave them, despite never really wanting to play the game again. Sure, there's a lot left to see; I've never seen the conclusion of the stepmother, Hisano, or band girl social links, and there's a number of Personas I haven't gotten my hands on yet. But to simply experience those sequences the same way again doesn't appeal to me; I'd need a new voice to enjoy the game with, or some dramatic new experience to occur before I could play the game again.

And yet, I still don't want this Persona 4 run to be over. As a result, my roommate and a couple Persona-loving friends are even developing a Persona tabletop RPG (I'll probably upload some updates to that shortly as well.) I'm playing Persona 3: FES now, but I'm having trouble empathizing with the characters as well as I did those of Persona 4, and the story is taking a LOT longer to get moving. The most compelling thing about the game so far is the fact that I know its ending, and the brilliant foreshadowing they've done leading up to said ending.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with another piece of media? I feel like I could write a damned BOOK on Persona 4, analyzing and editorializing on each specific element. To be honest, before I wrote this, I started by attempting a piece on "I'll Face Myself", one of the more recognizable and specific pieces of music in Persona 4. But, distracted by schoolwork, I found it easier to just work on a description of my experience with this game's ending, and my personal lack thereof.

Want more discussion on Persona 4? Listen to my podcast Nerf'd! We talk about it all the time, and will probably be talking about it more and more as wel spend more time with the anime and our in-development tabletop RPG.

P.S. I will get back to that piece sooner or later, though, as I actually do think it's a brilliantly used piece of music.

Dude, you know P3FES' ending? Man, I don't think the ending sequence to that game would have been nearly as impactful for me had I known it beforehand. 
 
Anyways, what you're feeling is the reason Atlus keeps on iterating on the Persona 4 brand. They hit gold with that game and they're milking it for all its worth. "Milking" usually has a negative connotation associated with it for these kinds of things, but what Atlus is doing is what the fans want, so it's not a bad thing. I'm looking forward to all Persona products.

@Little_Socrates: Yeah there's a lingering melancholy that started when I finished the P4 ER. I actually just stared playing it again, and rewatching the ER. I wish I could play the game for the first time again, or start the ER over for the first time.

Hold on, The Ultimate is a sequel? I thought it was just a fighting game spin off?

@ZeForgotten: the ultimate takes place 4 months after P4 ends.

the story and characters of p4 are some of the best, good luck with FES

@FluxWaveZ: Well, I mean, I don't want to go and spoil it for myself or any other readers, but I'm pretty sure I know the major aspect of Persona 3's ending. Not sure, actually, if that's the ending to P3 or P3FES. Either way, while the actual moment everything's building towards may be less impactful, but the journey there is definitely all tinged with a beautiful melancholy as a result. It's almost the same way I feel about knowing the killer from Persona 4 far too early, though, again, the actual moment was less meaningful.

@ZeForgotten: The Ultimate apparently has a story and is taking place two months after the events of Persona 4. This is pretty much all the info we have so far, but I've seen it repeated other places. Again, I'm not totally sure how to feel about it, but it's prolonging an actual feeling of closure with Persona 4, so I'm okay with that.

@slightconfuse: But it's still a fighting game, just with a good story? (I think that's the first time such a game has had a good story now that I think about it)

Was looking more forward to an actual sequel to it that played the same way. Oh well maybe it's just me who finds it weird when others call that a sequel. Like making a Street Fighter Kart-driving game and calling it "The sequel to Street Fighter IV"

@ZeForgotten said:

@slightconfuse: But it's still a fighting game, just with a good story? (I think that's the first time such a game has had a good story now that I think about it)

Was looking more forward to an actual sequel to it that played the same way. Oh well maybe it's just me who finds it weird when others call that a sequel. Like making a Street Fighter Kart-driving game and calling it "The sequel to Street Fighter IV"

I think we'd all prefer that, but the prospect of more quality Persona 4 story is really vital. If they manage to add social linking to the single player in some way, I'd be even crazier about it.

@ZeForgotten said:

@slightconfuse: But it's still a fighting game, just with a good story? (I think that's the first time such a game has had a good story now that I think about it)

Was looking more forward to an actual sequel to it that played the same way. Oh well maybe it's just me who finds it weird when others call that a sequel. Like making a Street Fighter Kart-driving game and calling it "The sequel to Street Fighter IV"

The game will feature a full story mode written by the Persona team. It's about as official a sequel as one could hope for short of Persona 4-2: Nanako's Reign of Vengeance.

@Little_Socrates: @Hailinel: Eh, whatever. Guess I'll see what comes of it when it comes out.

@FluxWaveZ said:

Dude, you know P3FES' ending? Man, I don't think the ending sequence to that game would have been nearly as impactful for me had I known it beforehand.

I dunno. I knew the protagonist dies at the end going into the game, not any specifics obviously, but that ending hit me in a really weird, oddly poignant way. Of course, then The Answer had to immediately screw that up. Having watched all the cutscenes on the Youtube, I'm glad I didn't go through another 30 hours of dungeoneering for that.

Of course, the pacing in those games are weird opposites, whereas I find Persona 4's ending to be a little... deflating with the whole "It was a supernatural being behind the entire thing!" as a weirdly cliche cop-out for a story that is surprisingly grounded despite the fact that it is about teenagers entering a TV and fighting monsters using reflections of their inner psychoses, I actually think Persona 3's ending is great. It's the middle part of that game that I consider fairly weak, where it's just your team fighting a bunch of random shadows with no real exposition, leading to an out of nowhere plot twist that is executed rather poorly with little justification. Meanwhile, Persona 4 has the whole murder mystery thing going on, and actually manages to make its protagonists act like high school kids instead of precocious JRPG protagonists. (I mean, seriously. The main story of P3 is so oddly detached from the high school social linking element, that you might not remember that your fellow SEES members are high schoolers unless you saw them in the halls)

So: @Little_Socrates: in conclusion: Keep on playing Persona 3. It's not as good, but it's still pretty great. You can social link with Tanaka!

I'm in the same boat and its just going to make the drop off that much harder

@ArbitraryWater: I actually do think the story of Persona 4 ends on a pretty good note. Again, maybe it's because I've been geeking out on Japanese mythology this semester, but the ending totally fits the style of many of the stories I've read so far. It's kind of wacky, and I understand why that turns people off, but it's also what, ultimately, makes it something I'll clearly be able to show my kids at a pretty young age (old enough to tolerate the words "shit" and some mild sexuality, basically,) and what will allow the game to remain a favorite amongst young people for so long.

Persona 3 is super-dark, and I'll keep on with it as I still enjoy it, but it is a bit more difficult to play through. I am sort of in that middle-game at the moment, though. I love what I know of the ending, so I'm looking forward to playing out the rest of that game. I definitely agree that Persona 3's protagonists act like anime/JRPG characters rather than high schoolers, especially in contrast with P4.

@Little_Socrates: @ArbitraryWater: Not just what happens to the protagonist in the end, but everything else: the final confrontations with Strega, how the final boss is handled and defeated, what happens after the boss is defeated with everyone's memories...

@FluxWaveZ said:

@Little_Socrates: @ArbitraryWater: Not just what happens to the protagonist in the end, but everything else: the final confrontations with Strega, how the final boss is handled and defeated, what happens after the boss is defeated with everyone's memories...

All I know, remember, is the thing with the protagonist. Again, just tinges everything with a poignant melancholy.

The fact that Persona 4 seems to keep going is something I'm happy for. I finished P4 after I got the spark to go back to it because of the ER and was happy that I did. Everything about the game was fantastic, but the story is what set it far above anything I'd have ever played (the ME storyline is the only thing that comes close to as interesting to me). So to have more story or to go back and relive the story again, which I'm doing as I'm rewatching the ER right now and also the anime, makes me so happy. It's like watching a movie over and over again. It doesn't matter how many times you see it, if you like it you'll just want to see it again.

And I also tried playing P3:FES after I finished P4 and was unable to get into it. It just didn't click for me and that may just be the way things got going, the characters, or who knows. It just wasn't the same and that's not me saying it's a bad game, but it wasn't what I wanted it to be and that's an unfair point of view. I just wanted more P4 and obviously I wasn't going to get it there.

So does that mean that I'm going to go back and plug back in my PS2 to play it again, no. But i'll play The Ultimate whenever it comes out, and I'll probably pick up a PS Vita when P4 The Golden is released so I can play it again which is a lot more expensive then dragging the PS2 back up.

@Little_Socrates: I actually had no problem enjoying the ending to P3 even though I had it spoiled. Not saying you should spoil yourself; however, Its not really what happens but how its handled that is great.

Also, the game begins to shine in its second half, so don't be discouraged if the early sections aren't as engaging.

You could always play it again on Vita!

But yeah, I guess I was more fortunate to have spaced out the game. Watched the ER when it was new, played the game a year or so afterwards, then this anime thing is trickling out, and I'll probably give the game another shot on the Vita, especially if they do it like they did P3P and add another protagonist. That would change things up enough for another playthrough.