selfconfessedcynic

Man, I need to play TWD at some point - I went from the epic, fantastical Guild Wars 2 to the happy and warm Persona 4 Golden, I dont think I can take the swerve towards dark and horrific Walking Dead.

At least not right now.

But yes, good games getting good scores makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

@TooWalrus: @Colourful_Hippie:

Oh god, I haven't even looked at those forums... I'll see you there later today :P

It's going to be a long, fun wait for P5.

@dekkadekkadekka: Those guides are barely ever 100% accurate because of some in-built randomness, the idea is for the extra time given (1 month at the end) to be enough to cover the differences. I had a look at the bigger ones on Gamefaqs when going through my 2nd playthrough and it seemed pretty good as far as it can go.

The general idea is to spend each day doing the link they suggest - if you didn't advance when they did, don't spend the next day making up the difference, just continue to follow the guide, backdating as necessary. I was considering writing a guide for this game, but because of issues like those you're having I decided not to (too many people would have such a varying experience, the feedback on something like that would be difficult to manage).

@Edder: Awesome! how did that go for you?

It's kinda crazy that you, me, @FluxWaveZ: @TooWalrus: @Colourful_Hippie: beat it in the same ballpark of time.

I guess a standard completionist first time through is ~70 hours - making this game up there with some of the old classics for base playthrough-times.

@Nightriff: Oh great - then you shouldn't have a problem!

Doing things like going to the hotsprings with your dudes can be really interesting, so maybe give that a shot if you're not obsessing over 100%ing. You can get pretty cool powers (eg. Naoto can get Angelic Grace, Yukiko can get ice stuff, etc). Also, there are a bunch of persona you should consider spending Cafe time with to get their powers (Trumpeter for Debilitate comes to mind).

Have fun duder.

@Nightriff:

I was pretty focussed on getting 100% but didn't use a guide. It isn't really a fun way to play the game as I didn't do things like go to the cinema with Naoto or get Teddy's and Yosuke's final persona. It's definitely doable though (I still spent days doing the new stuff like staring out to sea / going swimming / the cafe and stuff).

What I'd recommend (and what would have saved me those last bits of time) is to pay attention to the vox populi (the speach bubble thing) feature to figure out what your options are. Make sure to advance the Adachi S-Link at night ASAP and save up the Sun arcana and Hermit arcana for rainy days. Finally it'd be to get the Tatsumi Ladybug / Fishing Rod / Inaba Jewel Beetle stuff done either ASAP or LAST (in prep for Hermit 10).

@Nightriff: Yup! My first time through I missed it by 4 days (Kanji and Rise were at 9, everything else was maxed), but I got max S-Link and max compendium on my 2nd playthrough with a full month to spare. I definitely say play it how you want on the first time through, 'cos on NG+ you don't have to waste days reading books and whatnot.

My 3rd playthrough I only did the core group and nanako/dojima/strength - I did it whilst listening to the audiobooks for The Wheel of Time in prep for the final book, just 'cos.

So I just polished up my third playthrough of P4 Golden, bringing my clock up to 155 hours. (70 hours, 50 hours, 35 hours)

It kindof... just... happened? Luckily work is pretty mellow at the moment.

But not all of you can be as crazy as I am. So, let's have it - how many hours have you had a chance to play P4 Golden?

Congrats on another 10/10 P4 Golden, you deserved it.

http://www.polygon.com/game/persona-4-golden/2718

It's kindof scary to me that my game of 2008 is my game of 2012, but w/e. I'll be over here listening to Heaven.

@Colourful_Hippie: The damage ratios aren't actually different between the two. Very hard is more about the lack of resources in addition to more difficult enemies, as if you were playing it from a blank slate getting low XP and Money would indeed make it an SOB to get through the game without excessive grinding. That and a lack of retries on floors of the dungeon - if you wipe, you go back to your last save, no matter how far back that save is (like OG Persona 4, but now they don't have a save point at the top floor anymore).

Odd, though, that they didn't make the taken/given ratio Great / Normal for Hard and Great / Small for Very Hard.

Anyway, if you want the toughest enemies possible, set Damage Taken to Great, and Damage Given to Small and you're good.

@Colourful_Hippie: So you can change between presets by going to Triangle Menu > System > Change Difficulty, then selecting one with L and R, then hitting OK.

OR, you can go to any tab (eg the Current tab), and hit up/down to select the variable you want to change, then hit x. You're then given the options for that variable, and hitting OK after selecting all the ones you want sets your custom difficulty. You can then check what you've got it set to by viewing the Current tab.

So for me, I have Damage Taken to Great (1.5-2x), Damage Given to Small (.66x), EXP Won to More (5x), Money won to More (5x), Retries in dungeons to Use, Retries in battles to Don't Use.

@Epidehl: Good luck! I gave up on platinuming this game. I missed out on all-books because I said I was good at math to the Strength guys and hence didn't get that stupid missable one from them. I haven't had the luck to get a prize from the vending machines either, and I doubt I'll ever bother with save/reloading it (it's a 1/250 chance or so). In addition, I fused the entire compendium without getting The Nose to give me a single fusion mistake.

I wish the platinum had to do with actual achievements rather than RNG /missable stuff, *sigh*.