I just can't. I can't finish Naoto's dungeon. As much as I love the game, and the universe. The story is great, and so are the characters, plus I feel like I'm at the right age for playing Persona, and rightly so - being able to actually put myself, or some of my friends in the shoes of the characters is something that no game has achieved for me, ever. But the grinding. Dear god. I just can't bring myself to do another 10 floors.

Am I crazy? Am I alone in this?

Ever since I've discovered P4 I've never skipped a week without listening to the music, which is incredible. I've also watched the anime. Maybe that's what ruined it. Anywho, I just feel like I need more Persona, and less JRPG. I'm probably never going to be able to finish this game, as much as I want to. Also, I've tried Arena, a 30+ visual novel seems a bit much. What is one to do?

Watch the endurance run.

Watch the Endurance Run. You'll get everything you want out of the game without actually playing it.

watch endurance run ^

Right.

I don't like the Endurance Runs.

Well, then I'm not sure what to tell you then. Don't play games that you don't like? You said you watched the anime. Sounds like you're done.

Then I guess your done, I guess get the soundtrack for P4?

No kidding, you don't want to play the game... You don't want to watch the endurance run... What are we supposed to offer as a solution, maybe quit bitching and tough it out, or at the very least don't make a forum post when you already know that you will shoot down the next most logical suggestion

While grinding in rpgs I'll listen to some music or a podcast. Giant Bomb Game of The Year Deliberations are coming up. Galactic Punt some shadows while listening to the bomb crew talk about all the games better than Brothers!

Well don't grind for one. You don't need to in Persona 4.

Unless you consider the mere act of playing it at all "grinding", in which case you should just stop playing.

If you don't like the Endurance Runs then you don't like Giant Bomb. Because you don't like Giant Bomb, why are you here?

@fireprince: I never had to "grind" in P4. My strategy in random-dungeon-crawlers is typically not to obsess over exploring every inch of a floor or fighting every single enemy... and only leave grinding as a last resort for if I run into trouble.

Turns out I never had to go there. Some bosses were pretty hard, but it was nothing I had to go back and level up for. Good tactics and Persona management can trump any need for collecting EXPs. So... yeah, if you don't want to suffer spending time on all those floors, just don't. You don't even need to.

In summation: fuck this person for having a deviant opinion.

Just take a break and come back. Don't be such a wuss duder, you already did 40 hours.

Oh, be nice. The ER is my favorite thing on this site, but it's definitely not the whole site by a long shot. I can accept that not everyone is crazy enough to watch 100 hours of Vinny and Jeff playing Persona 4, like I am. Even if I've watched it multiple times, goddammit.

Next time I just recommend knocking the game down to easy. You won't have to do really any grinding. The combat gets easy but you still have to pay attention to the mechanics some.

@flacracker: I've been here since it was little more than a blog, with a quick look there of Dragon Ball Z something, and Building a Bomb, if memory serves me right. I have loved it ever since. But that doesn't mean I want to watch, as specified above, 100 hours of Vinny and Jeff playing Persona 4.

If you're playing this game with the only intent of just to beat it, you're doing it wrong. The game takes place over a course of a year and that's about as long as it took me to play it. I started playing in August of last year and finished around June/July the following year. It's very easy to get burnt out on these games because of how long they are so just pace yourself. I basically had times through out the year where I was playing like crazy and others where I wouldn't touch it for months on end, electing to play a newly released game instead. Basically just relax and enjoy the game and don't worry about getting to the end. It might be hard to believe but I actually didn't want the game to end as the credits were rolling on my 82 hour game.

EDIT: Also, I just noticed you said you watched the anime? All of it? Of course that's whats ruining it for you. How can you be excited to progress through something when you already know how it ends?

I would take a break, man. I totally understand how after awhile the dungeons start to wear you down and feel boring, but continuing from hereon will only make it worse. Take say, a few days off from playing, and maybe you'll be interested in returning to world of persona.

You don't even have to grind on hard, as long as you're keeping your Persona's up to date.

Let it rest for a while and/or just do one or two floors a day. That's really not too hard, is it? The grind only becomes a grind if you let it grind you. Apply your own rules and relax the grind; massage the grind; make the grind your friend.

Yep.

The only time I had to grind was to get the super end game personas. Otherwise the game doesn't require much grinding.

That reminds me, don't feel forced to do your dungeon crawling all at once. A lot of people recommend doing that for the sake of optimal playthroughs, but I always found the most enjoyable way to play the game is to just do it when you feel like it. Doing a few floors and then popping out to do some Social Linking and then doing a few more floors, etc, makes for a much better experience and gives the game much better pacing.

If you're getting burnt out on the game then mix it up with some other stuff.

Fire Emblem: Awakening? Oedipus Rex? Actually, didn't a lot of Greek literature eschew suspense entirely by just referencing where things were going, anyway?

@video_game_king said:

I'm always reminded of Romeo and Juliet when this comes up, where they tell you how it ends right at the beginning. The ending is rarely the most important part of a story, and in this case I would say the little things all throughout the game that weren't in the anime is what makes the game stand so far above the anime.

Yes and Operas do this a lot as well. But in fairness these are 2-3 hour stories where as Persona can last over 100 hours. With that amount of time, the allure of new story beats can help me get through a grind. That is the only point I was trying to make, really.

@xanadu: I suppose that's valid, as it's not like those major story beats were not part of the reason I stayed so invested.

Then again, I've played the game at least 3 times now, so I knew everything that was going to happen on those later playthroughs.

@fireprince: Well here is a tip. I finish the game at lvl 45-50. Grinding is not necessary. Your skills/weaknesses/resistance is what you need to watch for. Most dungeon have a leaning for certain type of element, exploit it. If you are worry about getting 1 shot by hama/mudo skill, buy a homunculus. If you happen to be playing P4G and not the ps2 version then you don't need a tip from me. They made that game FF easy.

Most important tip of all, go into dungeon on rainy days. You will run into golden hands enemy much more often on those days.

Yeah it took me about a year to 100% P4. I needed a break from grinding every once in awhile so I'd take a few weeks off between dungeons. It is WELL worth the effort though. It's my favorite jrpg of all time. Maybe not the best, but my favorite.

If you can kill the mobs in any given area within one full player turn you can proceed to the boss. If you are having troubles after that still buy some equipment that has resistance to the boss you are fighting.

@video_game_king:

Be serious, we all know that's not what I meant, I'm not gonna go to extraneous circumstances when the OP has provided more than enough reasons that he doesn't want to continue playing the game due to the grinding, I am not disregarding his opinion . I am simply saying if he isn't finding the game enjoyable due to the problems he feels are with the game maybe it's time to move to a different game. Your attempt to add additional inflammatory remarks to my post has been noted, although it was certainly inappropriate.

The problem with the Romeo and Juliet comparison is that the ending it's not supposed to be a mystery.

Edit: Of course that's not to say that there isn't a ton of other reasons why P4 is an awesome game, just that for a majority of the game, your overarching objective is "find out who/what is behind the deaths (and stop it/them)"

I agree, I love Persona 4, but can't stand the dungeons. Why I love Golden soo much, put it on Very Easy, dungeons take like 15 mins tops.

This game is right for all ages, son. for the whole family

mom dad sara and billy.

You do not have to grind one bit in Persona 4. If you have to grind it is a sign that you do not fully understand the battle system and what you can do with it. Only if you do all these side quest you have to grind but I never thought of them as important to do so.

Whenever somebody brings up the grind in Persona, I'm reminded of that conversation you get with Margaret early in the game. Where she basically tells you joining a sports club is probably just as important as saving Yukiko from imminent death.

Level and progress in the dungeon is only one small aspect that determines how easy/smooth you'll find the experience. Probably the smallest aspect. Doing things like repping up with fox or your other friends, or entering on a rainy day, or buying new equipment can change the experience so drastically.

But then again, there's the also the possibility it's just not your type of game, which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. I mean, you already enjoyed the anime and whatnot. If you still wanna go through it, more specific details about where you are in the game may help people give better advice.

@fireprince: There is a point in all Persona games where you no longer feel weak and suddenly feel like you can one hit anything. You should be right around that point now, assuming you have been fusing personas a lot and have some high ranks in your social links.

Personally I just finished P4G for the second time (I've also played P4 and P3P twice). I'm also sick of grinding so I set it to very easy and ran past all the enemies. I fought the golden hands* when I could find them and I'd fight for quest items on old dungeons. It basically caused my typical two to four hour dungeon sessions to become an hour and I was level 99 by the time I was done Naoto's dungeon.

I know you can't change the difficulty on your first play through so you'll probably put the game down. In eight or ten months when you want to pick it back up consider starting from scratch and playing on an easier difficulty setting.

* In PG4 they give thousands of EXP and money as opposed to in P4 where they give 1 EXP.

Slap on a podcast while you're doing dungeons, and pause it for story stuff.

I don't know how you can get 40 hours into a game and then abandon it, seems like you'd get to that point and just press on a finish it so you don't have this looming over you for the rest of your life, haunting you to your grave, what if your boss, your best friend or your wife and children ever found out...

The're all going to laugh at you!

If you are fighting every enemy you see and actually grinding, stop it, stop it right now. There is no need to grind in that game even on normal. But if by grinding you mean fighting a few battles every floor then, yeah knock it down to easy or watch the ER on the site, Vinny and Jeff's commentary makes the story even better. I really liked the combat, but I can see how it would be annoying if you don't like it and want to see the rest of the story, but if you don't like ER's then I don't know what else to tell you. But honestly your at the point of the game where it starts to get almost too easy, you could probably just run past almost all the enemies if you wanted and have no real issues.

You don't need to grind in these games, you need to have a thorough understanding of the mechanics.

Anyway, give it a break for a month or two and come back to it later, refreshed and clear.

@believer258 said:

Dude, 1-2 months is way too long of a break from a game like this. Jumping back into the middle of a JRPG like this after not playing for that long is practically impossible, IMO.

Why would you think that? I gave Persona 3 FES a 2-month break earlier this year. I stopped at about the 40 hour mark, too.

@believer258: Then I think you're weird. I could never do that and most people I've talked to about the subject are the same. After that long of a break the only way I could get back into a game like this is start from the beginning. There's no way I could jump in 40 hours in and still enjoy it.

Well, why not? Would you just forget all of the characters and story? I might have a better memory for stories than most.

I can't play games longer than fifteen or so hours in one big chunk, I have to have a fairly long break from them at some point. I wound up putting eighty hours into P3FES, though, and enjoyed the hell out of it.

@fireprince: Your only real solution is to grind out those dungeons. Give the game a break, do something else. When you come back it should be fresh enough where the dungeons won't feel too much like a slog.

I never played P4, nor did I watch the Endurance Run. I love the site though and I played a lot of Persona 3 to the point where those are my favorite characters and the P4 crew just seems lame. Putting on glasses, pfft, who does that? Real invokers use a pistol to the head. Either way, many times through Persona 3 I felt likewise where I just physically couldn't do another floor, or grind more experience for an impending boss. I took time out and came back later, usually to be rewarded by fun story bits.

Can I invite Saucepan Man and Silky the Fairy?

Pay a homeless man to play it for you while you sit back and instruct him on what to do. Might get a new friend out of it.

Take a break and pick it back up later? The grind of that game does get a little old after a while. Worth it though.

I don't think its all that crazy, I played Lost Odyssey at launch and then got almost to the end, and then stopped and I'm just now picking it up again so I can finally finish it. It took like 10 minutes to get my bearings, but it all came back pretty quickly, making my way through the final dungeon now. Although there's probably some little things I don't remember, I feel like I remember most of the story as well.