Review : SMT Persona 4
Ahh, Persona 4. My estranged journey with this game started around December 2008. Where In Europe Persona 3: FES had been released a few months prior. And I caught wind that the fourth iteration of the series would be out in March. So, instead of seeking out the extremely hard to find P3:FES, I waited for the release of P4. I got it a few days after launch in March. And finished this January. The reason for the lengthy time of this was that I got frustrated when I lost a lot of data due to making bad decisions and just put the game down (will touch upon this later) My finished Game time was around 200 hours.
Considering you've read the story primer. You should know what I'm on about in this section.
The story in Persona 4 Is fantastic, not is there only the ongoing murder investigation you are doing, there are sections where you can bond with your friends, this is called Social Linking, or S.Link for short. This helps to develop the characters backstories and backgrounds. It really makes you bond and relate to all of the characters. While not being Evangelion style deep. The Characters do put on a very good show and with every twist and turn of the plot, it helps you to see each individual character's real thoughts and each one's vastly different personality.
The cast of Persona 4 are very good, In Terms of average JRPG casts, and the horrifyingly bad FFXIII cast. Persona 4 really gives you a sense of depth to each character and their insecurities.
I think this is helped by the way each on gets their own persona. By “facing themself” with their true thoughts and feelings.
This helps paint a picture that not all people are perfect, and that everyone has their own little personal stuggles they have to go against. And how their problems can consume their thoughts and overall, mental wellbeing.
I think that this game delves into the controversial aspect of human thought, Supressed feelings. It deals with these accordingly. And the aspect of facing all of your supressed thoughts in front of people is horrifying, to say the least. So from this almost traumatic Experience, you bond and develop with these characters.
As far fetched as it may seem, even a cuddly bear has identity issues :'(
As for the story in itself, I do not want to spoil it for anyone, but I can say that your choices affect every single aspect of the game, the twists and false red herrings. They're all up to your own personal judgement. Even to the point where I lost 20 hours of play-time due to making bad decisions in the past. And I have to say. It does a damn good job of keeping tabs on all the suspects, how everything pans out and the overall outcome of the game feels very satisfying. The story and storytelling of this game is on par with greats of storytelling games. It all feels completely natural and nothing feels forced overall.
Overall, the story of this game is really what gives it its drive, everything covers and resonates into this whole fantastic experience.
The gameplay is extremely varied in Persona 4. Of course there is a basic battle system in the traditional, turn based RPG style. It has normal, physical attacks with your weapon, or an attack with your Persona/(ae)
Basically, persona are your elemental attacks or strong physical attacks other then your normal attack. And to use your persona you use up your HP bar, and your SP bar. SP bar is for your Elemental attacks, and HP bar for the physical attacks. So you Have to watch your HP if you want to use your persona's physical attacks all of the time. The main character that you Control throughout the whole game can use up to 16 persona, and normal characters only use one All of these persona have different attributes and level up independently depending on their usage, and learn new attacks and get stronger as they level up.
The way elements are incorporated into persona is that like pokemon, where essentially it's a big game of rock-paper-scissors. Get the enemy's weakness, and down them, then rush them. Is the basic strategy. It does get more complex then that later on, with need to buff and debuff characters and bosses to boost their stats to deal massive damage or hamper their strength.
The “social links” in this game act as a double whammy of sorts, initiating them help you in battle in numerous ways, such as your team mates taking a fatal hit for you, or helping you up after you are knocked down. Or even asking to preform their Special attack after an enemy is down.
Another aspect where this helps is during persona fusion, but we will get onto that later.
Social links help develop the characters in the world of Persona 4. Most people you meet in persona 4 who has a drawn character usually has a social link attached with them at some point. It helps you be enveloped into this world and help you understand characters more. As I pointed out earlier.
Each Persona has something called an Arcana. And each arcana corresponds to a type of persona and a Social Link.
By Levelling up social links. You can gain EXP upgrades to newly fused persona from Persona Fusion.
Basically, you can fuse your persona into a single, more powerful card. These fusions can take 2 – 6 persona fusion spreads. And initially you can only do a 2 spread and 3 spread fusion, but as your character levels up, you gain more spread. However you can only fuse Persona that are lower or the same as your Main Character's level. This is why it's useful to level up your Social link to get an EXP boost after fusion.
At times in the game when I was stuck, I tried to fuse a Quadruple spread persona, and it was alright, but to get Persona to fuse to that Certain one, I had to enter into previous Dungeons and “hunt” for these persona to fuse. I found this more fun then frustrating. As It's a deep and complex mechanic. But all in all. It really pays off.
The way this game plays out is that you gradually get more and more complex as the Main Character Levels up. This works pretty well I think.
The learning curve at the start of this game is STEEP. It's really difficult to begin with and felt quite grindy. This is by no means an easy game to play and slog through. This will game can and WILL kick your ass when you least expect it. Considering it's a Shin Megami Tensei game, I wasn't surprised by the level of difficulty thrown at me. At the start of the game they even said that the “Normal” mode was for seasoned gamers.
One weakness to the game was that if the Main Character died, it was game over. I felt that this was kind of weak, because when you plan out your battle strategy, you have to take into account that the Main Character is your most valuable asset. And it's hard to juggle managing the whole team's attacks and the monsters weakness while keeping an eye out to see if dear MC is out of health/SP. And I think reflecting upon this, that you had to really struggle through some fights. As bosses had cheap attacks that could OH-KO me. Initially, this felt really cheap. And I actually put the game down for a number of months after Then again I didn't S.Link enough so that my team mates could take a hit for me... So, eventually. It all comes down to play style.
How you S.Link and Enter the TV world to go dungeoneering makes it that the day is split into parts, and you have to balance these parts accordingly. For example. You cannot social link after School AND go Into the TV. So this makes for some big decisions in the long run.
Another way the game puts pressure into your long term thinking is that you have a time limit to get through a dungeon, and you can only spot this end when it's Three rainy days in a row, and I have to admit I did get caught once, which is deeply frustrating as you may have made a save beforehand the day before and not had any “backup” saves. Forcing you to start the game from scratch, luckily I had backup saves dating
On top of this is that the MC has his own Stats, which you have to level up as time goes on and lack of these stats can hamper your S.Link progress by “not having enough courage” to do something rash in a S.Link scenario. So, the pressure is on pretty much.
The Artstyle in this game is what makes everything come full circle. The theme of Yellow's and blacks really give it a nice, light-hearted feel. This is reflected in the music too.
The music is reminiscent of summery J-POP/Rock and it fits really well into the game's context. Although I can never listen to the battle theme ever again due to it being played in my ears too much throughout the course of the game.
What I thought was smart about the music in this game was that in a Certain dungeon, the lyrics reflected upon the person that was kidnapped. And it's an awesome song to boot!
The graphics in this game are impressive for a Ps2 hardware game. Due to being released late in the lifecycle. I was surprised they fit this whole game into one single DVD! (I'm not sure if it's dual layer or not) Although nothing compared to greats like uncharted 2. The games graphics do suffice for it's anime styling.
Overall, Persona 4 is probably one of the best games I have ever played. Hours of enjoyable playtime, a fun plotline that doesnt take itself TOO seriously, a nice musical score to accompany this. And deep and complex gameplay that made me feel pressured to finish it. I think that Persona 4 Is a brilliant timesink into amazing gameplay, story and score. If I were to say anything bad about this game it would be the length of the goddamn cutscene at the start of the game. One and a half hours, not cool man.
Because I dont give games scores. I usually leave it upto the readers interpretation as I feel it's not good to rate a game on a system like that.
I would give Persona 4 all the numbers in the world. It's literally the culmination of everything I find fun in a game. If you have a PS2 or a 60GB PS3. Do not hesitate to pick this one up. It's well worth your time.
