Persona 4 Golden Review – Review

Persona 4 was originally released for the PlayStation 2 in 2008 and is considered by some of the fanbase to be where the series truly took off. Persona 3 was relatively popular at the time, but people seem to have fallen in love with Inaba’s City of Mist. I was. Until very recently, these games were confined to their respective systems, but Persona 4 made its first appearance on Nintendo’s platform. Anyone who has likely joined the series with the wildly popular Persona 5 will be challenged to play either of his two titles that technically started it all. What should those people expect from this ten-year-old title of his?

In Persona 4, you control a high school student who has transferred from a school in Tokyo to a rural town in Inaba. There he will spend the next year of his life with his uncle Dojima and cousin Nanako. He soon befriends some of his school’s more eccentric students like Yosuke Hanamura and Chie Satonaka. His peaceful country life is quickly turned upside down when a series of serial killers begin to occur in the town. This seems to be related to the strange rumor of watching a blank TV in the middle of the night on a rainy night. This is a phenomenon known as the Midnight Channel. Shortly after, the protagonist and his friends learn that they have the ability to enter the TV screen and appear in an ominous foggy world filled with monsters called Shadows. Killed by shadows on a foggy day with no way to leave. A group of friends vow to save someone who’s been tossed on TV from there, and begins a supernatural murder mystery that may be his one of the best stories the RPG genre has to offer.

Persona 4’s gameplay is split into two parts, the first being Daily Life. Unlike other characters on the team, the protagonist can switch between multiple personas. One of his main ways of acquiring new personas is by fusing existing personas. A way to make this process more effective is to create social links. Throughout the game, you’ll encounter characters, including members of your party, and get to know them through a 10-part story. Each character is represented by a different Tarot Arcana, and developing a relationship with them yields that Arcana persona, which when fused creates a blast of bonus XP. This mechanic is what sets Persona apart from other games in its genre, and is the most impressive part of the whole game. Some social links are more interesting than others, like Ai Ebihara. The characters have amazing arcs, Shu Nakajima isn’t the most thrilling story to be a part of, but they’re all worth your time and do a great job of giving you. A more emotional attachment to Inaba.

The other half of the gameplay is a dungeon crawling through your TV. Almost every month someone in town is kidnapped and you have to venture into their dungeon to save them by the next foggy day. All the dungeons in the game are the same dungeon, with different paint schemes. Whenever they try to make little gimmicks to make them stand out, like having to backtrack two floors to open a door, or having the camera swing in a different direction every time you step into a door. , these end up being more frustrating than funny. Combat is generally intuitive and well put together, but it’s still not without its problems. Like other Persona titles, hitting a Shadow with an attack type gives the character another turn while knocking down that Shadow. Defeating all Shadows will allow the entire party to attack and deal massive damage. Taking a second weakpoint hit on a downed enemy will cause dizziness and force you to skip the next turn, but be aware that this can happen to people in your party as well. Please. Combat issues arise in late dungeons where enemy types seem to be built to be as tedious to fight as possible. Many of them can only hurt with one type of attack, but have abilities that make their opponents incredibly difficult to hit. Using that particular type makes the whole fight even more RNG than normal.

Overall, Persona 4 deserves a place in our list of the best JRPGs ever made, but it definitely shows its age. You’ll find it to be a more clumsy method. Bland dungeons and sudden difficulty spikes might also pique the interest of new players, but if you can get past them, you’ll find a thrilling murder mystery featuring some of my favorite story moments in the Persona series. Add this to a highly likable cast of characters such as Kanji Tatsumi and Yukiko Amagi, and one of the most catchy soundtracks ever put into a video game, and Inaba can’t help but feel like he’s been in the game for a long time. may fall in love with Despite all its flaws, you may eventually find yourself sad to actually leave.