Persona 4 review

I've been thinking about posting reviews, and I think that sometimes you just want to tell a friend what the game is about and whether they would like it. So the first part of this is a rough summary, which is a short preview of the game, just to try to see if you would be interested in this game. Very little personal thoughts, mostly just if it's fun and what kind of battle system it uses.

It's such a nice feeling beating a game, knowing that I completed it. Sometimes I think I just like the feeling of completing more than the game, but that's way too deep for today. I have now played through Persona 4 completely, and in only 89 hours! That is about the same that I took for Persona 3.

Rough, spoiler-free summary:
Story: Is good. Anime-ish and serious and funny sometimes too. Interesting with some nice thoughtful and philosophical themes.
Battle: A riff on standard j-rpgs. Turn based with four characters per battle, some are meant to be AI controlled. Battles rarely felt unfair, dungeons are random but still fun. Spell names are odd (bufu = ice, agi = fire) but doesn't take too long to get used to. Stats are determined by your persona (a little like GFs from ff8). Slight pokemon collect-them-all feeling, but usually you can combine your personas to make a new stronger one, so you don't drag one along the whole game.
Social: You spend time building relationships and gaining 'Knowledge' and 'Courage', while juggling school, midterms, and of course the fighting. It's put together well, and you don't feel like your playing a weird Japanese relationship game.

Longer, babbly spoiler-free talks:
Story:
Persona 4 has a pretty good plot, not bland and just a little confusion. We have some anime sequences sprinkled around, and you can make some personal conversation choices to define yourself. The game is divided into "I'm in a dungeon and I'm going to fight things" and something close to a life simulator. You have stats like Knowledge and Courage that you need to level up for certain conversations to happen. You can complete the game without improving any of these 'social' stats, but it's a fun component. For example, if you see something weird looking in the fridge and eat it, you courage goes up. Then you might end up going to bed earlier because your stomach hurts, but hey, maybe you were about to go to bed anyway.
During the day you attend school, and afterwords you have friends to talk to. If you spend time with your friends, it will help you in battle, and if you spend so much time that your 'social link level' with that person maxes out (10 levels) then you get access to something special. It's a pretty good system, and I enjoyed juggling my friends and trying to become closer to all of them.

Battle system:
The battle system is semi-standard j-rpg. You stand there, they stand there, you all wait and take turns to bonk each other on the heads. Some of the differences are that Persona 4 emphasizes that YOU are the main character. You name him, he never speaks, and you are always in control of him. In fact, if he dies, then the game ends. Immediately. Doesn't matter if you have a zillion revival beads in your bag, the game is over. Now this isn't as horrible as it sounds, it's just another strategy point to consider. The battle will have 4 people total (one of them always being the main character) and there are a variety of AI options for the other people. Default is AI (and I thought it was rather good and left it almost all the time, unless it was a boss fight) but there are specific types of AI and direct control also. The dungeons are random (almost completely) so every time you go through a level it will look a little different.
There are magical elements that enemies are weak or strong against, and this is where most of the strategy for the game comes in. If an enemy is weak to Ice, then if you cast ice on them they fall on their ass. It doesn't really slow them down, but if you manage to knock over all the enemies you get a chance to have everyone run in and have a big brawl against everything. It will causes (usually) massive damage to all enemies, and generally will win the fight. Sometimes it will be insanely easy to knock them all down, and sometimes not. Some enemies don't have a weakness, but there is always a chance to knock them down with a critical attack. This makes the battles much more interesting, since you have to think about more than just 'i hit them and they die, uh-huh'.
The other side of battles are Personas. You equip them and they give you almost all your stats and attacks. You can switch to a different one during your turn, which means you can go from a hardcore ice-magic user to a strong man in a second. It's a little like a pokemon collect them all game, because you can take personas and combine them to make a new one. There are tons of them in the game, and in fact I only had 85% of them when I finished. All your persona's are saved and you can spend money to bring back old ones whenever you can afford it.

Personal impressions (spoilers be here):
I liked it. I usually dislike games with random dungeons, because I feel like I'm grinding and I hates the grinding. But I also love themes, and each dungeon had a cute little thing. Plus even though I'd seen some of the same monster models in Persona 3, there were enough new ones to entertain me. They had less of the "we can cast insta death spells so we will, MWAHAHAHAH" stuff in this game, because there were some levels in Persona 3 that had tons of that and it was nerve-racking. It was rare that I was nervous about getting insta-killed. The final battle was WAY too easy though, my strategy was have everyone hit and while one person just healed. I mean, there wasn't anything else. I keep comparing it to Persona 3, because that final boss battle was HELL. I almost didn't think I had beat it, since it was only 2 forms with simple strategy.
Now I did beat the game 'early', since I had days in the game I could have used to improve social stuffs and instead I just beat it. I'm considering going back to improve more links and then beat it (plus game faqs told me there is a secret boss I can access!). Next time I play through the game (which will be in awhile, since I've been playing this since the end of April) I will load up my new game + and play it on expert. So, hmm, I don't really want to go back and fight the secret boss, but I guess new stuff unlocks if you do... but I don't wanna, I finished it, I don't wanna go back! I can't decide.
Story-wise, the game was great. Philosophical sometimes, and sometimes with standard anime wackiness. Plus I was really sad when they almost killed a certain character, even though I totally knew they were gonna at least kidnap, I didn't think they would kill her. But of course she came back. And talking to NPCs while time passed was interested, and of course all my social links were interesting too. The weapon shop was kinda weird, but it worked a little more smoothly than in Persona 3.


Overall, I liked Persona 3 more. More interesting story and dammit, shooting yourself in the head to cast spells is just amazing. But Persona 4 was almost as good. I was surprised how interesting the story was, and how the game juggles persona-collection, social leveling, and random dungeons. Very good, and highly recommended. And I totally want a Teddie Plushie.

Well, there's my first try at a review. I babbled too much. :(