Persona 4 Golden (out now on everything!)

[Qazimod]

Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1113000/Persona_4_Golden/

 

Steam trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3fUvWwZLyo

 

OP:

 

On 19/02/2013 at 15:16, Flub said:

Not for everyone but it's easily the best JRPG I've ever played.

On 16/04/2013 at 20:32, Paulando said:

It's a bold statement, but Persona 4 is absolutely one of the very, very best games I've ever played.

On 23/02/2013 at 03:30, Curtis said:

It's still one of the best games i've played, and i'm only 25 hours in.

On 26/02/2013 at 15:06, Muz said:

...one of the best games I've played in years

On 08/03/2013 at 13:19, Yasawas said:

Holy shit this game is amazing.

On 19/03/2013 at 14:14, Rikku said:

What an amazing game.

With the Euro release landing this week (Wednesday for SEN/PSN and Friday for brick-and-mortar retailers) I thought that it might be a good idea to get a thread started in preparation for Persona 4 Golden's release. Oh, and Yasawas and Dandy_Sephy expressed interest in seeing a dedicated thread. Released in 2009 on the PS2, Persona 4 arrived very late on Sony's last-gen console, but it's remained one of the most charming and rewarding JRPGs out there and is one of my all-time favourite games. It's a story that revolves around a group of high-school students in Inaba who stumble across an alternate world inside televisions where dangerous creatures known as Shadows roam. A friendly character within this world tells the students that someone has been kidnapping people and throwing them into TVs, and this provides the setup for most of the rest of the game, as the students set about exploring the TV world in order to rescue people trapped there and perhaps get more clues about the kidnapper and (ultimately) the nature of the TV world.

The beauty about the Persona games – at least, the later ones – is that they are really several games rolled into one. Exploring the TV world forms the core dungeon grind, but the heroes are still only students, and get up to student-y things such as studying for exams, answering quick quizzes in class, hanging out with friends in a sort of dating-sim lite (without all the creepiness), working part-time jobs that help to boost stats and earn money, fishing for things at the river, accepting occasional sidequests from people in Inaba and more besides. Whilst you get to explore various different dungeons in the TV world, Inaba's available locations largely stay the same, and so variety comes from the in-game calendar. On each new day there may be different people in town that you can spend time with, different jobs available, books being released in the bookstore which you can buy and read at home to boost stats, and more besides. The calendar also serves as motivation to rescue people from the TV world before it's too late.

Once you finish your school day and are free to explore the town, you have the option of entering the TV world through a large flatscreen in a local department store, which is the only way to enter dungeons and battle through them to save victims. The dungeon design is perhaps one of my favourite things about later Persona games, since each one is made up of several "floors", with the dungeon getting progressively harder from floor to floor, culminating in a boss battle on the final floor. It gives players a nice way of knowing if they're out of their depth and need to step back a few floors before progressing. Battles aren't random but are triggered in a stealth-lite format; if a Shadow spots you a "!" will appear above them and they'll give chase; if they strike you they will gain a free turn at the start of the battle; however, if you strike them without them noticing, your party gets the opening strike. The battles require you to take advantage of elemental strengths and weaknesses; the eponymous Persona that the students eventually gain are demons that can be summoned in battle and offer a selection of skills; buffs, nerfs, physical and elemental attacks, healing, etc. However, each persona can also be strong and weak against certain elements. If an elemental weakness is exposed on either a player or an enemy, a free turn is granted to whoever exposed the weakness. Therefore, a player who knows certain weaknesses in advance can exploit them one after the other with successive turns, knocking down enemies and potentially earning the chance to do a powerful "all-out attack" if all enemies are downed.

In having such a satisfying combat system, giving the player plenty to do outside of the dungeon, and designing each dungeon to get progressively more challenging as the player escalates, it nearly always feels rewarding to play. There are a few difficulty spikes with certain bosses, but things only really get hard if you deliberately rush through dungeons and avoid encounters. Reading back through what I've written it sounds a bit like a review but I really just wanted to provide a primer for people who are new to Persona and want to know what all the fuss is about. If anyone wants to add anything I've missed, feel free. I should just stress that there may be some details I've missed and there may still be bits that will be confusing to newcomers when they get their hands on the game, so I hope that we can get some good discussion going between new and experienced players. I was impatient and ended up importing the US version (and I know others did as well) but if enough people are getting into this for the first time I'll probably start a new game with you all.

PS EU Blog: A beginner's guide to Persona 4

[RubberJohnny]

We're never getting Persona 5 are we?

[Meh]

Sure you will. Probably on the bloody 3DS.

[Laine]

DON'T EVEN THINK THAT! Of course we are. OF COURSE.

I finished it on normal with the normal ending. I've been meaning to start my Hard playthrough and go for the true ending, what better time to start than Friday! Excellent post Qazimod.

[catinthehat]

Thanks for the first post. That's the most I've ever read about a Persona game. I'd always assumed it was just some sort of high school/dating sim.

Do you actually need to do all the fluff, or can you just do the dungeon stuff and still enjoy it? It's just that I hate talking to people in games, and all of the screenshots I've seen of this seem to be people standing around talking. Is there loot to be had?

[Qazimod]

Thanks for the first post. That's the most I've ever read about a Persona game. I'd always assumed it was just some sort of high school/dating sim.

Do you actually need to do all the fluff, or can you just do the dungeon stuff and still enjoy it? It's just that I hate talking to people in games, and all of the screenshots I've seen of this seem to be people standing around talking. Is there loot to be had?

Doing all the fluff - yes and no. There's another system I didn't mention involving the ability to "fuse" personas (personae?) that you've found in the dungeons and create a new persona from this fusion. Sometimes after completing a battle you'll be presented with cards that offer various perks - extra experience, health, money, new skills or a new persona. In collecting personas through these cards you can later fuse them together to create new ones, but each persona is tied to an arcana - think of it as a tarot-based categorisation system. Additionally, the non-creepy dating-sim-lite has a number of people you can spend time with, and each of these people is also linked to one of the arcana. By spending more time with a particular person, the personas linked to the respective arcana will be more powerful when created via fusion. It sounds complicated, but whilst fusing personas you can quickly see how much more experience they will gain upon being created, and more experience leads to better skills and stats.

Loot - yes. There are treasure chests all over the place that contain money, items (expendables such as potions) and equipment (weapons, armour). Enemies also drop various items and materials, and certain materials can be sold at the metalworks in town to create new, better equipment. I completely overlooked the material-selling on my first run on the PS2 game but it makes things a lot more bearable when exploring the tougher dungeons later in the game.

EDIT: I think Hashino mentioned Persona 5 a while ago, but God knows what's happened since...

[Dandy_Sephy]

I'm glad to hear the dungeons don't sound as obnoxious as those in the first Persona. Awful, awful design that for some reason they didn't fix in the psp version.

We're never getting Persona 5 are we?

Pretty sure they were suggesting it will eventually appear when they were finishing Catherine.

[Ferine]

Do you actually need to do all the fluff, or can you just do the dungeon stuff and still enjoy it?

You could, but the "fluff" is half the experience. Whilst I really enjoy Persona's mechanics, if you've no interest in the social aspect you might as well play something else.

That said, don't discount P4's character interactions out of hand. It's embarrassingly far ahead of other games in the genre, despite the school setting: the tone is generally breezy, but there's a surprising bite and subversion of expectation to it as well. I don't mean to oversell it as some kind of watershed point in game writing, just don't judge it based on the exceptionally low bar set by, say, Final Fantasy XIII.

I'm waiting on digital pricing for this. My expectation is a ridiculous £39.99, but we'll see.

[Yasawas]

That's what I thought too. I would prefer it as a digital download but when I saw Shopto had it for under £30 and with my points I get about another fiver off I couldn't say no.

This week I will mainly be cramming Virtue's Last Reward into my face as I try to finish it for Friday.

[Paulando]

Fuuuuuck, didn't realise this was out on Wednesday. My first experience of the series was when I bought P3 on my Vita last year. The first JRPG to hook me for years, loved it. Then we moved house and I stopped playing it and haven't been back

Really interested in getting this though. Might just PSN it up, 40 quid or not.

[Siri]

Having played through the PS2 version recently, I can confirm this is a pretty great JRPG, and the whole basis on scheduling your days to get some Great Teacher Onizuka-styled drama so you can power-level your fusions to hilarious degrees was all very fun. I'll certainly end up picking the game up when it's a little cheaper, as my NG+ run will run into this week's launch and I'll be burnt out by then.

Just don't go to the music club. Ever.

[strawdonkey]

Didn't realise this was out so soon,. With Persona 4 Arena's release date being pretty fluid, this has taken me by surprise a little.

I have £20 of points at Grainger so I think I know where they're going this Friday. Having only played P4 a few months back I'm looking forward to being a little too obsessive over the changes and differences in the two games...

[Laine]

Another thing about the social links, they aren't really about trying to get off with schoolgirls if that aspect is what you find most off putting. Anyway, I guess they should be spoilered, but my favourite social links are:

An old lady in mourning you meet at a hospital and keep comapny and a fox that doesn't talk but gives you fun quests to do to increase donations to a shrine. And will heal in dungeons for an obscene amount of money. Yip!

[donpeartree]

Is this only for the Vita or could I play it on my PS3?

[Mitchell]

I think this will be £35, as it was only $39.99 on the US PSN. Some previous $39.99 games have come out at around the £34.99 mark.

Anyway, the bonus content TV Listings menu...area...in this is ridiculous. I don't even know how to explain some of it! I suppose there are spoilers to follow, so don't read on if you want to uncover this stuff by yourself, but it is explained very early on. I can't spoiler tag in this stupid old work browser, sorry. I'll change it later.

---

'Television' in the game itself is the way the characters jump into battle...as a very short explaination. So there is a TV Listings menu that you can access by touching the bottom right of the screen at any time. It's got a fake TV Listing, with a load of bonus content to access. There's the usual 'watch unlocked cutscenes' and 'listen to music' stuff, but also some odd things.

There's a classroom lecture by a character from previous titles, Mr Edogawa, who discusses the interpretation of Jungian psychology and it's relevance to the game?! Classes get unlocked as you progress.

It's got footage of Persona Music Live. The music in the game, which is fantastic by the way, will worm it's way into your brain _forever_. There's different sountracks for different areas, and battles, etc. Most of them actual songs with lyrics, not instrumental stuff. So the footage is from live Japanese shows of a (the?) band performing the songs in front of a huge crowd. I'd save watching these until you're a fair way in and know the music, you'll appreciate it a lot more. It's odd seeing a song that's so ingrained in your brain from a game be performed live.

There's a load of Japanese TV adverts for previous titles and P4:G, the Persona anime, loads of concept art with commentary too, a quiz, an introduction to Persona 4: Arena...and a weird interactive unlockable featuring a playable character that you can only access at midnight for an hour, which I won't spoil!

It's very rare to see so much additional (free) content like this in games these days, it's ace.

[The Bag]

As I think my babbling in the other Persona threads shows I'm a big Persona fan. I must admit, watching all the US reviewers fawn over it on twitter recently did make me feel "where were you three years ago!".

The main thing putting me off picking this up (apart from lack of a Vita, although I could pick one up for this) is the change in the opening music, stupid I know but I loved this:

http://youtu.be/N0c0vJHC4sQ

this doesn't grab me in the same way:

But seeing images like that makes me want to play it again, I love their strong clean visual design.

[NecroMorrius]

We're never getting Persona 5 are we?

[The Bag]

if they do I will be preordering one

[bradigor]

Tomorrow could be the greatest day!

Delivery of P4G then play that until the PS4 reveal.

[Mitchell]

I love the new intro song and always watch it when I fire the game up.

I forgot one important aspect of battling too. :Pants.

[Flub]

I love this game. I think I'm about 3/4s of the way through at the moment. I'll really have to pick it up again once I polish off the books I'm reading. Some of the social link stuff I've done so far is excellent. Not for everyone but it's easily the best JRPG I've ever played.

I've also watched the first episode of the anime which is very good too. I'm holding off on the rest until I finish the game. Don't want to get accidentally spoiled.

[Paulando]

Just picked the UK retail version up from Grainger! £30. Couldn't refuse for that price.

[Yewone]

Ive already got (and love) the PS2 version, and have Golden on its way.

Just wondered though, Ive seen mention to a new Intro, sharper visuals.. but what else makes Golden.. erm Golden? Any other big differences I should be aware of?

[Qazimod]

Ive already got (and love) the PS2 version, and have Golden on its way.

Just wondered though, Ive seen mention to a new Intro, sharper visuals.. but what else makes Golden.. erm Golden? Any other big differences I should be aware of?

The fundamental gameplay is the same here, but there is plenty of new content. It feels like a much more accomplished update than P3P was to P3, even though that had an entirely new playable character, and so I'd recommend it even if you've played the PS2 game to death. The scooters that you might have seen in screens and trailers actually open up a whole new location to explore on the town map that offers new distractions, Marie is introduced as a new social link and has her own arc which is completely new and very satisfying to play through, there are new calendar events to enjoy, shuffle time has been rejigged a bit, skill cards (expendable items that grant a new skill to your Persona of choice) make a return from P3P, and there's new online functionality courtesy of Vox Populi/Voice (touch a button in the corner of the screen to see how other players spent their time on that day) and the SOS button (I never used this in my playthroughs but I believe it allows gifts of HP and SP to be sent to players to aid them in battle.)

I could talk about each of these new bits at length but I don't want be too spoilery. In any case, it has enough new content to make it worth a look.

EDIT: here we go:

[Yewone]

Excellent stuff.. figured it was essentially just going ot be a PS2 Port so great to see plenty of new stuff on offer too. Cheers

[Aurelius]

Finished the US version yesterday evening. Such a great game.

[The Bag]

And I've just bought a Vita & this, damn my weakness.

[Paulando]

Been playing it since last night. IT'S GOT ME. Looks gorgeous too, and some of the dialogue has been great so far.

[Qazimod]

And I've just bought a Vita & this, damn my weakness.

To be fair I was sold on the Vita almost as soon as the first announcement came out, so you're not alone in buying the handheld on the strength of this. I regret nothing.

Anyway yes, it's on the Store right now. £34.99 to you.

[Mitchell]

If this is a reason for people to buy the VIta, then they are all in for a nice surprise when they realise there's a load of other great games for it too.

I'm around the 40 hour mark, it feels like I'm somewhere near the end. I keep putting off playing it now though.

What happens at the end, there is an NG+, right? Or can you keep messing about in an endless tower, or something?