Persona 4 - Review

Since I'm being censored in VGC, might as well post it here


One of the last PS2 games also happens to be one of the best ever

A complete JRPG, with a complex story, very well developed characters, a fantastic gameplay , a long quest and great production values; Persona 4 has everything you could demand from a masterpiece


The Ps2 may be in its last days, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t receive more quality games. Atlus chose to launch another title of its main franchise, Shin Megami Tensei (of which Persona 4 is a spin-off) for the old black one. And in the end it was a great decision, because P4 is the best way to close a catalog full of masterpieces like the PS2 one.

Persona 4 happens a year after the third part, but it’s not necessary to have played any of the previous games in the series to understand the game. The number of references to Persona 3 can be counted with the fingers of one hand, and they’re little more than fan-service that’s not important for the story. That’s why someone who never played P3, besides missing an excellent game, won’t have any trouble with this game

The story is quite peculiar, since it’s not about “saving the world” as it’s so common in RPGs, this is a mystery story. Your character (whom you can name) comes to the rural town of Inaba so his uncle (the detective of the town) can look after him, and soon after arriving a corpse appears hanging from a lamppost. Even more, your character and his friends hear the rumor about the “Midnight Channel”, a TV channel that appears only during the midnight of a rainy day. Soon after, they realize that the people that are shown in that channel turns up dead in the town after some days, and even more, they discover they can enter the TV world so they can save him before he dies. The story, even with the weird premises, is excellent; it’s full of twists and memorable moments. The characters specially are very well created, as they are totally believable and they react exactly as one would expect of them. The story is quite long, most players will have to spend 60 hours at least, plus it has a couple of different endings.

In the gameplay department, P4 is a hybrid between a typical Japanese RPG and a simulation game in the vein of The Sims. While this combination may sound weird, it works very well in the game. The RPG part won’t be very surprising for the well-versed in the genre; it consists in completing a randomly-generated dungeon of about 10 floors for every character that you have to save, with a boss in the end of it. We can see the enemies on screen, and if we make contact we’ll begin the battle, which is turn-based. In it, we can use up to four characters, taking into account that the main character can’t be removed from the party. He’s very important because he’s different to the other party members, while they have a set Persona (which is what decides the abilities they learn), the main character can switch between Personas at will. And this is what makes the battle system interesting and complex, as there are more than 150 different Personas. We can level them up and improve their abilities à la Pokemon (we can carry up to 12 at the same time), but also we can fuse them to obtain a more powerful Persona with some of the abilities its predecessors had.

On the simulation part, during the game we can establish relations (Social Links) with over 15 characters, each one represented by a tarot card. It’s quite beneficial to improve them, as when we fuse a Persona of a certain class (which corresponds to a tarot card), it’ll gain some extra levels according to the Social Link rank we have with that corresponding character. Another benefit we can obtain is to improve S-Links with the allies we use on combat, they will learn new abilities (and if we level it to the maximum, we’ll cause their Persona to evolve into a stronger one). Plus, we have to take into account 5 traits of our main character (like Charisma and Courage), which we can train and will open new possibilities to interact and new S-Links. But all of this has to be balanced, as every action we do, be it explore the TV world, hang out with a friend or study, will make time pass, so we won’t be able to do everything we want, we have to decide how it’s best to spend the time we have. This is complicated even more for the fact that, whenever we’ve got to save someone, we’ll only have time to do so till a certain day, if we don’t finish the corresponding dungeon before that day, it’s game over. The blend of such dissimilar genres into a cohesive and engaging gameplay is one of Persona 4’s biggest achievements, as you don’t feel that the game is split in two, but that the two parts go together perfectly, and it’s quite evident that they can’t exist without the other.

How much you’ll like the music is directly proportional to how much you like J-Pop. But there’s no doubt that the music is really catchy, specially the battle theme, which even after hearing it for the thousandth time is still as fresh and vitalizing as the first. The English voices are mostly well done, the only one that’s not on par to the game is Chie’s, one of our allies, that sounds much older than what the character really is, and it’s out of place.

There aren’t many problems. The most important one is the camera when you explore a dungeon, it’s not the most convenient, and it’s likely to cause some minor annoyances during the game. Another of the things you can complain about is that sometimes a lot of in-game days pass where nothing important happens (especially when we saved a character way before the deadline); it may bore the player as the story doesn’t really move forward. And, for anyone who has played Persona 3, the similarities are quite notable, from the re-use of a lot of Personas and abilities to keeping the same mechanic with the Social Links. In spite of that, the game is different enough so people who played the predecessor will find in P4 a game as memorable (or more) than P3.

Persona 4 will probably be the last important game to be released for the Playstation 2. But it’s also the best way to send it off with a bang. A very long, immersive and formidable story, full of memorable moments, and an addictive battle system make this game one which everyone with a PS2 should play. It may not have the Final Fantasy name, but games like this are what make Atlus one of the biggest and best RPG developers in the market

Scores:
Presentation: 9.5
Gameplay: 10
Value: 9.5

Final score: 9.7

I thought you where going to score it a 10

Kenzomatic wrote:I thought you where going to score it a 10

I was, but ultimately, since it was to be posted in VGC (I thought it would remain), I figured people would appreciate it more if, given that I mentioned some problems, I didn't score a 10. Anyway, it's the same, for me the game's a 10, personally, but maybe technically it's not. In the end, what the review means is "PLAY THIS GAME!"

Whoa whoa, what did VGC censor?

Xen wrote:Whoa whoa, what did VGC censor?

Nah, it's not exactly censor, but they added the rule that staff can't post user reviews because it "conflicts with the opinions of the other staff with the official reviews". Not something I agree with, but since I'm staff I have to bite my tongue and follow the rules. So my review is now on limbo, you can see it from some pages (my profile, namely) but not on others (the game page, for example)

Staff is screwed out of everything, haha..

Xen wrote:Staff is screwed out of everything, haha..

Meh, I'm screwed out of half the things as an Argentinian without any next-gen console, it's not much different

I have a question outside coon is there anyone one who has any real world experience writing or even a degree in english writing these "professional" reviews for VGC?

zexen wrote:

Xen wrote:Staff is screwed out of everything, haha..

Meh, I'm screwed out of half the things as an Argentinian without any next-gen console, it's not much different

Tell us something we don't know

Kenzomatic wrote:I have a question outside coon is there anyone one who has any real world experience writing or even a degree in english writing these "professional" reviews for VGC?

I am not sure, I know I have the experience and the degree in spanish.