THE PLOT:
A high school student comes to the small town of Inaba to live with his police detective uncle and his 7-year-old cousin while his parents spend a year working abroad. Inaba is a quiet place, and everything points to a simple, if slightly dull, year.
Then a murder happens: A TV announcer who was taking refuge from a scandal in the local inn is discovered, her body hanging from an antenna. Shortly after, the high school girl who found the body turns up dead in the same way. The young man discovers that he somehow has the ability to pass through a television screen, using it as a portal to another world - one permeated by fog and populated by monsters.
It quickly becomes apparent that the killer has the same ability, and is throwing his victims to this other world, leaving them to be dispatched by it. With help from a steadily-expanding band of friends, the young hero resolves to rescue the victims and unmask the person responsible!
Around those week-long exams, of course. And a ski trip. And soccer practice. And...
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| Kanji is understandably confused by recent events. |
CHARACTERS:
For the most part, I don't find this game's characters as distinctive as the protagonists from Persona 3 - though as with the rest of the games in this series, they are still a highly likable bunch. The cast standout, in my opinion, is teen detective Naoto, who initially works with the police on the case (somehow) before joining the heroes and who hides a secret that is honestly pretty darn easy to guess. The worst of the group is Teddie, a resident of the other world who eventually crosses over to Inaba. He's meant to be childlike, but his behavior toward literally every female character he comes across ranges between boorishness and outright harassment, which is made worse by these bits apparently being intended as humorous. Most of the characters (even Teddie) get at least a few moments to emerge as more fully-rounded than they initially seem, and by the end of the game you will feel like you know these people quite well.
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| Summoning your first Persona. |
GAMEPLAY:
The gameplay in Persona 4 is essentially the same as that of Persona 3, only with refinements that make it much more enjoyable. Though I was gripped by Persona 3's story, I came to intermittently dread the dungeon-crawling treks through Tartarus. Persona 4 improves this situation in every possible respect.
First are the dungeons. Instead of a single, interminable dungeon, this game offers up multiple smaller ones. Each of these has a theme that ties into the character being rescued or pursued. Yukiko dreams of someone coming to rescue her from a life that's been completely planned out for her; her dungeon, the game's first, is a fairy tale castle, with her Shadow talking about how she's waiting for her "prince." In this way, the settings further the characterizations, making this part of the game instantly more absorbing. My favorite dungeon ("Void Quest") is modeled after old 8-bit video games, and sees the characters traversing pixelated hallways on their way to the series' most inventively-presented boss fight thus far.
The combat has been adjusted. You are no longer left to pray that your teammates won't do something horribly stupid that loses a winnable fight. The default option is the same structure as Persona 3, with teammates left to act freely, but you can bring up a Tactics menu and change that to allow yourself full control over party members. This lowers the luck basis of the battles substantially. The "Golden" version released to the Vita (and now on PC) also adds an option to reduce the penalty for dying. Instead of being reset to your last save, you can now retry from the start of the floor. Instead of losing an hour or more of progress because of an ill-timed critical hit, you'll now lose, at most, 15 minutes.
In short: While retaining the same basic dungeon crawling/combat systems, this game has adjusted them to make them a lot more enjoyable to play - meaning that the gameplay portion is now just as much fun as the rest.
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| The 8-bit Void Quest: The series' most inventive dungeon and boss fight thus far. |
THOUGHTS:
Persona 3 was the series' breakthrough, moving these titles from niche to mainstream and setting the template that the Persona series follow to this day. For that reason, P3 is probably the series' most important entry... but it's Persona 4 that usually gets singled out as the series' best.
I still prefer Persona 2: Eternal Punishment for its complex, compelling story. Still, I would agree that this is a better overall game than Persona 3 was. Though I didn't find the characters quite as strong, the cast was still an overall well-drawn bunch, and I came to feel close to most of them as the story progressed. The tone is much lighter in this game. The color palate is brighter, even in the dungeons, and the characters tend to be a happier and less haunted lot than in previous installments. It's also quite funny - The scripted dialogue had me regularly chuckling and occasionally laughing out loud.
The story is structured as a murder mystery, which makes it just grounded enough to relate to the character stakes. The outlandish material is largely restricted to the TV World; so even though things get pretty bizarre, suspension of disbelief isn't overstretched by the characters just leading their normal lives much of the time.
Oh, and bonus points for me not guessing the culprit, even though enough clues were provided that I probably should have.
Complaints I might levy are minor. Probably the most significant barrier to enjoying this is the slow pace of the early game. There is only one way to describe the first few hours: Boring. Far too much time is spent introducing the characters and situation in an almost entirely non-interactive way. This should have been broken up with moments that gave you control and some mild goals to fulfill, if only to increase engagement. Instead, you'll have to make it through a good 3 - 4 hours before you're in the Yukiko Castle dungeon. At that point, the game becomes fun, and it stays that way. But I suspect a lot of players will run out of patience and switch off before that point.
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| Seeking a villain at the end of the world... |
PERSONA 4 GOLDEN
I can only imagine the frustration that must have been felt by the developers of the Playstation Vita. They created a genuinely brilliant piece of hardware... only to watch it crash and burn on the market, destroyed by poor advertising and a parent company that wasn't interested in supporting it. The Vita itself has long since emerged as my very favorite handheld, but certainly not for its great library of games; it's telling that almost everything I've purchased for it was originally released for either the PS1 or the PSP. I just love how comfortable it is in my hand, how good games look on it, and how well they play.
Persona 4 Golden emerged as one of the few Vita titles to actually succeed in selling the system to the public. When a PC port was released last year, people declared that it marked the moment at which the Vita was dead. Rest in peace, severely mis-marketed and underappreciated handheld.
Golden is to Persona 4 what FES was to Persona 3. It offers gameplay tweaks, new Social Links, and extra recorded dialogue (with a couple of roles in the English language version recast for the expansion).
The biggest change is to the ending. Assuming you don't get one of the game's many bad endings, you end up with an additional dungeon with an additional character to rescue. This part feels almost like a DLC follow-up to the main game, offering something that's more of a brief sequel than an integral part of the main game. Still, it's a welcome addition, if only because it allows that much more time with characters and a world that have been great fun to visit.
Overall Rating: 9/10.
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