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[Chittagong]

Lovely post. Echoes my feelings.

I had two false starts with Persona 4 Golden. The first one was when I randomly bought it on PS Vita on a trip to USA for Christmas 2012. I simply wanted something to play, and made my choice based on the the insane metacritic score the game had. I didn't really get very far into the game, maybe 3-4 hours. Everything was just really weird, hard to make sense of and a bit boring.

The second time I started the game again, determined to give it another shot. I played again the slow first few hours. This time I started to get a better feeling of all the weird concepts, and it didn't seem as foreign to me. But it was just slow, and I got something more immediately rewarding to do.

My third time was last summer on our summer lodge. We were going to be off the grid for a week, and I had determined that this is it, I will complete Persona 4 Golden, whatever happens. I continued from the save that had those first few hours, and then suddenly the game clicked. I had tons of fun things to do, the story started to progress, I became familiar with the characters. I put an insane amount of hours into it, completing the game in 7 days. That's about 9 hours of gameplay every single day. I'd wake up before my wife around 10AM, play 2 hours. Eat breakfast, then play 3 hours. Beers and sauna, another 2 hours. After dinner in bed, 3 more hours.

After that I pre-ordered all the comics, and bought all the TV episodes. I also placed an Persona 4 Dancing on preorder. I just couldn't get enough.

Luckily, I found out just before Christmas that I had got the bad ending, and went back to a 60h save, and replayed the last part of the game, discovering that there is another 10h of content for the proper ending. This must be the most dramatic example of how different the game is with a bad and great ending, I'm so glad I did it.

Now, I'm thinking of ordering a couple of P4 figures.

 

[RalchAC]

You're both wrong. Almighty isn't even the best golden track and Seymour's final boss battle theme is better than jecht's theme.

That aside the real winner for persona is a combination of P3 FES and P3P(some of the FEMC ambient tracks are awesome), with the best track between them being Battle For Everyone's Souls

Thanks for linking that song. I'll face myself - Reincarnation must be my favorite battle song of all time. It's absolutely incredible.

I really wanted to get into this game and enjoy it like so many other people do, however after about 30 hours, I gave up. Disclaimer - the only JRPG I'd ever played in the past was Pokemon.

I found the day to day activities to be mentally straining, as I wasn't sure what I was "supposed" to be doing in order to succeed. Also, the 10 layers of what was seemingly copy pasted dungeons also put me to sleep. I felt like I was forced to grind, or I just wasn't good enough, because I would fail boss battles multiple times. (Teddie took like at least 15 attempts) - and that was on Normal.

The persona fusing system also made little sense to me, as I was never sure what I was supposed to be fusing my persona's into other than the highest leveled ones I could control at the time.

I'm in the minority of people who weren't able to appreciate this game, but really wanted to. Is there any help for my soul? I'd be willing to give the game another go, but I feel like reading a guide would be ruining any type of experience that I am trying to achieve.

Mmmmm...

A few things about combat:

- Did you use buffs and debuffs?
- Did you exploit enemies weaknesses?
- Did you tried to protect your party members' weakenesses? There are items and spells to protect you from them. And Guarding also avoids it.
- Sometimes using the special party attack that triggers after you knock your enemies isn't the best choice. If you attack an enemy weakness twice, he will get stunned. He won't attack the next turn, but you won't be able to get "one-more" attacks until he recovers from that state.

Now about the Persona fusion...

- Always Fuse 3 Personas instead of 2. That way you can migrate more interesting skills from your old character to another.
- Save your old Peronas going to the compendium, so you can recover a useful one after you've fused it with other characters.
- Once you get the capacity of fusing 4 or 5 Personas, give a look at the selection. I got a Black Frost mid game (I was level 40 or so) which I used until the end of the game because of how awesome he was.
- Try to have a varied set of Personas with a wide range of skills.

If you are smart enough you can completely break the battle system through Persona fusing. There is some crazy stuff on the Internet.

 

[Funyarinpa]

I really wanted to get into this game and enjoy it like so many other people do, however after about 30 hours, I gave up. Disclaimer - the only JRPG I'd ever played in the past was Pokemon.

I found the day to day activities to be mentally straining, as I wasn't sure what I was "supposed" to be doing in order to succeed. Also, the 10 layers of what was seemingly copy pasted dungeons also put me to sleep. I felt like I was forced to grind, or I just wasn't good enough, because I would fail boss battles multiple times. (Teddie took like at least 15 attempts) - and that was on Normal.

The persona fusing system also made little sense to me, as I was never sure what I was supposed to be fusing my persona's into other than the highest leveled ones I could control at the time.

I'm in the minority of people who weren't able to appreciate this game, but really wanted to. Is there any help for my soul? I'd be willing to give the game another go, but I feel like reading a guide would be ruining any type of experience that I am trying to achieve.

I pulled this off mostly blind. Basically,

1) Don't fret over what to do every day, just go at your own pace of spending time with someone, that's the best gameplay mechanic in the whole game, and it's all about doing what you want. No need to be a perfectionist. Just do what feels right, get jobs to get money (though grinding is far more beneficial in tbat regard), talk to random people, try to fulfill quests, etc. Try new things, there's almost always something to do! The game's outcome isn't really dependent on the stuff you do daily.

2) Gotta give it to you about dungeons, they're repetitive. The only big flaw of the game (besides some story concerns addressed above). You shouldn't need to grind much though. By the way, do you sell the materials you accumulate at Deidara Metalworks (place you buy equipment)? That might be your solution if you are having trouble with keeping up equipment.

3) Especially early and middle boss battles are all about exploiting enemy weaknesses, so make sure you have a selection of Personas and party members that have all types of attacks (phy, wind, fire, etc.) and try to inflict Down on the bosses and then do All-Out Attacks, IIRC thst was my strategy for most earlier bosses. Light and Darkness will never work on bosses. Try to fuse Personas that can use Rakunda (lowers enemy defense).

4) just use the Search function in the Persona fusion menu so that you can easily see what are the highest levels you can get. As you progress and get more S. Links, be willing to go lower into the levep selection since a rank 4 s.link can give you three free levels for example. You can back up your Personas in the Compendium and then buy them back from there if you ever need it for another fusion or something so register your Personas then fire away! Personas you fuse can inherit skills from the fused Personas so don't hesitate to use them in fusion.

5) It's overall very useful to grind in the TV since you receive crazy amounts of money (30K+ yen whereas the most generous job pays 6K) as well as great XP. Just clear the dungeon from beginning to end once again if you are having trouble with bosses. After you get 5 or so party members you can probably start to neglect some of them and form a "core team" you will use for rescuing people, then you can grind with others after clearing it once.

 

[PK Gaming]

Glad you enjoyed it OP.

There aren't many games that can make me feel as happy as Persona 4 did. There's just so much love to go around.

 

[Thoraxes]

I invested 300+ hours and still hasn't completed a full slink run

I always forget the Young Mother link.

I loved 3 and 4, but it's really difficult to go back from 4 to 3

That's nuts dude.
Even with a first run on Very Hard, I platinumed the game in about 100 hours.

 

[viewtiful_dru]

I know that feel, but the thing is, you also happened to finish the game the same year that Persona 5 comes out and a lot of us finished the game 7 years ago and have been waiting around with nothing so I feel less bad about your sadness in finishing the game

If you liked Persona 4, you'll like Persona 3 by the way. They're basically the same type of game down to the engine and everything. The systems aren't as evolved as they are in 4 or especially P4G, but its a very similar type of game with the Social Links and such.

I agree, especially if you play P3 Portable.

Spoiler

yeah I'm one of those guys.

 

[petethepanda]

I really, really wish they had put the new epilogue after the credits or something. The game ending on the train moment is fucking perfect, so immediately cutting to "oh but look they're back and seeing each other again already" kind of undercut the bittersweet emotion of the actual ending for me.

I replayed both 3 and 4 in 2015 (versions I had yet to play though, Golden and Portable) and since then I've definitely had a huge Persona-shaped hole in my heart. Can't fucking wait for 5.

 

[PaulloDEC]

P4G was one of the most surprising video game experiences I've ever had. I'd never played a JRPG for more than about 15 minutes before it, and I had no idea what to expect.

I ended up laying down about 70 hours over the space of a couple of weeks, which is huge for me. It had me totally hooked.

 

[snaffles]

I know I must be in the minority because people always talk about this game in such glowing terms, but it just felt so bloated to me. I remember getting to Marie's dungeon and just wishing the game would end. The game could have been 30 hours shorter and lost nothing for it. The combat got so repetitive, and the changes made from the PS2 version all felt like pervy fan service. I still enjoyed the game, but less so than the original PS2 version.

 

[lasrmountedmoai]

I really wanted to get into this game and enjoy it like so many other people do, however after about 30 hours, I gave up. Disclaimer - the only JRPG I'd ever played in the past was Pokemon.

I found the day to day activities to be mentally straining, as I wasn't sure what I was "supposed" to be doing in order to succeed. Also, the 10 layers of what was seemingly copy pasted dungeons also put me to sleep. I felt like I was forced to grind, or I just wasn't good enough, because I would fail boss battles multiple times. (Teddie took like at least 15 attempts) - and that was on Normal.

The persona fusing system also made little sense to me, as I was never sure what I was supposed to be fusing my persona's into other than the highest leveled ones I could control at the time.

I'm in the minority of people who weren't able to appreciate this game, but really wanted to. Is there any help for my soul? I'd be willing to give the game another go, but I feel like reading a guide would be ruining any type of experience that I am trying to achieve.

My experience completely. It's been in my Vita for over a year but I can't bring myself to boot it back up. Frankly the daytime stuff seems like busywork to me and I just didn't enjoy it. I don't want a game to be work. I'm glad you all love it, just continually surprised by how different my experience of the game is from what seems to be a majority of gaffers and podcast folks.

 

[Steel]

Question:

How much story stuff am I missing out on if I don't play Arena/Arena 2/Dancing All Night?

EDIT: Not a fan of Fighting games and Rhythm games.

P4A1 was fan servicy(not in the sexy way), but it was good fan service and let you see what was happening with the P3 and P4 characters. The Labrys stuff was interesting and there's a lot of story to it, but I wouldn't call it great. I enjoyed it for what it was.

P4A2.... Was flaming trash whose only redeeming quality was showing how the P3 characters not shown in A1 were doing after P3.

Not really necessary to play either one.

 

[Liquid-San]

I know I must be in the minority because people always talk about this game in such glowing terms, but it just felt so bloated to me. I remember getting to Marie's dungeon and just wishing the game would end. The game could have been 30 hours shorter and lost nothing for it. The combat got so repetitive, and the changes made from the PS2 version all felt like pervy fan service. I still enjoyed the game, but less so than the original PS2 version.

The game certainly isn't for everyone and suffers some glaring writing issues at first such as too much exposition, and the gameplay can come across as rather tedious, but overall I felt everything added to P4G was an asset. How was your experience with the vanilla version of the game?

In response to the OP, I love this game. I can go on and on, (I've bought it about five times), but in short I'll just say that no other game has resonated so much with me as Persona 4 has. The characters were so amazing and they all felt like legitimate people. I haven't played every game out there so I can't say it with the utmost confidence, but Persona 4 Golden's character development is in a class on its own and the only game that came to mind that can match that would be The Last of Us. (In terms of a one shot type of game).

Question:

How much story stuff am I missing out on if I don't play Arena/Arena 2/Dancing All Night?

EDIT: Not a fan of Fighting games and Rhythm games.

Imo, if you want a better game, skip these two altogether and go play Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth.

 

[firehawk12]

I know I must be in the minority because people always talk about this game in such glowing terms, but it just felt so bloated to me. I remember getting to Marie's dungeon and just wishing the game would end. The game could have been 30 hours shorter and lost nothing for it. The combat got so repetitive, and the changes made from the PS2 version all felt like pervy fan service. I still enjoyed the game, but less so than the original PS2 version.

I think having the summer be playable makes the game a fuller experience, since the game just skips all those months. Of course, they took the time to throw in anime cliches during those months, but the original game was already on that way anyway. The fact that you can go out at night is an interesting addition too. But yeah, stuff like them forming a band is just a bit much. lol

 

[family_guy]

I think it tells a good story but is severely let down by it's gameplay. I'd buy a visual novel version of it but I'm not doing one more floor of its random dungeons.

 

[Linkark07]

Not true in the slightest, because I love Persona 4, and think it's one of my top 5 games ever...but I hate Persona 3. I think the writing is not half as good, I think the dungeon design is boring as fuck, and the characters don't even have any of the charm that P4's have.

It may be me, I don't know, but I felt more attached to SEES than the Investigation team. Liked the interaction between them way more and I also loved how they develop, especially people like Junpei or Yukari.

 

[Man God]

I find it painfully hard to play compared to 3 and I find 3 to be pretty bad compared to the two P2 games, which are fantastic.

 

[Liquid-San]

It may be me, I don't know, but I felt more attached to SEES than the Investigation team. Liked the interaction between them way more and I also loved how they develop, especially people like Junpei or Yukari.

Yukari did a 180 in The Answer though. All the progress she made disappeared in the blink of an eye. As for Junpei, solid character all around. He's growing on my nerves currently though, (playing FES to complete the compendium again).

 

[Steel]

Yukari did a 180 in The Answer though. All the progress she made disappeared in the blink of an eye. As for Junpei, solid character all around. He's growing on my nerves currently though, (playing FES to complete the compendium again).

There's a reason people don't like The Answer.

 

[kyongwon]

I don't know, I think the story can be great for younger adults, but being 31, I felt I could have embraced it better if I were younger in my 20s. Undertale though, that game really deserves praise.

 

[pezzie]

I don't know, I think the story can be great for younger adults, but being 31, I felt I could have embraced it better if I were younger in my 20s. Undertale though, that game really deserves praise.

I beat this game at the age of 33 and it was still one of the best games I've ever played.

Glad you enjoyed the game, OP. One of the best ever. I enjoyed P3P as well, but only like half as much as P4. I feel like I would have enjoyed it more if I played P3 FES instead (which I also purchased) but I couldn't get over not having control over all my party members. However, the visual novel mode really took a lot out of the key emotional moments to me. I wanted to see characters having a scene, not a description of what was going on.

 

[WrenchNinja]

There's a reason people don't like The Answer.

Yeah, it's all dungeons.

 

[E-flux]

I loved P4 but P3 doesn't hold a candle. The dungeons aren't as engaging, a lot of grinding, there's no story until 15-20 hours in and the cast feels more like people you work with and never your friends. It got boring waiting for a full moon for something to happen, there's never enough events in between.

Huh.. I felt completely opposite, i felt like the longer floors/dungeons in P4 felt like an grind to get through. In P3 Tartarus floors were so small that you could get through one in like 10 seconds if not less, which i found a lot more interesting since i felt like i had a lot more stuff to juggle. Since i had to beat 2 bosses every month, get to the top floor every month on top of keeping up the grades and social links.

P4 was a lot more relaxed in my opinion. It suited what the game was trying to do, but i liked personally P3 more, with it's more brooding atmosphere and themes.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

I played this game first on the Vita back in May, and I absolutely loved it. The problem is I rushed to get a copy of Persona 3 FES, and after playing that, P4G seemed like the inferior game to me. I began to realize that the Slink themes in 4G felt pretty inconsequential, for instance:

Spoiler

Rise: I want people to see there's more to me than Risette! Slink 10: LOL JK, I'm Risette (Even if you justify that by saying she's accepting her idol persona, that's such terrible writing to just do a total 360).

This is compared to P3FES Slinks, where they were all built on the idea of death, loss, and time. As strange as it sounds, playing through the Slinks, I felt like I was talking to people who felt the impact of events in the story as time went on (especially January). I never felt this with Persona 4 Golden. In fact, story-wise, I wasn't satisfied:

Spoiler

Adachi being the killer was something you could smell a mile away and yet it took a decent amount of time to solve.

As far as gameplay elements are concerned, I actually liked the AI controls though it's YMMV. When I gave my party tactics, they followed it to a T. This made combat very satisfying since your MC is made to feel like a jack-of-all-trades. Obviously, party control is preferred, but I didn't have as hard of a time as other people had. I haven't played P3P yet, and I will since I've downloaded it, so it'll be interesting to see how imbalanced the game is around free control. Additionally, Tartarus was satisfying to explore. I'd loot the block, grind for a bit, and then take on the block boss. At least you had something different. My issue with P4's dungeon crawling is how hallway simulator it is. Every single dungeon is almost the same minus a different coat of textures and colours, and felt very boring to traverse through.

This isn't to say Persona 4 is a bad game, but P3FES had left so much more of an impact on me.

 

[Funyarinpa]

I played this game first on the Vita back in May, and I absolutely loved it. The problem is I rushed to get a copy of Persona 3 FES, and after playing that, P4G seemed like the inferior game to me. I began to realize that the Slink themes in 4G felt pretty inconsequential, for instance:

Spoiler

Rise: I want people to see there's more to me than Risette! Slink 10: LOL JK, I'm Risette (Even if you justify that by saying she's accepting her idol persona, that's such terrible writing to just do a total 360).

This is compared to P3FES Slinks, where they were all built on the idea of death, loss, and time. As strange as it sounds, playing through the Slinks, I felt like I was talking to people who felt the impact of events in the story as time went on (especially January). I never felt this with Persona 4 Golden. In fact, story-wise, I wasn't satisfied:

Spoiler

Adachi being the killer was something you could smell a mile away and yet it took a decent amount of time to solve.

As far as gameplay elements are concerned, I actually liked the AI controls though it's YMMV. When I gave my party tactics, they followed it to a T. This made combat very satisfying since your MC is made to feel like a jack-of-all-trades. Obviously, party control is preferred, but I didn't have as hard of a time as other people had. I haven't played P3P yet, and I will since I've downloaded it, so it'll be interesting to see how imbalanced the game is around free control. Additionally, Tartarus was satisfying to explore. I'd loot the block, grind for a bit, and then take on the block boss. At least you had something different. My issue with P4's dungeon crawling is how hallway simulator it is. Every single dungeon is almost the same minus a different coat of textures and colours, and felt very boring to traverse through.

This isn't to say Persona 4 is a bad game, but P3FES had left so much more of an impact on me.

In P4G, Saki's brother's S.Link is probably right up your alley.

 

[Greddleok]

The two parts of the game that got me harder than the good ending are probably quite unpopular.

Firstly, I thought the bad ending was the best ending. When you just accuse Namatame of being the killer and throw him into the TV for revenge. The absolute misery and emptiness of the cutscene that follows is brilliant. No one seems happy. The world is bleak as you all realise how completely hollow your revenge was against this unstable man.

That really hit me. It just highlights the futility of lashing out in revenge. The complete downer just completely changes the tone of such an upbeat, joyful game. Man, that ending is fantastic.

Secondly, Valentines day. I legitimately felt bad when I turned down 3 girls who I'd slept with (the fade to black in your room has to be banging right?) to go for my favourite. I felt like a complete asshole for disregarding how my actions would impact on the feelings of these girls who I cared about...just not as much as Yukiko...or was it Chie? It was probably both at one point...

That was an emotional moment for me as it demonstrated those conversations you avoid if you do that sort of thing in real life. No one goes to tell someone they've been stringing along that they're not going to spend Valentines with them because they're busy. The emotional impact is the same though. What a perfect moment. What a fantastic game.

 

[Funyarinpa]

The two parts of the game that got me harder than the good ending are probably quite unpopular.

Firstly, I thought the bad ending was the best ending. When you just accuse Namatame of being the killer and throw him into the TV for revenge. The absolute misery and emptiness of the cutscene that follows is brilliant. No one seems happy. The world is bleak as you all realise how completely hollow your revenge was against this unstable man.

That really hit me. It just highlights the futility of lashing out in revenge. The complete downer just completely changes the tone of such an upbeat, joyful game. Man, that ending is fantastic.

Secondly, Valentines day. I legitimately felt bad when I turned down 3 girls who I'd slept with (the fade to black in your room has to be banging right?) to go for my favourite. I felt like a complete asshole for disregarding how my actions would impact on the feelings of these girls who I cared about...just not as much as Yukiko...or was it Chie? It was probably both at one point...

That was an emotional moment for me as it demonstrated those conversations you avoid if you do that sort of thing in real life. No one goes to tell someone they've been stringing along that they're not going to spend Valentines with them because they're busy. The emotional impact is the same though. What a perfect moment. What a fantastic game.

Holy shit that bad ending does sound bleak as fuck. I can see where you might be coming from.

 

[Greddleok]

Holy shit that bad ending does sound bleak as fuck. I can see where you might be coming from.

If you have a save point near, I'd recommend playing it just to see it out. I'm sure it's on youtube if not. It's really an absolute gem in that game that no one ever talks about.

 

[And_Gignac]

I wish I was 16 when I played it ;__;

 

[Funyarinpa]

If you have a save point near, I'd recommend playing it just to see it out. I'm sure it's on youtube if not. It's really an absolute gem in that game that no one ever talks about.

Honestly the true ending is so perfect I don't need to see another second of P4G of gameplay ever again. If I ever feel like giving the NG+ a go, I'll make sure to get that ending though!

 

[Nightbird]

I like how you know that you got the bad ending even without the game outright telling you that.

 

[Linkark07]

Yukari did a 180 in The Answer though. All the progress she made disappeared in the blink of an eye. As for Junpei, solid character all around. He's growing on my nerves currently though, (playing FES to complete the compendium again).

Answer? What is the Answer?

Spoiler

jk

Yeah, I understand what you mean. Cant blame why she acts like that though (Mitsuru is another story). But personally, I prefer to pretend it doesnt happen.

 

[neoemonk]

Persona 3 was the game that got me back into JRPGs after a long hiatus from the genre. Almost nine years later, I still haven't decided if that was a good thing or not.

Persona 4 felt like a more polished version of 3, and then Golden took it a step further. It's one of two games I bothered to get a platinum trophy in (the other being Demon's Souls). Between the PS2 and the Vita I must have played the game three or four times all the way through, and it's a long game. I just wish P5 would come out now.

 

[Hektor]

Hands down one of the best games ever made.

 

[thenexus6]

I've had this game for so long and still hardly played it. I am maybe 18 hours in early July. I have been playing it a little recently and hope to finish it this year at least once before Persona 5.

I've read some of the manga, seen the anime and have the music so I know the story and stuff.