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[transience]

Persona 3/4 has a tight feedback loop thanks to endless progression. You level
up dozens of numbers and have a ton of shit to do every day. That's why I like it, anyway. The social stuff feeds the dungeon crawling in a really smart way, and the dungeon crawling matches the story in much the same way. The endless ticking clock and the time pressure helps a lot too.

People talk up the story and I guess that's a draw too, but without the gameplay loop, I'm not sure it has the same impact.

 

[Sheroking]

I hate JRPGs but I love Person 4 for this reason. Also Teddie.

And here I thought "waifus" was an insult.

 

[Deefuzz]

My main problem is wanting to sink that much time into the game with my insane backlog. What I played of the game was decent, and I agree the music was great and the designs were interesting, but since I only interface with this world on my Vita and I barely have the chance to play my Vita it gets neglected and then when I go back to it again I forgot what the hell I was doing.

If I had less to play and didn't have kids and two jobs to distract me it may be a different story, seems to be a decent game that gets a whole lot of love and attention from a varied range of people.

 

[Rising_Hei]

P3 -> Better characters, story, epicness
P4 -> Better gameplay, dungeons

 

[LaunchpadMcQ]

Waifus

.

 

[Otakumegane]

Legal in Japan is legal in your heart

 

[sploatee]

If it makes you feel better, I play Sine Mora on lunch break a lot lately.

I do feel better. Thank you.

 

[PoweredBySoy]

I hate it. I have no interest in a high school sim with shitty dungeons that all look the same.

+

It took me 10 hours of Golden to realize this myself.

 

[EVOL 100%]

It's corny as hell and has a dumb plot but it's fun incarnate and it knows it, unlike P3 which tried to be serious and deep but failed pretty miserably. It helps that the characters are relatively down-to-earth don't have too many godawful JRPG personality tropes.

Gameplay is simple enough to appeal to newcomers but with enough depth for veterans. The general aesthetics of the game are unique but not too much to put off newcomers. It's just a damn well made game and it should be the textbook example of how to appeal to casuals without compromising too much.

That all said I can't see myself playing P5 unless they shake up the formula completely. I simply don't have the time that you need to invest for the P3/P4 formula anymore, and the whole waifu thing is pretty embarrassing for me now.

 

[braves01]

It didn't charm me. It irritated the hell out of me. The whole thing is just so chirpy and squeaky. The dungeons and combat are mindnumbing. I feel like I am the only person in this world who feels this way. I want people to play Sine Mora instead!

You're not alone.

 

[buddha0991]

P2EP > P2IS > P4 > P3 Answer > P1 > P3 Journey

All are awesome to very good games.

 

[Marleyman]

I hate it. I have no interest in a high school sim with shitty dungeons that all look the same.

.

 

[Steel]

P3 -> Better characters, story, epicness
P4 -> Better gameplay, dungeons

While I completely agree personally(P3P fixes the gameplay though), that is entirely subjective and lets not start that argument here shall we?

 

[dripdripsplash]

Is it some weird japanese sim dating bullshit, this Persona thing ?

 

[Simzyy]

I think the thing with Persona is that the life sim mechanics are very addictive and a lot of people like games with routines. I kinda think of Persona 4 as The Sims + Pokemon but with a good cast/story.

At times the game can get a little convoluted, but nothing compared to most JRPGs. It's story is easily accessible and the cast is relatable.

Contrast this to say a lot of recent Final Fantasies. I personally haven't cared for or been able to relate to any of the recent characters. Though I'm sure many will disagree. Granted I don't play many JRPGs anymore and the last JRPG I loved outisde of Persona was Fire Emblem: Awakening.

Also I think the voice acting in Persona 4 is incredible and I feel like this has been a huge part of the appeal. I don't get how they did it so well with what must have been a pretty low budget.

 

[thewhitehawk]

This game is uniquely styled, and the fantasy of the game lives side-by-side with the more realistic side. It's an RPG that transcends simply leveling and finding elemental weaknesses into one that explores and tries to decipher a little small trivialities of life and show you the importance of a balanced lifestyle and how good things come to fruition if you dedicate yourself to them.

With that aside, all of the characters are fun and memorable, the game tackles a lot of social issues head-on, with some being the causality of the action and it does this in a sincere non-pedantic matter that is as much entertaining as it is engrossing.

That's why, I believe, a lot of people find it easy to enjoy this game.

 

[CrackPebbles]

.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

P3 -> Better characters, story, epicness
P4 -> Better gameplay, dungeons

Agreed.

But really, it all comes down to waifus which are a big part of both.

 

[dionysus]

It has several systems that are not really related and it presents them in bite size chucks before they start getting annoying. Thus people can like the systems that appeal to them and the systems that don't appeal to them don't become overbearing on their time.

I mean it is a combo of pokemon, dungeon crawling, story heavy rpg, dating sim, and it is all well polished. It appeals to the collectors, the story guys, the min/maxers, the waifu lovers, etc.

It goes for the something for everyone design philosophy and it actually gets it right.

 

[Aiustis]

It has a certain charm to it. I've recommended it to people despite the fact that I don't like it. The sim aspect of the game killed it for me I think, which is strange because I like sims. All in all I found it really boring. It shouldn't take me more than 30 minutes to get into a game.

 

[buddha0991]

Is it some weird japanese sim dating bullshit, this Persona thing ?

its a social sim, not a dating sim, you only can date a bout 20% of the characters you have social links with, and even then its only like the final two or so links, people overblow this part a ton. Also, the first 2 (3 actually, 2 is two games) games don't have any social links.

 

[kazebyaka]

It's impossible not to like great story, music, characters and more or less deep and enjoyable gameplay.

 

[Hellsing321]

Waifus are a hell of a drug.

 

[Seth Balmore]

The characters are endearing (some of them in a love-to-hate way), the visual design is slick and colorful, the soundtrack is really catchy and has Engrishy charm and the gameplay is standard JRPG business, nothing mindblowingly innovative but easy to grasp and challenging enough not to get boring. Then there's the fact that the story is a murder mystery which makes it easy for people to get hooked. If you're even a little bit of a japanophile, that's a big plus because WAIFUS.

All in all it's easy to love.

 

[Ninjimbo]

Waifus

Obviously there's a lot more you can say about the game's appeal, but this is the primary reason behind the bulk of it.

 

[calder]

The music and amazing visuals of the opening really grabbed me. Just popped off the OLED screen of my Vita, combine that with the great sense of place and I was hooked early.

Growing up in a small town made a lot of the game's setting familiar, and the specifically Japanese parts made it new and interesting at the same time. Really likes the characters too, and it helps that the plot - a serial killer roaming a small Japanese town - was told pretty effectively.


Fantastic game, even though I haven't finished it yet. To my shame, after about 40 hours I kinda screwed up paying too much attention to the social stuff and got stuck way under leveled for the final boss of a storyline dungeon and I haven't mustered the enthusiasm for going back a week and grinding.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

It did almost everything right.

 

[Atlas157]

The characters are endearing (some of them in a love-to-hate way), the visual design is slick and colorful, the soundtrack is really catchy and has Engrishy charm and the gameplay is standard JRPG business, nothing mindblowingly innovative but easy to grasp and challenging enough not to get boring. Then there's the fact that the story is a murder mystery which makes it easy for people to get hooked. If you're even a little bit of a japanophile, that's a big plus because WAIFUS.

All in all it's easy to love.

All of this is correct.

For the people that want it hard, play Persona 3 on Maniac.

 

[Iksenpets]

I think the way the dating sim aspects of the game break it into little single day chunks makes it very manageable for people who otherwise wouldn't have much patience for the genre. Plus the art, music, and character writing are all great, which never hurts.

 

[Dark_castle]

People like good game.

 

[daveo42]

People secretly want to play life/dating sims and this makes it okay!

I realized this after playing P4G. Plus, you can't forget about waifus.

 

[noonespecial]

Everything in this game is done about as well as possible production-wise, along with the unique story, the setting (a small town in modern day Japan), the characters - everything comes together so well.

Its almost like playing out the video game equivalent of a great television series to me.

Other things going in its favor that may help some people to like it that don't normally like "jrpgs" is that the game takes place in the modern day, the story isn't global spanning, the villains aren't trying to take over the world, the characters aren't overly stereotypical and have some depth and are more "real" than typical characters in a jrpg, etc. The plot and script is also incredibly good and somewhat complicated for a jrpg with several things going on at the same time (main character moves to a small town, his interactions with his uncle and niece, attending a new school, etc.). And then underlying all of this is a murder mystery with the main characters and friends acting in almost a Scooby Doo fashion to try and solve the murders.

Combined with a very good combat system, an actually fun social link/dating sim, and other aspects just makes the whole package unbelievably great and just about everything comes together perfectly. If I read about this game "on paper" I would have grave doubts about how it would all work, but in execution, it is almost flawless.

 

[Zalman]

I haven't played Persona 4 but all this waifu talk is making me interested.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

I really want to like these games (I've played P3 and P4) but the combat systems really bore me after a while. I actually do like most of the management of relationships and school time and battle fatigue but the actual paper rock scissors mechanics of combat grate on me (Same with SMT4) as does the never or barely changing dungeon design. The story was interesting for a while as well but I lost interest there too. I even tried watching the anime but got bored and haven't finished them not much further than I was in to the game. Oh well. Not for me.

 

[clem84]

Played it for 3 hours and was bored. Sold it. It's basically a story. Nothing else is happening. I was told that at some point it gets better and you start to do dungeon crawling and such but it's always 50/50 gameplay to story ratio. That's too much for me. I can handle a bit of storytelling in my games but not that much.

 

[EvilKatarn]

P2EP > P2IS > P4 > P3 Answer > P1 > P3 Journey

All are awesome to very good games.

This is the first time I've heard anyone say The Answer is better than The Journey, I think.

 

[Hubb]

I haven't played Persona 4 but all this waifu talk is making me interested.

 

[Coxy]

It didn't charm me. It irritated the hell out of me. The whole thing is just so chirpy and squeaky. The dungeons and combat are mindnumbing. I feel like I am the only person in this world who feels this way. I want people to play Sine Mora instead!

cheer up emo kid

 

[Village]

P3 -> Better characters, story, epicness
P4 -> Better gameplay, dungeons

what.

i don't even remember some of the characters in that game.

P4 characters left a mark

 

[Zalman]

Haha, you got me.

 

[Raytow]

Because Xenoblade is mediocre from the very beginning

Yeah it is, overhyped pos.

 

[sploatee]

You're not alone.

No, although certainly in the minority!

I put 40 hours in but it just got less engaging as it went on. I didn't warm to the characters and the voice acting hurt my ears. I don't like waifus, I'm not into anime teen soaps and I don't see how the combat is deep. It's just rock paper scissors ad infinitum.

 

[lastflowers]

Charismatic and well written characters, a nice setting that isn't used often in games, wonderful music, a great story that holds your attention, fantastic writing with great humor that anyone can enjoy, an easy to understand but somewhat deep battle system.

When a game, regardless of genre, is as good as Persona 4, it trascends the boundaries of its genre and ends up captivating a lot of people that might not usually enjoy that type of game.

Yep. I doubly like the music. This is one of the very, very few games in which I have the soundtrack. Every two or three months, I'll give it a spin.

 

[Recall]

For I it is all due to the Giantbomb Endurance Run of Persona 4.

 

[Crash Station]

Is it some weird japanese sim dating bullshit, this Persona thing ?

Social sim + RPG. Dating is an incredibly small portion of the game and 100% optional. The main purpose is solving a murder mystery while fighting monsters, with some socializing on the side to help level up your own monsters.

 

[Curufinwe]

I played for about 5 hours...was bored out of my mind...sent it back to Gamefly.

I'm sorry, I'm 32 years old with a wife and kid. I don't have 8-10 hours to play a game "before it gets good"

It takes two hours to get good. Enjoy grinding meaningless quests in Xenoblade, though.

 

[-Horizon-]

Waifus

First post and all that jazz.

 

[Mononoke]

I sunk 65 hours into this within the first 4 days. Game is amazing.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

what.

Junpei and Yukari are far better characters than anyone in P4. While both games had plenty of stereotypical anime tropes for characters, P4 was far worse with that.

And I actually prefer the story in 3 to 4 - I know a lot of people prefer 4 for the more personal approach but a lot of us prefer the larger overarching plot in 3 as well as the overall death theme.

 

[Red Blaster]

scooby doo: the rpg

also has a sense of urgency to the progression that most jrpgs dont have